by Leigh Hutton
Ebony hit rush hour traffic when she turned on to MacLeod Trail. She was usually off to the barn early enough to miss the traffic and to avoid seeing Annika. But a slow start, after a sleepless night wracked with nightmares of her mother’s death and losing her horses, hadn’t turned bad, and she let herself hope that things were on the up.
She swung into a Tim Horton’s on the south side of the city, near a strip mall full of glossy well-stocked shops and a huge, ‘we’ve-got-everything-for-cheap’ store. She ordered a black coffee, as she did in the wee hours of every morning as she headed into the barn. She could smell its rawness; taste its harsh perfection on her lips. More awake already.
The first sip indeed went down sweet. She peeled out the drive-through and headed west, towards the Rocky Mountains. She could see them now, in the distance, at the end of the straight stretch of Highway 22X. Snow all around, covering the suburban homes as she left the city limits. She past acreage lawns as she sped through the outskirts. Now the rolling hayfields and flat prairie land. Her kind of country. So beautiful with its frosting of glittering white.
She clocked Spruce Meadows to her left: the glorious show jumping facility where she had spent many a day tearing around on her horses. She could see the pitched roofs of the barns, the tops of the grandstands of its many amazing rings. Her heart beat faster, and she gripped the steering wheel. Just being in the proximity of this great place piqued her excitement even more. It was the best in the world and attracted the most famous riders from around the globe; from Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, France, the United States … Spruce wasn’t far from her old barns: Jenny Pedrosa’s, Luther Hammerstein’s, and her new home, Marcus Frank’s.
Ebony remembered the way to Marcus’s facility having visited there a few months after Cecile’s death, to try horses for sale. She’d schooled the horses with his main off-sider, — Clancy a stocky Australian bloke with a grin charming enough to distract from his crooked front teeth, a patchy light orange beard, and tangle of auburn hair. His sloping blue eyes that twinkled with kindness for just about everyone, except for those like Annika, who’d taken Ebony there, no doubt for Annika to try and score a spot as Marcus’s new girlfriend. When she’d learned that Marcus was overseas showing and it was apparent that Clancy had about as much patience for silly gold diggers as Marcus did, Annika lost interest and went to wait in her BMW and bitch on her mobile.
Cecile would have loved the horse Ebony especially fancied — she always had a knack for picking the right horse, which would gel the best with Ebony, win the most prize money, help gain the most valuable sponsors, and keep their horse business growing and expanding.
The horse was a dark bay with wild eyes and an incredible jump. Ebony loved him and was able to wrestle him around long enough to pop over a five-foot practice fence before he bucked her into the boards of the indoor arena. This was quite the achievement, according to Clancy, as not even Marcus had been able to stay on long enough to jump him over anything decent before. The horse’s name was Monster. Marcus always did seem to have a good sense of humour.
While driving Ebony was wishing that she would again get to ride Monster — that he hadn’t been shipped off to the meat market — when the private driveway of Marcus Frank’s facility came into view.
She took the left hand turn, leaving frozen gravel, feeling the car settle and want to take off on the thick, smooth bitumen. The drive wound upwards, through thick Spruce forest, blocking out the light. Up and up, then down a short rise and into a wide clearing on the top of the hill. She could sense the view of the awe-inspiring mountains to her right, but what really took her breath away was the stable now in front of her.
Marcus was one of the richest men in the country, new money from oil, and it was clear that when it came to his horses, he spared no expense. The barn was one of the largest she had ever seen, with nearly sixty stalls in the main ‘L’ shaped facility. There was also a smaller, matching barn for the mares and foals, resting to the right and down the hill from the main stable. Between the two and stretching as far as Ebony could see were row upon row of outdoor paddocks and holding yards, built from perfect galvanised steel fencing. The occasional horses grazed here, their heads down, searching the snow-laden ground for even the brownest morsel of grass and weighed down by thick winter rugs. Most would be inside in the heated stable, already tucking into their breakfasts. Some wouldn’t be turned out at all today, especially those who had come from Germany and other places overseas. These horses were too used to being stabled, and only saw the light of day when walked by hand outside to stretch their legs, when put in the state-of-the-art round walker that Marcus had installed to the left of the main barn, or on show day.
