Pony Jumpers 3- Triple Bar

by Kate Lattey

  “Can you see it?” I stood in my stirrups and peered over the edge, but I couldn’t pick anything out amongst the scrub.

  “I think so.” Bayard unclipped Rusty’s reins from his bit and left him loose, trusting him to stay with me and Rory, then started making his way down the bank. I watched him grab at handfuls of grass and manuka saplings as he went, following his bright red and yellow rugby jersey until it disappeared into the scrub. Rusty dropped his head and started cropping grass while he waited, and I checked my watch. It had been almost fifteen minutes since the mob had gone down into the gully, and Dad would be wondering where we were. Colin stood further down the track, watching me plaintively. The sheep were way ahead of us, and his instincts to follow them were warring with his desire to stay with me.

  I was about to call to Bayard to hurry up when I heard hoofbeats coming back up the track towards us. At first I thought it might be Dad, or one of the other hands, coming to find us, but they were approaching much too fast for that. Dad would jog his horse up a hill like this, not ride at a fast canter the way this horse was. There was only one person that it could be, and I whistled Colin closer to me and nudged Rory over to the side of the track. But Rusty was still blocking the narrow path, and we were just the other side of an almost blind corner. I didn’t have time to move him, even if I’d wanted to, so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Seconds later, a chunky grey pony with a dished face and cresty neck came barrelling around the corner, ears pricked and nostrils flared. He was breathing hard, and my sister swore as she saw Rusty in the way and hauled her pony to a sharp stop.

  “Block the track, why don’t you?” Hayley grumbled at me as Misty dragged air into his lungs through his wide nostrils. Small rivulets of sweat were running down his forehead and into his eyes, and a damp patch had broken out on his neck. Hayley looked at Rusty disparagingly. “Get out of the way, you big oaf.” Her eyes scanned the scene curiously and she raised a haughty eyebrow. “Where’d Barnyard go? Run off for a pee in the bushes?”

  “He’s gone after a lamb. We could hear one down the bank.”

  I pointed, but Hayley didn’t really care. Preoccupied with finding a way past Rusty’s solid body, she was edging Misty ever closer to the bush lawyer. I could’ve warned her, but she knew this farm as well as I did, and she knew what the plant looked like. If she got it hooked into her bare arm, then it was no fault of mine. She was the only one who’d ride up an overgrown track like this with arms bare to the shoulder anyway. It wasn’t as if there was anyone around to impress, but ever since she’d started high school and discovered boys, Hayley’s preoccupation with her looks had taken over, and changed her completely from the sister I’d grown up with. She’d gone from being as much of a country kid as I was, running around the farm in gumboots, building forts and climbing trees and fishing for eels in the creek, and had turned into someone who cared more about hairstyles and nail polish and wearing the latest fashions. Mum had encouraged her, because Mum liked those things too, which had left Dad and I shrugging at each other. Hayley was in her last year at high school now, and had become as foreign to me as a distant relative. We’d been close once, but we weren’t anymore, and hadn’t been for a long time.

  Hayley noticed the bush lawyer at the last possible second, and kicked Misty sideways to avoid it. The grey pony reacted sharply, cannoning into Rusty’s hindquarters and making him pitch forward, almost lurching down the steep bank. My heart was in my mouth for a moment as I pictured him tumbling headfirst down the slope, but he was surefooted and sensible, and he managed to stay on his feet.

  “Watch it!” I told Hayley, and she shot me a scathing look that made me wish I’d just kept my mouth shut.

  “Tell your boyfriend not to park your horse in the way,” she snapped at me.

  He’s not my boyfriend, I thought, but didn’t bother to say it out loud. Hayley knew that as well as I did, but she never passed up an opportunity to tease me. Bayard and I were just friends – always had been, always would be, as far as I was concerned. I noticed boys, the way any almost-fifteen year old girl notices boys, but Bayard didn’t count. Not like that.

  Misty laid his ears back at Rory as they passed, and she lowered her head and sidled away slightly, her body language as deferential as mine was. Hayley shot us both a smug look and rode Misty on up the track without a backward glance.

