Summer Rider (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 31)

by Claire Svendsen

  Some of the girls looked at me and smiled as I made my way through the show grounds. On foot I was just another girl but on horseback I was a rider. I was one of them. Eventually I found ring five and there was Julio and Faye. I should have known that she would be the one who was too lazy to ride her own horse over. Instead she was sitting in the golf cart, drinking from a bottle with a long straw. She looked at me and her face fell.

  “What do you think you are doing?” she said, looking disgusted that I was anywhere near her horse, let alone actually riding it.

  “Apparently riding your horse over for you,” I said. “Rae asked me to.”

  “Great,” she snapped. “Well you can get off now before you ruin him.”

  The horse was standing as good as gold. I wasn’t sure quite how I was going to ruin him just by sitting there but I got off and handed her the reins. She didn’t take them. Instead she let Julio take the horse.

  “I'm not even up for like ten minutes,” she moaned. “What am I supposed to do?”

  I watched the girls in the ring ride over a relatively small course that Bluebird and I could have jumped in our sleep and hoped that eventually I would have the chance to ride him against Faye and show her how good I really was. Not that she’d watch us or even care. I walked back to the barn, not wanting to stay and see her ride. I didn’t think I could stomach it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  “Where were you?” Hanna asked when I got back, having walked because Julio had stayed behind with the golf cart to babysit Faye.

  “Rae asked me to hack a horse over to the ring,” I said.

  “Must be nice,” she said.

  “I finished my stalls,” I replied with a shrug. It seemed that the competition to be the favorite had already begun. “Hey,” I added. “Do you want to sneak off and watch?”

  “Do you think we should?” she said.

  “What else do they want us to do?” I replied.

  But apparently our jobs were nowhere near done. We had to scrub the water buckets again because all the horses seemed to like to dunk their hay. I helped a teary eyed girl untack her pony after she’d fallen off in her class. I tried to tell her that it happened to the best of us but nothing I said would stop her from sobbing and in the end I stopped trying. I wanted to tell her that there was no crying in horses and that a whole bunch of other girls would have given anything to be showing and training with Rae but I don’t think she would have believed me.

  In fact, she wasn’t the only one. It seemed that Rae had nothing but either champions or sore losers. The champions came back all smiles, proud of themselves and their horses, who were the ones that had done most of the work anyway since they were bought that way and trained to win. The losers came back blaming everyone but themselves. I’d never seen such a bunch of sore losers in my whole life and I don’t think Hanna had either. We spent the rest of the afternoon congratulating and consoling people and untacking hot and sweaty horses as they came our way.

  Julio told us that they all got liniment baths and their legs wrapped when they were done so I got to work doing that while Hanna stood on a stool and picked out their braids, being careful not to break any hairs because we knew that they’d be braided again at the next show and no one liked broken hairs sticking out of their braids and ruining them.

  By the time we had done I think almost all the classes were over.

  “I’ve never worked so hard in my whole life,” Hanna complained, opening the cooler that was parked out by the stalls and pulling out a can of soda.

  “Do you know how much sugar is in that?” a girl walking past asked her.

  “Lots I hope,” Hanna said, taking a big swig from the can.

  The girl looked horrified. I grabbed a can of diet, knowing it was just as bad for me, if not worse but I needed the caffeine. We’d been up since before the sun and on our feet all day. I was used to hard work but this was different. This was learning new routines and the way that someone else did things that was different from the way we did things. I knew that every barn had their own way of doing things and I was trying to fit in and comply but it was difficult when I knew that sometimes the way we did things was better. Only I was too afraid of Julio to say anything.

  Rae was riding in one last class, her gray mare tacked up and gleaming.

  “Want to watch?” she asked us as if she’d finally remembered that we were there.

  “Yes please,” I said.

  “I’d rather be riding,” Hanna whispered as we followed behind Rae and her horse on the way back to the rings.

  “It’s only the first day,” I told her. “Things have to get better, don’t they?”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” she replied.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  Rae won her class. I wasn’t surprised. She turned out to be a really good rider. She wasn’t just another hunter princess turned jumper junkie. She really knew her stuff. I was impressed. Her horse wasn’t even that talented. She didn’t have the scope that the other horses did. She hung her left leg when she jumped and had to compensate by twisting her body over the jumps in a sort of corkscrew way and it looked really difficult to sit but Rae managed it. This horse had probably been over looked by many others and this was why Rae had been able to buy her.

  I kept having to remind myself that Rae didn’t come from money anymore. That she was doing this on her own. Her life was basically my blueprint to success and while Hanna sat on the crushed grass and complained about her sore hands and her aching back, I watched Rae and tried to see how she was making it work. That subtle pull on the reins. The way that she would half halt and then push the horse on. She had what it took and I knew that from now on I would do anything she asked of me if it would help me do what she did.

  We watched her victory lap and I clapped really hard. Hanna didn’t bother. She went back to the stalls to check on the horses while I stayed behind to see if Rae needed anything.

