Everyone keeps a soft spot in their hearts for their first horse. But few are as lucky as to have a first horse like Benson And Hedges.

In 24 years with Valerie DiCristina, “Benson” showed, raced, evented, and hunted for 23 straight seasons. With him, DiCristina went from an aspiring foxhunter, to whipping-in, and eventually to becoming a joint master of the Spring Valley Hounds (N.J.).

“I think that he’ll always be the horse of my heart,” said DiCristina. “He taught me everything, really. I was determined to hunt, but I think he made me love it more, because I always felt so safe on him. Other people would always comment that he was the best horse they’d ever hunted. He was a gentleman, and he really fit the profile of a lady’s hunter.”

In 1980, when DiCristina first met Benson, it didn’t seem like serendipity right away. DiCristina was an adult amateur. A fencing enthusiast, she didn’t take up riding until she was 32. In 1980, she was 41 and hoping to begin foxhunting.

Benson, an off-the-track Thoroughbred, was then 7 and had been showing in the jumper and the equitation divisions in New Jersey. But his young owner didn’t have time for him, and he was for sale.

“Every time a person would come to try him, he would misbehave. It was almost like he didn’t want to be sold. And in the meantime, I was riding him and showing him lightly in the adult amateur hunters,” DiCristina said.

After Benson hadn’t been sold for five years, DiCristina decided to make their partnership permanent. She bought him in 1985.

“I started hunting before I had Benson, but not very much. I was looking for a horse to hunt when I found him. I didn’t think Benson would hunt, though.

Everyone, including me, thought he was pretty hot, so I didn’t want to buy him. But I tried him out at a hunter pace, and he would go first, or second, or third, with no problems. So, I tried him out in the hunt field. The first few times we hunted, I only had a light snaffle in his mouth, and that wasn’t enough. I actually passed the master once,” she recalled.

“But actually, foxhunting turned out to be his thing. Once he was in the field with other horses, he was fine. That was his whole joy in life–being with people and with other horses. The more commotion, the better for him. That’s a very unusual thing to happen, especially since he could be spooky in the show ring, but he had that kind of personality.”

The Most Trustworthy

Benson hunted with DiCristina, and others, for 18 years behind the Spring Valley hounds. “He always loved following the hounds. His ears would perk up, and he’d know. He was absolutely interested in everything that they were doing, and he’d stand at attention when we had a check and look for the hounds. He also was very true over every fence,” said DiCristina.

“There was one day that I let my husband ride him. The person in front of my husband had rolled the coop, so that when my husband went to jump it, it was lying on its side, and the top board had flown a few feet past it, where the horse couldn’t see. Benson said to my husband, ‘We can do that!’ He flew over that thing, and my husband said that in the air it was like he spread wings to go over that last board, that was lying two feet further on.”

As a former race horse, Benson had some speed, but he didn’t intimidate DiCristina. “Even the first time I hunted him, I knew that he wasn’t running away with me. There are some horses that run away with you, and you have no communication with them at all at that point. But even when he was passing everyone, I knew that it was because he was so fast and had such a tremendous stride, not because he was out of control,” she said.

“I always knew that there was a little piece of him listening to me. That tremendous stride was always something he always had in reserve.

“I can remember one time the hounds got on a deer,” she continued. “We were going after the rioting hounds, and I remember asking Benson for more, and he had a fifth gear that he could tap whenever he wanted. It was a huge stride that he had, and he was willing to give it to you if you asked for it. But I didn’t ever feel that he was taking off with me. He always knew there was a rider on his back.”

Up until 2000, Benson was DiCristina’s main hunt horse. “I first whipped-in off Benson, and then I became joint-master [in 2000]. Then, I started to feel that I was pushing him too much. I had two younger horses, and so he started hunting in the field with other people. He was actually better in the field because he was a little bit a park horse–he liked the trails to be manicured and not to touch the bushes and thorns. Many people rode him in the field.”

Among those was Heidi Updike, a side- saddle rider who hunted Benson aside for the 2003 season. It didn’t take long for Benson to adjust to the new equipment, but his initial reaction to the side-saddle spoke volumes about his intelligence and reasoning.

“He looked at his left side, then turned his head and looked at his right side, and you could see him say, ‘Oh, that’s what’s going on.’ It seemed like he was saying, ‘I knew something was different, but I couldn’t figure it out,’ ” DiCristina recalled with a laugh.

DiCristina also evented Benson a few times during their years together. And in 2003, when DiCristina was taking some time out of the saddle after hip-replacement surgery, Benson ran in the North American Point-to-Point Association junior fieldmaster’s chase at the Essex (N.J.) point-to-point and was third.

More Than A Mount–A Friend

Benson concluded his last hunting season in 2003 at age 30, and he enjoyed a nice respite. But on May 19, 2004–just two months after his 31st birthday–he suffered an apparent heart failure while cantering across his paddock to greet a new barnmate. DiCristina mourned the loss intensely, but took comfort in knowing that Benson had lived a long and full life. And the lessons Benson taught her from the very beginning stayed with her.

“I think he taught me that whenever I got a little uptight, I have to trust the horse. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a horse that I’ve trusted as much as I trusted Benson, but he taught me that it’s important to have faith in any horse I’m on,” she said.

“We have one particular fence that’s an in-and-out across the road, and it’s a 30-foot distance between the two jumps. He would always put one stride in that in-and-out, even if he trotted into it. He had that fence so figured out that he knew exactly what it was all about.”

And DiCristina re-called that one of Benson’s main priorities was always her safety. “Once, I was out hacking alone, and I was galloping up this hill. And a huge deer fly was bothering him. I said to him, ‘Come on, we’ll get away from him, let’s run.’ We galloped straight up this huge hill. But the fly was on his chest, and it hadn’t left. So, he stopped dead and slammed the fly with his chin. Of course, I went straight over his head and plowed into the hillside. I rolled over, and I was slightly stunned, and I felt this hot breath right on my face. He never left me. He stood there until I got back on, and we went home. He was always that kind of personal horse. He’d always wait for you,” she said.

The trust DiCristina had in Benson went further than the time she spent on his back. There was no other horse she felt more comfortable letting children ride.

And she was sure she could trust him to step carefully when there was a litter of hound puppies playing around the barn. Benson was always very attuned to the hounds.

They were more than just partners in the hunting field–they were friends.

“When I first moved to this farm, I moved in here with just Benson,” said DiCristina. “Benson would know what room I was in, because he was in the field and could see into the house, and he would watch for me. He could see where the lights were. If I came out on the porch, he’d stick his head over the fence and whinny. He would tell me if the bugs were too bad, or if it was too hot. Whatever he wanted, he would communicate, and I would comply. I think that’s where he got the idea that humans were put on earth to serve him.”