  I watched them go, my sister’s thick blonde hair billowing out behind her in a wave of bouncing curls. My own mousy brown hair was more tightly wound, stubbornly resistant to being brushed without making me look as though I’d gone backwards through a gorse bush. I’d always lived in Hayley’s shadow. Had always been the less attractive, less exuberant, less interesting child. Hayley had bright blue eyes and flawless skin, and teeth that had barely ever needed the dentist as they marched agreeably in a straight row, offsetting the rest of her face perfectly. I had faded hazel eyes, freckled skin that waged a constant war against the onslaught of acne, and my mouth was cluttered up with loathsome braces.

  I heard noises over the edge of the bank, and returned my attention to Bayard as he came struggling up, shoving a lamb in front of him.

  “Get up there you stupid bugger,” he muttered, giving the recalcitrant animal one last heave. Its short legs skittered up the bank, struggling for purchase before finally making it up onto the track. The young sheep stood still for a moment, legs splayed and lungs heaving from its exertion, as Bayard hauled himself back to level ground and made his way back to Rusty’s side.

  “Was that Hayley come past?” he asked as he reattached Rusty’s reins, and I nodded. “Thought I saw a white blur. Isn’t Misty supposed to be your pony now?”

  I pulled a face at him. “She can keep him.”

  Bayard swung himself heavily back into the saddle, and we continued our ride downhill. “Not getting any keener on him then?”

  “Nope.”

  Misty was my sister’s pony, but now that she’d reluctantly aged out of the pony classes, he was supposed to be my new show jumper. But I didn’t like him. Actually, I was terrified of him, of the way that he leapt and bucked and bounded around the courses, pulling hard every step of the way and flinging his head around. I hated the way he jumped, as though he had springs for legs, clearing the big fences by unnecessary inches, occasionally landing on all fours because the striding had been off, or just because he felt like it. He’d always been tricky – we’d known that when we’d bought him – but it hadn’t mattered because Hayley was fearless. She loved Misty’s exuberance and if he went sideways around the corners, or threw his head so high that he almost gave her a nosebleed, or bucked furiously once he’d gone through the finish flags, she just laughed and kicked him on. But I hated all of those things. They scared me.

  It wasn’t Misty’s fault - he couldn’t help the way that he was. But I didn’t want to ride him. Truth be told, I didn’t want to show jump at all. I was happier riding around on the farm than I was flying over huge jumps in the competition arena. But it seemed that I don’t want to wasn’t a valid excuse anymore. Because who wouldn’t want to ride a Grand Prix show jumping pony with a list of achievements as long as their arm?

  I wasn’t brave like my sister. And I’d happily spent years existing in her shadow, being less than all the time because I had no ambition to be more than. Nobody had expected me to go out and jump big fences, because it was Hayley that was successful. It was Hayley that went fast and clear and won prizes. It was Hayley that made our parents proud. And she was still winning, now that she had Coppertop, her big chestnut Young Rider horse. But Copper wasn’t used to farm life yet, and instead of taking him out on regular hacks and teaching him about things like getting his feet wet in the creek, and not spooking at the sheep when they scuttled out of their hiding places on the sides of hills, Hayley preferred to keep riding Misty. I couldn’t complain, because it meant that he got worked, but on the downside, it also meant that he was fighting fit and packed with muscle, making him even
harder for me to handle on the rare occasions she bullied me into the saddle.

  Bayard and I rounded the corner and the farm sprawled out below us again. The mob were being sent up the raceway now, kept in line by the scampering sheepdogs, hard at work. A dog whistle floated up from below us. The lupin popped, releasing a sweet scent, and Colin’s pace quickened.

  I glanced over at Bay, and he grinned at me as he nudged Rusty into a lumbering jog. “Last one to the bottom shuts the gate!”

  Rory was fast, and could beat Rusty easily in a flat race, but the track was still narrow and Rusty’s broad hindquarters were taking up every inch of available space, giving us no room to pass. I glanced up at the bank on our left. I could jump Rory up onto that, and urge her on to overtake Rusty. Or we could slide down on the right, and canter along the boggy creek bed for a few strides before scrambling back up onto the track and get in front that way. Rory was faster, more athletic, and fitter than Rusty.

