The comedy of the names of the horses is lost on Serena, but the irony that the one horse that is intended for jumping is the most difficult isn't. She'd been competed in jumping in Boston and always found dressage to be quite boring in comparison.

The feat of commanding another creature to defy gravity, even for a moment, never seemed to lose its awe for her. "I mostly competed in jumping," she admits. "Of course, that was in a very different time and place from here. I'm not sure how much has changed."