08/17/1985
By Mary Benanti
Open country. That’s what D.C. Higgins said he was looking for 12 years ago. Someplace not fenced in nor likely to be. Someplace where he could ride Ragtime Billy for miles at a time.
Now he stood in the middle of his own riding arena.
“OK. Next rider.”
D.C.’s words filtered out through the summer air. The sun beat down on riders and horses awaiting the trainer’s directions. The essence of horsemanship is patience – time and patience. Riders Laura Cox, Tiffany Thomas and Jo Jo Ballinger said D.C. had taught them that.
Arms crossed, the trainer stood in the soft chunks of dirt filling the riding arena. His keen eyes noted the slightest quiver of a haunch or slip of the reins.
“Trot your horses a little faster so they have more impulsion,” D.C. said quietly. He uncrossed his arms, rested his hands on his hips.
“OK. Next rider … In the center of the jump …. Look out to the heavens above your horse’s head, not at the jump.”
Her eyes glued to the horizon not the jump, Jo Jo Ballinger jumped her horse clear of the obstacle. D.C. saw how well the student took his directions.
He will tell them once. He never yells, his three students said. But he doesn’t want to have to tell them again. It’s important that a rider learn to remember instructions. It could mean the difference between winning and losing a horsemanship competition.
And horsemanship competitions are D.C.’s specialty. He rides in them. He wins them. He judges them as well. And he teaches others to do the same.
There’s something special, he said, in taking a rider and “marrying it” to a good horse – something in the rhythm of life caught in the ride.
That morning’s workout finished, D.C. told the youngsters to take a nap.
“The first day they’re here they tell me they don’t take naps,” D.C. said with a smile. “The second day they ask for ‘em.”
D.C. Higgins owns and operates training stables in Chaparral, N.M., where he and his wife, Marilyn, have lived for 11 years. Theirs is a seven-day week, with days that begin at 5 a.m. By 6 a.m., D.C. is in the arena, working with quarter horses and those learning to ride them. D.C. gives private lessons, one-day clinics. His students have come from as far away Tennessee and Houston and as close as El Paso and Chaparral.
In September 1984, Ragtime Billy, his pride and joy, won the title of Reserve Champion Trail Horse in the National Stakes in Dallas. The payback was $2,264. This year, they will compete in the world competition Nov. 16 through 23 in Oklahoma City.
D.C’s grandson, Noel Thomas Taylor, 16, will ride in the junior trail division at the same show.
“I remember sitting on a horse in front of my daddy,” D.C. reminisced, with a smile that reached far into his blue eyes, but he wouldn’t say how long ago that was. D.C. keeps his age a secret.
“I don’t associate with other folks my age ‘cause all they do is complain about their lumbago and the operations they have.”
D.C. spends his time perfecting spins on Ragtime Billy or taking the “bread and butter” horses through the trail obstacles they will perform in competition. Sometimes, to break the monotony, D.C. takes “Rags” over the course using only his legs to control the animal’s every move. The horse is attuned to his master’s philosophy – time and patience.
D.C. Higgins is passing the art on to his family.
When Taylor was 4 months old, his granddaddy put him on a horse in front of him and he, too, has been riding ever since.
Calling herself the all-round gofer and flunkie, Marilyn keeps the meals coming, the house shining and the horses groomed.
“When they’re competing, I ride every step with them from the stand,” she said.
Since they began their business in 1969, they’ve had one vacation. Marilyn insisted D.C. take her with him when he went to judge the Scaffle Bit Futurity in Hawaii two years ago.
“It was like a honeymoon. We didn’t have to cook. And we didn’t have to clean,” D.C. said, his honest-to-goodness Texas accent softening the vowels in his speech. He and Marilyn met on a riding path in 1942 and after the third date decided they would be married. Eight months later, on Christmas Day, they were.
Marilyn said when they moved to Chaparral in 1974, D.C. was worried he was depriving her of her nice home for a rugged lifestyle.
“I missed my house. But I love the life here,” Marilyn said. They lived in a mobile home until their brick home was built two years ago.
D.C. trains and shows horse, charging owners $400 a month. The five-day clinic is $300 for horse and rider. He likes to keep the group small – no more than six.
“You can take 20 people out and teach them to walk, trot and run their horses. You can take five and teach them horsemanship.” D.C. said. He teaches riding on both English and Western saddles.
He also is a great believer that children who raise animals and work with them learn responsibility and citizenship. If they are taught right, they won’t have time to get into trouble.
And like good horsemanship, D.C. said, that requires time and patience.
Higgin's granson, Noel Thomas Taylor, 14, slides on Super Star George.
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