  “That was amazing,” I told her when she came out of the ring.

  I ran up her stirrups and took her horse from her, figuring that was now my job since Julio had disappeared.

  “This girl,” she said, patting the horse on the neck. “Rescued off the track.”

  “I have an off the track Thoroughbred at home too,” I said. “His name is Arion and he’s a really great jumper.”

  “So why did you bring the pony instead?” she asked me curiously as we walked back to our barn.

  “Because he’s not just a pony,” I said. “He can jump just as well as any horse and he’s faster on his feet. He fits through gaps that horses can’t, he turns on a dime. I can’t explain it. I know that people look down on him because in this country everyone graduates to horses as soon as they can but in Europe, teenagers ride ponies all the time. I don’t know why it's such a big deal here.”

  Rae was silent for a moment and I wondered if I’d overstepped my boundaries. After all, she was my employer and I had just given her a lecture on why I thought ponies were overlooked and underrated.

  “I trained in Europe,” she finally said. “I’ve seen the ponies you’re talking about and if yours is half as good as they are then you are very lucky.”

  I smiled and thanked her but I knew that the things she’d said would be echoed by everyone we encountered on the road. The girls who rode with Rae, the other competitors and maybe that was why I’d chosen to bring Bluebird along. Not just because I loved him so much and couldn’t bear to be away from him for so long but also to prove that he belonged there just as much as I did. I just hoped that he would prove me right and not make a fool out of me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  That evening we helped Julio and a couple of the other grooms pack up the trailers. There were three of them, big and sprawling with living quarters in each. I wondered where we were supposed to sleep and whether or not we’d be forced to sleep with Julio but it turned out that he had his own camper. I thought maybe we’d be hitting the road overnight but it tu
rned out that we would be leaving at first light and travelling to the next show which was at least a day’s drive away. It was going to be a long and boring journey and I wasn’t sure what we were supposed to do except maybe make sure that the horses were staying hydrated and eating okay.

  After we’d packed up all but the essentials I tacked Bluebird up and took him out to one of the warm up rings. If he was going to be stuck in a trailer for the whole day, he was going to need to stretch his legs. And I almost felt bad that I’d brought him. Rae had said that she would enter us when we got to the next show but I didn’t know her well enough to know if those were empty promises or not.

  Bluebird was being good. The show had died down and a lot of people had left. The rings were quiet, the remnants of the show course still in place though some had been dismantled. I let Bluebird walk over and sniff them and then I asked him to trot and canter, working on getting him to stretch out after standing in his stall all day. I hadn’t really thought about the fact that horses on the road didn’t get much turnout time. There was always the chance that we’d be stopping at a farm or two along the way but it wouldn’t make up for the fact that my pony was used to living outside about ninety percent of the time.

  I’d asked Hanna if she wanted to ride Hemi with me but she declined. She said she was beat and that she couldn’t possibly even think about riding tonight but I was still pumped up, the sight of Rae’s round still fresh in my mind. I wanted to be like her and being like her meant that even if you were tired, you took your poor cooped up pony out and worked him so that he wouldn’t suffer the next day on that long trailer ride.

  We worked on our transitions. Bluebird was getting really good at walk to canter and I’d also been working on his counter canter. When he felt supple and soft, I let him jump a few of the fences. I wasn’t entirely sure that we were allowed but there didn’t seem to be anyone around to stop us. The course was high but not too much of a stretch for my pony and since I hadn’t even looked at the course plan, I just made it up as I went along, picking my own fences, choosing lines that would challenge my pony and looking for our distances. Riding off instinct since I hadn’t walked out the course.

  When we were done, I let him walk. He hung his head down to stretch his neck out and I patted him and told him he was a good boy. And I was glad that I had brought him along on the road because with him here, I didn’t feel so alone. Plus, I knew that for the most part he would behave. Arion was just as talented but he could be a hot head sometimes and I wanted to try and concentrate on myself this time and not trying to stay alive while my horse went ballistic from one show to the next.

  I didn’t realize that anyone had been watching me until I walked over to the gate and found Rae standing there with a can of soda in one hand and her phone in the other.

  “I wondered where you’d got to,” she said. “But the other girl said I might find you out here.”

  “Hanna,” I said.

  “Yes, Hanna. Sorry, I’m terrible at remembering names.” She sighed.

  “Me too. I think everyone should wear nametags,” I said.

  “Not a bad idea.” She nodded as I jumped to the ground. “By the way, I see what you mean about your pony.”

  “Thanks,” I replied, my face turning red. I stuck it under the saddle flap as I loosened Bluebird’s girth so that Rae wouldn’t see that I was embarrassed.

  “And now that I know you can actually ride, I’ll know what classes to enter you in at the next show.”

  She looked at her phone while she was talking. It was almost as if she couldn’t be bothered to pay total attention to me but all I heard was that she was going to enter us in classes and that was enough for me.

  “You really meant it then?” I asked her.