  But even as I considered the options, I couldn’t help thinking of all the things that could go wrong. Rory might baulk at jumping up to the left, or might slip on her way down on the right. She could get bogged in the sucking mud of the creek bed, or trip in a rabbit hole going back up. I didn’t want to risk it. Anyway, shutting a gate wasn’t so hard. We did most of the gates anyway, because Rusty wasn’t very manoeuvrable and it took Bayard forever to get a gate opened and closed from his back. When he had to, he always dismounted and did them on foot.

  So really, I was doing him a favour.

  “I took Misty for a good gallop today,” Hayley told me at dinner that night, her blue eyes boring into me. “So he’ll be all set for you to jump tomorrow.”

  Not this again. I looked down at the plate in front of me, stabbing long slices of boiled carrot with my fork and stuffing them into my mouth so that I didn’t have to respond.

  “How did he go?” Mum asked, and Hayley grinned at her.

  “He was amazing! Honestly, he didn’t put a foot wrong or buck or anything. I don’t know what Tess’ problem is.” She shot me a dark look across the table, and I looked back down at my plate. “But okay, here’s my solution. I’ll ride Misty every day from now on, except at shows. Tess will compete him on the weekends, plus the occasional jumping lesson at home to help her get used to him, But really, he’s not that hard. What you see is what you get – he’s always the same.” Hayley sounded reasonable, confident, calm. Mum was looking at her thoughtfully, resting her fork on the table as she listened.

  “That might work,” Mum said, making my heart sink lower. You’re supposed to be on my side, I thought, but no matter how many times I told her that I didn’t like Misty, it wasn’t getting through to her – or Hayley. Well, Hayley knew. She just didn’t care. “I think we might have just over-faced her. Let’s have her drop him back to lower classes. Metre-five, metre-ten. Let her get her confidence before moving him back up.”

  “A metre-ten? What a waste!” Hayley argued, but Mum was resolute.

  “Tess just needs more time to get used to him. She doesn’t have to do the Pony Grand Prix just yet, not if she really doesn’t want to.”

  I took my opportunity to say something. “Good, because I don’t.”

  Hayley rolled her eyes at me dramatically. “I always found him easier when the fences were bigger, because it slows him down, but whatever. Fine. Jump him around the midget classes if you must, see if you can stay on. He’ll pretend they’re a metre-thirty anyway.” I repressed a shudder at the thought as Hayley marched on. “But we are not selling him.”

  Mum looked at Dad, who was shovelling food into his mouth and reading the newspaper. “John, what do you think?”

  “Hmm?” Dad looked up at her, still chewing. “What’s that?”

  “About Tess riding Misty, and us not selling him.”

  Dad frowned and swallowed. “I thought Tess didn’t want to ride Misty.”

  “She’s just not used to him yet,” Hayley said.

  Dad turned to look at me, and everyone else’s eyes followed his. I squirmed under their gazes, desperately wanting the pressure to be taken off.

  “Tess?”

  I shrugged. “I just don’t really like him.” I looked at Hayley apologetically. “Sorry. But he…he’s so bouncy,” I finished lamely. I still couldn’t say out loud that he scared me, because Hayley didn’t understand fear. To her, being scared of something was all the more reason to do it. To me, it was a definitive reason to run in the other direction.

  “Sounds like Tess has decided,” Dad said, looking back down at the newspaper. “And these lamb prices just keep dropping, so we could really use the extra cash.”

  Hayley flung her fork down on the table. A pea flew off it and rolled across the table towards Dad’s dinner. “Misty is not extra cash!”

  Dad glared at her, his thick eyebrows sitting low over his blue eyes. “Hayley, you’re too old to be throwing tantrums.”

  She pouted at him, and Mum interjected smoothly, calming the waters between them as always. “I see where you’re coming from, but lamb prices might pick up. And I do think it would be a real shame to let a pony as good as Misty go.”

  “He’s part of our family,” Hayley insisted. “We can’t just sell him, that would be inhumane!”

  “He’s livestock,” Dad told her. “And we live on a farm.”

  “Then sell Tess’ stupid pony,” Hayley snapped back at him. “Useless thing can hardly jump anyway.”

  “No way!” I said quickly. “We’re not selling Rory. She’s useful, she’s really good at stock work and she earns her keep.”

