It was magic hour when we turned off Frazier Mountain Road into the hundred year-old Tait Ranch. That's what photographers call the late afternoon sun that trims the most insignificant object with shimmering golden light. If even wooden fence posts spring into etched beauty, imagine seeing a stampede of Percheron stallions galloping toward you through a glowing blizzard of dust. Each animal is two thousand pounds of flying mane and coiled muscle, throwing their full weight into the race, hammering the trembling earth with hooves the size of brake drums. Their thunder vibrates through my body. But it is the eyes of the creatures that will burn a hole deep into your soul. The eyes of the Percheron carry in them the memory of a time when champion was still a verb.
Knights on horseback were the most lethal weapon of war during the Crusades. They carried silken banners to symbolize their loyalty. They themselves became a symbol. They championed noble causes and established a code of honor that lasted long after suits of armor were retired to dusty castle halls.
The American Jousting Alliance's Tournament and Faire recalls a time eight hundred years ago when chivalry was born on horseback and honor was worth more than gold. Tournament organizer James Zoppe and his devoted crew wear earnestness lightened with ample humor to put on a brilliant show of horsemanship, strength, skill and courage, accompanied by a soundtrack that ranges from baroque lutes to the roaring bass-thumping beat of Queen's, "We Will Rock You". Lavish costumes covered horses, athletes, tents and joust officials. It is hard not to grin when a man wearing a voluminous velvet skirt, striped stockings and a ridiculous bonnet (like an officious scribe displaced in time from King Arthur's Court) steps into the ring with complicated statistical forms to judge an event.
The tourney begins with The Star Spangled Banner, followed by a surging gallop of all contenders and their squires bearing the Stars and Stripes around the ring. The competitive events are Ring Spearing, Spear Tossing, The Quintain, and The Joust. Saturday's competitors were from various parts of California and from Texas.
Several local contenders participated, including Lady Heather Reece of Frazier Park. Her husband Bob and their children Brianna and first-grader Zach cheered as she tilted her lance in a blazing gallop around the ring to snare metal hopps onto the wooden pole. "It is a blast for the whole family," Bob Reece said with pride. "She's awesome. She's got spirit. We love it." Heather has been training since February. She found Zoppe's unique offering in Lockwood Valley when following an ad from The Mountain Enterprise about riding lessons for her children.
Winners of the events:
Sir Jerry Gordon of Texas won 11 points on the ring and spear throw combined events. He won a new hand-crafted wooden throwing spear. The Quintain event was won by Sir John Swanson of Victorville, who brought along his own 12 year old squire Tyler Swanson for support. The men and women's jousting events were great crowd-pleasers. Lady Stacia Lloyd won the women's contest, and will have a fine tale to share when she takes in her suit of leather armor to show her High School English students in Norco. For the men's contest, Sir Jerry Gordon of Texas scored 32 points, to come in close second to Sir John Swanson's 37 points.
Squire Dan McCarthy of Riverside, CA helped coordinate events. Indeed, the lowly squires are most essential to the event. Few things are as helpless as a grown man on top of a 2,000 pound horse struggling to get out of 150 pounds of helmet and armor by himself.
Sir Alex Tiberi of San Diego was a strong competitor but new to the sport. He had some closing thoughts. "Competing like this is exciting, even overstimulating, with so many things to focus on," he said, laughing that the most strenuous part of taking up jousting is that his wife and daughter now demand gallantry from him in everyday life. "Maybe that's not such a bad thing," he added with a smile.
Patric Hedlund
Managing Editor
The Mountain Enterprise