Ebony sat up straight in her seat, to see if she could steal a glimpse of Marcus’s infamous jumper field that she’d always dreamed of riding. It rested in the hollow to the east of the main barn, now white with winter. Cecile had told her that any girl who’d ever ridden it had been terrified, but thrilled if they’d managed to pilot their horse around its huge, solid fences, through the Devil’s Dyke, across the wider-than-legal water jump and through the various ditches and steeper than steep hill-jump sections. It was epic, the hardest course in Canada, bar none.
Marcus was rumoured to have built it this way for one specific reason: if he prepared for the worst at home, his horses and riders would only excel when it came to shows. His theory mostly worked; he was one of the highest scoring trainers in the country, probably the world. But then, it did also fail. One young girl had been killed on the field when her horse flipped in the Devil’s Dyke. Countless others injured. Ebony had never heard of Marcus changing his field, or removing any of the jumps.
She was dying to have a crack at it.
Ebony took the parking spot closest to the wide, black door of the front entrance and killed her engine. There was a silver plaque adjacent to the door, it read ‘Poplar Ridge Farms’; the official name for Marcus’s show jumping company and facility.
The main barn was generally uninviting, with thin, barred windows too high to see into dotted along the towering, wooden-planked walls. Two thick, rock pillars stood guard on either side of the cast-iron front doors. It seemed more like a prison than a show jumping facility. Ebony loved it that way. At many of her old barns, the owners spent a ridiculous amount of money on flowers and horse statues and funny little tents with their barn’s logo and colours splashed everywhere. Marcus was bare bones and to the point. Winning was what mattered, and she loved it.
Ebony stepped over a well-fed Golden Labrador, lying on her side on the concrete in the winter sun, warming herself from the freezing temperatures. She would have a litter of puppies somewhere, and for a brief moment, Ebony was surprised to find herself pondering how cute the little bundles of fur must be.
Inside the stable, and the smell of hay and warm, settled horses brought a sense of calm to Ebony that she only ever experienced when in the presence of her best friends on Earth. There was little sound inside the vast interior, except for the chewing of horses and the hum of the round fluorescent lights that were dotted the roof of the corridor.
She searched the name tags on the stalls, her heartbeat gaining pace as she registered some of the most famous names in the country. Horses like the chestnut beauty, Lady Godiva, and Fleetwood and Marcus’s newest mount, Saudi Sahara. She couldn’t see Monster, and hoped that was because he had been tucked away somewhere, like in the padded stall at the end of the stable. Most likely for biting a groom or some other naughtiness.
When a wide, grey face poked his head out of a stall, Ebony hurried forward, her face beaming into a smile.
‘How’s my mane man?’ she smiled, raising her hand slowly to meet the forehead of her best Grand Prix horse. She dropped a kiss on Gallant’s small white star, stroked the soft hair of his face, down the prickly hairs of his muzzle. She kissed him on the nose and then blew into his nostrils. He sniffed her, his ears flicking forwar
d, and nuzzled her chin lovingly with his thick top lip. He was tall enough, at just under eighteen hands, to reach his nose down to her waist, even from the hole left in the top of the stall door, which was small to keep the horses from biting at one another.
‘Good boy,’ she said, kissing him again, and then running her eye down his neck, over his black, polar fleece rug. Down each of his strong, silver legs. It was habit, checking up on him. He was resting his right hind, but she was sure it was only because he was comfortable. ‘Eat up.’
Gallant lifted his head, to stare her in the eye.
He was a once-in-a-lifetime horse. The kind that made careers and he’d certainly made Ebony a success; taking her from the three-sixes to meter-forties to Grand Prix’s, earning her a spot on the Canadian Junior Team for the Nation’s Cup events last season and scoring a total prize pool of well over $400,000. It was after her first few shows on Gallant that Ebony had been selected to ride in the German Friendship games, a trip she and Cecile had taken together, to Bexter Hof in Germany. They were some of the happiest days of her life. Sightseeing, shopping, laughing with Cecile, like a real mother and daughter. And the showing like a dream she never would have allowed herself to have. Some of the world’s best horses, the best junior riders. Hans JÄger had even pulled Cecile aside and said, ‘Zat girl can ride. Look at her seat. She could make zee Olympics.’ Cecile was pink with pride from that very day, until her last.