  “Of course,” she said, finally looking at me. “I mean what I say. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I’ve been warned about being on the road.”

  “Yes well, it’s not all ribbons and roses,” she said. “But we try.”

  And then she was gone, walking away as her phone rung. Talking to someone who sounded like an owner. She was reassuring the person that yes their horse would be fit and ready for the next show and that they shouldn’t worry. Even Rae was stuck babysitting owners as she made her bid for the top of the sport. I walked after her trying not to listen but also admiring the way she kept her cool. I guess part of the job was being a people person after all and if that was the case then Jordan was right, I was going to have to brush up on my people skills big time.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  That night Hanna and I shared a bed in one of the trailers, which would have been fine if it hadn’t turned out that she was one of the worst sleepers in the whole world. First she tossed one way, then the other. She flung the covers off and then pulled them all up again so that all I had was one tiny corner. At one point she even hit me in the face with her arm but since she was asleep when she did it, my outrage went unnoticed. In the end I took a blanket and curled up on the tiny bench sofa, the hum and rattle of the air conditioning both a blessing and a curse because it drowned out Hanna’s snores but also kept me awake. I was hopeful that after a few days on the road I’d be so tired that it wouldn’t matter and I’d practically be unconscious as soon as my head hit the pillow but I wasn’t there yet.

  Outside there were the usual noises of the Florida wildlife and every now and then a horse would neigh, the sound ringing out into the dark night, echoing and hollow. I thought of my horses at home and missed them terribly. Was Jordan lunging them like he promised he would? Was Dad managing to feed himself? After all, he couldn’t order pizza every night. We couldn’t afford it. And what if Jordan and him were getting too friendly, talking about me behind my back. Or worse, what if Jordan had told my father about the kiss and he’d kicked him out on the spot. I worried most of the night away and only fell asleep right before dawn. I think I maybe got an hour or two of sleep before Hanna was there nudging me and telling me it was time to get up.

  “Why aren’t you in the bed?” she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes after her full uninterrupted eight hours.

  “You try sleeping with you,” I told her, sitting up and feeling the first throbbing of a headache behind my temple. “It’s like sleeping with an octopus.”

  “I’m not that bad,” she said, grabbing a brush and running it through the bird's nest that was now her hair.

  “Fine,” I said. “Next time I’m setting up a camera.”

  “You wouldn’t,” she said.

  “I will if I have to sleep on this hard lumpy thing again.” I pointed to the bench where I’d had to curl myself up like a contortionist just so that I would fit on it.

  “Fine.” She sighed. “Maybe we could take turns.”

  “That sounds like an excellent idea,” I said.

  Though I knew that Hanna would end up right on the floor if she tried to sleep on the bench and flung herself around like she’d done so in the bed. Then again maybe it would cure her. But we didn’t have time to think about the sleeping arrangements anymore because Julio was knocking on the door, telling us that we had to help feed and muck out and that we were pulling out of there in an hour.

  I pulled on my jeans, wondering just where we were supposed to wash our clothes while we were on the road. There were so many things I hadn’t even thought about. Hanna was whining that she wouldn’t have time for a shower and that the one in the trailer only gave out a trickle of water. I had braved the communal showers in the brick block that was next to the toilets, glad that I’d had the foresight to bring along a bathing suit. And as long as you kept clear of the green stuff growing on the walls, it wasn’t so bad. I wondered where Rae showered. She had her own private living quarters in the biggest trailer, which I was actually kind of surprised about. I thought she’d have been one of those riders who went off to the nearest hotel for the night. Rae was gaining my respect more and more but Hanna just wanted to complain about ever
ything.

  “Why do we have to clean the stalls?” she moaned as we buzzed from one stall to the next.

  I'd already checked on Bluebird and given him some good morning kisses and I was hoping that if we got done in time, I’d be able to take him out for some hand grazing before we left and he was stuck in a trailer for the next twelve hours. But that would only happen if Hanna stopped dragging her feet.

  “What did you think we’d be doing?” I asked her, dragging the half full muck tub to the next stall.

  “Riding,” she grumbled.

  I wasn’t sure that Hanna was going to be able to hack it on the road. It was only our second day and she was already full of complaints. I wondered if she’d eventually cave and call Esther, asking her to come and get her. Knowing Esther, she wouldn’t. She’d say that Hanna had made a commitment and that she was bound by it. That she’d have to stick it out. I knew that was what my father would say. He’d never come and get me just because I thought it was too much like hard work.

  “Well we’re going to be stuck in the truck all day so it's good that we get to stretch our legs now,” I said.

  “Do you always have to look on the bright side?” Hanna said.

  I just smiled. Usually I was the pessimist. The one looking at only the bad stuff but I knew how lucky I was to even get this opportunity and that there were a million other girls waiting on the sidelines to take my place if I couldn’t hack it. I was going to prove to both Rae and myself that I could and since I didn’t want to let Esther down either, I was going to drag Hanna along for the ride too and make sure that she didn’t give up, no matter what she said.