  Hayley snorted. “Misty could do stock work if he wanted to, but he doesn’t because it’s boring.” She retrieved her fork and stabbed at her carrots. “He’s not for sale. End of discussion.”

  “We’ll see,” Dad muttered, earning himself another dark look from my sister.

  “Let’s give it until Christmas,” Mum decided, looking around the table at all of us. “If Tess is competing successfully by then, we’ll look at keeping him. Otherwise, he’ll go on the market.”

  “That’s only six weeks away!” Hayley objected.

  “Seven weeks,” I corrected her, and she kicked me under the table, making me wince.

  “Whatever, maths genius. Seven weeks then, and you’re going to be riding him like a pro by then. Or else,” Hayley told me.

  Mum smiled at her, taking Hayley’s threat as a joke. Dad had already gone back to his newspaper and tuned us out, the way he always did when we talked about horses.

  “Hayley will help you,” Mum told me. “You just have to adjust to Misty’s way of going. Maybe we should turn Rory out for a while, give you more time on Misty instead.”

  “No!” I shook my head adamantly. “Fine, I’ll ride Misty if I have to, but I get to ride Rory as well.”

  “You make it sound like the worst thing ever,” Hayley grumbled at me. “I’d rather ride Misty than Boring Rory any day of the week, but I guess there’s no accounting for taste.”

  She went back to her meal, satisfied that she’d won the argument. I just felt defeated. I’d come home from Hastings last weekend utterly determined that I would never ride Misty again. Had promised myself never to get back into his saddle, never put myself back into that situation. I was sick of riding him, sick of Hayley yelling at me constantly, sick of everyone staring when I got it wrong, when Misty refused or threw me off in the ring. It was upsetting and embarrassing and made everything worse. But it looked like I was stuck, because I was too much of a wimp to throw a tantrum like Hayley would have. I wished I was brave enough to put my foot down, but no matter how badly I wanted to, I couldn’t make myself do it.

  “Why don’t we go to Waipawa tomorrow?” Hayley suggested. “They’ve got low classes there, I think they only go up to a metre-ten for ponies.” She pulled a face as my stomach squirmed. A metre-ten might be tiny for her, but it still seemed immense to me.

  “I need you all here tomorrow,” Dad said,
butting into the conversation. “Got that drenching to do, and you said you’d be home.”

  Mum nodded, though she looked disappointed. “Yes, of course. We’ll all be there to help, won’t we girls?”

  I murmured assent, but Hayley made an exasperated noise and stabbed the sausage on her plate with her fork. We all knew that the likelihood of her being up early enough to help with the drenching was slim to none, but that was nothing new. Hayley never did anything helpful around the farm anymore.

  When the meal was over, Dad left the table and went straight to his office to fret over the accounts. National sheep prices were dropping, and some of the stock hadn’t wintered well, putting us on the back foot. He was already planning which paddocks to put the newly weaned lambs on to try and fatten them for the Christmas market, but he was worried that he might have to start buying in extra feed, something no farmer wanted to have to do. Selling Misty would bring in a good chunk of cash and provide a useful buffer to the hard times that we might be about to face, but it would have to wait a little longer.

  Seven more weeks. I was counting down already.

  “Let’s get this table cleared,” Mum said as she set down her cutlery. I stood up and stacked Dad’s plate on top of mine, but Hayley groaned and put her head in her hands. Mum looked over at her in concern.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Headache,” Hayley muttered. “Bad one.”

  “Again?” Mum frowned anxiously. Hayley had been getting sporadic migraines for the last few weeks, although they always seemed to come on at the most opportune times. Funny how the very mention of doing the dishes would set her off, while she would ride all day at horse shows without the slightest affliction. But Mum fell for it every time.

  “Just go to bed darling, and I’ll bring you a cold compress. Tess will get the dishes done.”

  Hayley got up, still holding her head. She staggered slightly as she moved towards the door, and I rolled my eyes. Overdoing it a bit, I thought bitterly, stacking the plates on the table and carrying them into the kitchen. I groaned at the sight. It looked as though Mum had used every pot and pan we owned, and they were scattered messily across the long bench. This was going to take forever.