Gallant stared at Ebony with his large, black eyes. They were warm and held a sparkle just for her, fringed with dark lashes long and thick. Ebony brought her nose to his, blowing gently, to let him sniff her breath. ‘Off ya go, now, you big softy,’ she said, giving him a playful shove on the neck.
Gallant shook his head, and then nuzzled her arm. He looked her in the eye again, as if to say, ‘I’m excited to be here, too,’ and turned back to his breakfast.
Ebony found young Tootsie Roll in the next stall down.
Toots, or Audrey — as in Hepburn, as she was fondly referred to by most in the show circuit — raised her head coyly from her bucket. Her black muzzle was clean, as it always was, even when eating the sloppiest molasses and oats concoctions. Tootsie Roll didn’t eat her food, she nibbled at it. Just as she didn’t jump a fence, she graced the fence with her presence and gave it the divine right to have her slender black legs leap and soar over their rails. She always cleared the fence by at least an inch, unless Ebony really messed up, which for a young horse of only seven years was miraculous. But Tootsie knew her limits, and had simply refused to jump anything over a meter fifty.
Next to Tootsie, a safe distance from Gallant — as the boys bit and kicked at each other if ever in close proximity, both were smitten with Tootsie — was Ebony’s second World Equestrian Games and Olympic hopeful, the glorious ten-year-old Hanoverian, Johnny Cash. The magnificent black and white gelding lifted his head and whinnied as soon as Ebony poked her head in the top of his stall. She had to duck to avoid being knocked out by Johnny’s huge, muscular jaw. She ran a hand down his curved neck, feeling his warmth, his high arch of muscle. She playfully tugged at his black mane.
Johnny whipped round, and nipped her on the hand. ‘Ouch—Jay!’ Ebony punched him hard on the neck. He flashed her a chastising, yet cheeky look with the white of his eye, then dug his head back in his bucket, sending oats and chaff and pellets flinging out and onto his shavings and rubber-matted floor.
Ebony laughed and shook her head. ‘Nice to see you, too!’ She rested a hand on the cool metal of Johnny’s door, glanced back over each of her horses, before continuing down the hall to find her new tack room. The rubber soles of her boots squeaked on the shiny, polished concrete floor. She could see a white piece of paper with ‘ New girl’ scribed in black pen taped to the first aluminium door in a row of about a dozen. Beyond was a wide corridor, which led down to the huge indoor arena. The corridor was decorated with hundreds of framed photographs, and she remembered them well from her visit. There were dozens of Marcus; from the time he was bobbing around on a tiny pony, following his mother, to his first win in the main ring at Spruce. There were others, too, of Marcus’s best riders; the incredibly talented Japanese lady, Abia Takahashi; the rising star Jasmine ‘Jazz’ Kassedy; the vicious and competitive United States rider, Dougie Chamfer; and the utterly spoilt and up herself Mantina Fairbone, who was English royalty and loved to remind all who would listen that she was a real princess.
Ebony hadn’t been able to help herself when she’d visited Marcus’s barn before; she’d studied the wall for as long as she could. It was strange, seeing such lovely portraits of some of the most well known riders around. Some didn’t deserve to look so esteemed. Others did. She couldn’t help but hope, not that she would ever admit it to anyone, that one day she, too, would have her picture on Marcus’s wall. Not that she needed the recognition or anything. She didn’t want to fit in here; she didn’t care if they liked her or not — she never had. She was here to learn from Marcus, to make the World’s and the Olympics, and win enough money to support herself. To get her horses away from Annika and build the business she and Cecile had started together. That was all.
Ebony’s fellow show jumpers had made it clear long ago that she didn’t fit in. There had been only one other rider amongst the pony jumpers who’d spoken to her, except to tease her, and he ended up siding with Mantina, and slicing her the deepest. Since then, she’d only strived to beat them in the ring, never socialise with them, and she wasn’t about to change her mantra.
In terms of the pictures, though no one but Cecile had ever put a picture of her on their wall before. And she had to admit it would be pretty cool.
Inside her new tack room, Ebony ran a hand over her trunks, which had fabric covers made from her colours: black and red. They were arranged in a neat row along the back wall of her tack room. She knew it had been done by her groom, Winnie Fernandez judging by their perfect placement. She’d never have survived losing Cecile if it hadn’t been for Win; she was her best and only real friend. Her little mirror for doing her hair had already been hung on a spare hook near the steel saddle rails, where both her Amerigo’s now rested. Even from within their covers, she could smell the rich leather and Hamanol conditioner Winnie would have rubbed them down with after her last ride at Luther’s.
Ebony was turning to go in search of Winnie, when the frame of a tall man blew past the doorway. She knew by his gait that it was Marcus. She took a sharp breath, held it in … instinctively, she squared her shoulders and raised her chin.
Did he see me here?
Am I ready for this?
Just as she was telling herself to shut up and stop being such a pansy, Marcus popped his head back through the door.
‘Hey, Agony,’ Marcus Frank said, his dirty blonde curls and honey-coloured eyes glistening under the bright, white tack room light. Ebony knew he was in his early thirties, but his youthful spirit seemed to glaze over any lines on his sun tanned face. ‘It’s gonna be fun having you in my barn.’
Ebony’s jaw dropped, indignation swelling within her chest.
She was about to spit some profanity about the ridiculous name she’d just been called, but as quickly as ‘The Gale’ had blown in, the doorway was left vacant.
Damn, Ebony thought. She collapsed down on one of her trunks. Marcus had to be the only person in the world fast enough to escape her sharp tongue. She hated him for it. But was also wildly challenged. Awake, and very alive.
‘Hello, Marcus,’ Ebony whispered. She jumped up and whipped the cover off one of her trunks. Adrenaline charged her and a wicked grin spread across her face — one she hadn’t had since saddling up to compete for Cecile. Marcus was definitely the trainer for her; she would learn from him, and hopefully, when the time came, beat his ass in the ring. ‘I’m afraid it’s on.’
‘Thanks, Win,’ Ebony accepted Gallant’s reins. Winnie Fernandez smiled her wide, bright smile and looked up at Ebony, her brown eyes dark and lively in her round, beau
tiful face.
‘Doesn’t he look handsome,’ Ebony said. ‘Thanks for doing such a great job with him, Win.’
‘Si, Senorita Ebony,’ Winnie beamed. She’d been in Canada five years, since Cecile had brought her home from a business trip to Mexico, and still spoke with a strong accent. Winnie came from a hopelessly poor family, in a hopelessly poor town, and with both her parents dead, she had been cleaning manure from the streets to feed herself and her four sisters when Cecile found her. Both her parents dead, Winnie and Ebony hit it off straight away, and Ebony always made sure, even after Cecile’s death, that Winnie had enough money to send home for her younger sisters. ‘I brushed hees mane and tail with thee Show She’en and bathed heem in the wash bay thees morning. The-es place ees so good!’
‘And the groom’s quarters are just as good?’ Ebony dropped an arm around her friend’s wide shoulders.
‘Si, si! Across the hall from Clancy … he ees so nice!’
Ebony laughed and turned Winnie to face her. ‘Am I sensing a crush, Little Win Win?’
A blush swept across her smooth, chocolate skin. ‘No, no! esté tranquilo me avergüenza!’
‘And, blah, de, esta sanca, to you too!’
‘Ah, sorry, Senorita. Inglés!’
Ebony laughed and patted Winnie on the back. It was a long-standing joke between the pair. ‘I’ll learn it eventually, eh. Your strange language. Well, wish me luck?’
‘You no need luck,’ Winnie said, grinning.
‘You’re just biased.’ Ebony smiled down at Winnie as the stout, strong girl grabbed her by her bent calf and easily boosted her up onto Gallant. Her saddle was sticky from its recent conditioning. The last time she’d been on Gallant’s back was in the dimly lit arena at Luther’s, being yelled at for nothing. Being here, in the bright, modern corridor of Marcus’s, with Winnie at her side, it was as though a layer of her darkness released its hold. She tucked a loose strand of hair back into her hair net and buckled the strap of her black Grand Prix helmet. Pulled the front of her hoodie up a bit, to hide her bouncing cleavage, which was only just restrained by her best sports bra. She reached down to adjust her girth, and then patted Gallant on the neck, running her fingers through his clean, black mane. His ears flicked forward and Ebony smiled as they clopped down the corridor, clip clop, clip clop, past the rows of photographs and up the wide hallway into the indoor arena.
