Last Chance (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 6)

by Claire Svendsen

  He pricked his chestnut ears, searching for more carrots.

  “If Mickey and I were still friends then I’d ask her to give you carrots and take you out on the trail or something but we’re not. I’m sorry boy.”

  He licked my hand and then nudged me with his nose. He wasn’t going to care that I wouldn’t be out to ride him for a whole week but I knew he was going to wonder where all his special treats were.

  “You promise you’ll give him one carrot a day?” I asked Esther. “And you’ll tell him it’s from me and that I’m thinking about him and that I miss him very much.”

  “Do you want to call every day and then I can just hold the phone up to his ear and you can tell him yourself?” Esther said.

  “Would you?” I asked.

  But by the way she looked at me, I knew she was only being sarcastic.

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “I’ve never been away from him this long before. What if he thinks I’ve abandoned him?”

  “The only thing that pony is going to be thinking is that he is so happy to have a whole week off playing in the field and stuffing his face with grass.”

  “I know,” I said.

  But secretly I had a feeling that Bluebird was going to miss me just as much as I was going to miss him.

  “Oh and promise that you’ll keep Faith far, far away from him. Really far, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best,” she said.

  But that didn’t sound good enough. I wasn’t happy until she had promised that without a doubt she would not let Faith near Bluebird. Not to feed him treats, or pet him or to try and groom him. And when I was satisfied, my mother picked me up and drove me to Black Gate, where I hoped that all my dreams would come true.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The drive to Black Gate was quiet. Neither one of us brought up Derek or the horrible way he had acted. I didn’t really know what to say. I’d asked my mother to kick both him and Cat out of the house but she hadn’t. There was nothing I could do about the situation. I was stuck there.

  “Have a good time,” Mom said as she pulled down the drive.

  “Thanks, I will,” I said.

  And since she really couldn’t bear to be around horses for any longer than was absolutely necessary, she deposited both me and my suitcase in front of the barn and drove away. I figured that with me not being there, maybe her life would be a little easier. At least if Derek and Cat got into it, then it wasn’t exactly her problem.

  I looked around the pristine grass fields, wondering if maybe I could just stay here at Black Gate forever. I could see Interstellar, Miguel’s Grand Prix jumper, grazing out in one of the fields with both boots and bell boots all around. I had to wonder how dangerous it was to even let him out to play like a real horse considering he was probably worth a million dollars. But I was glad that Miguel was the sort of rider who would at least give him a chance at a semblance of a normal life when he wasn’t at a show.

  Last time Becka had come barreling out of the barn to greet me. This time no one did. I wandered into the barn and past the stalls, inhaling the sweet smell of fresh shavings mixed with horse. The curious inhabitants came to the bars, their velvet noses pushing through. Others skittered to the back of their stalls, scared by the rumbling wheels of my suitcase.

  The back stalls where we had housed our own mounts during the last clinic were now filled with a motley assortment of horses and ponies. They were not the gleaming specimens that Miguel’s horses were. In fact it looked like someone had just hooked up a trailer, driven to the nearest auction and loaded up with whatever they could get their hands on.

  A pretty gray came to the bars and I tickled her nose. If these were the horses that Miguel expected us to ride then this clinic was most certainly not going to be a walk in the park. And how did Miguel expect to judge us on horses we’d never ridden before anyway?

  The gray was trying to stick her whole nose through the bars so that I could tickle under her chin when I heard footsteps barreling down the steps from the upstairs apartments.

  “You’re here!” Becka cried.

  At least someone was happy to see me.

  “I made it,” I smiled. “All alone and ponyless though. What’s the deal with these guys?”

  “The Rescue Runts?” Becka poked her fingers through the bars to stroke the gray. “Sad, aren’t they?”

  “Rescue Runts?” I said.

  “Yeah, I guess there was this riding stable around here that had been going downhill for a while and then it finally closed and all the horses were pretty much homeless. So Miguel swooped in and bought them.”

  “All of them? But why?” I said. “They don’t look anything like horses that Miguel can actually use.”

  “I think his big plan is to have us fix them up and make them all bright and shiny again and then he can sell them.”

  “In a week?” I said. “Is he crazy?”

  “Probably,” Becka said. “Maybe the people who make the team will be the ones who get bucked off the least.”

  I thought of Bluebird, the perfectly good jumper I had sitting back at home in his field doing nothing while I was going to be working my butt off to whip a neglected horse back into shape.

  “Sounds like fun,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought,” she grinned, looping her arm through mine.

  “So who else is here?” I asked. “Any of the old crew?”

  “Hadley is here,” Becka said. “And Justin.”

  “Good,” I said.

  They had both been at the last clinic and we all kind of bonded over trying to figure out what Jess was up to.

  “At least Jess won’t be here this time to muck everything up,” I said.

  “Think again,” Becka sighed.

  I stopped and pulled my arm out of hers.

  “No way,” I said. “She’s here?”

  “In the flesh,” she said.

  “How?”

  “I have no idea. Her father must be paying Miguel a fortune to try and get her onto the team, especially considering he didn’t even really like her very much the last time.”

  “But her father wants her to go back to doing the hunters,” I said. “That’s why he wants Mickey’s horse. Their vet is probably at Sand Hill right now, doing the pre-lease exam and if he passes that, which he will, then she’ll have him for six months.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Becka shrugged. “She’s here so I guess there isn’t much we can do about it. Besides, look at it this way. Her father can pay for her to attend all the clinics she wants but at the end of the day, that’s not going to buy her a spot on the team. Miguel is going to pick people who can actually ride.”

  “She could still buy her way onto the team,” I sighed. “And be the reserve or something. Just because she gets picked, doesn’t mean she has to ride.”

  “Hey,” Becka looped her arm through mine again. “Look at these horses. They are rough around the edges for sure. If Jess couldn’t ride a fancy jumper imported from Germany, what makes you think she’ll be able to ride one of these guys?”

  But I still had the image of her on Hampton frozen in my mind. All pretty and perfect as he flew over the jumps. She was definitely a bit hit and miss but when she put her mind to it, she actually wasn’t half bad. I just had to hope that this time she didn’t put her mind to it at all.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I tossed my suitcase on the bed and started to unpack. This time there were two boys, Justin and Peter, so they had the room Becka and I had shared last time with the two single beds. We were in the room with two sets of bunk beds so I was sleeping under Becka, who’d already claimed the top bunk and Hadley was on the other with a girl we didn’t know called Lindsey sleeping under her. Jess had managed to snag the single room. Or maybe her father had paid extra to make sure she got it. At this point anything was possible.

  Hadley was listening to music, her headphones letting out only a tiny sound. Lindsey was flipping through
a horse magazine. She seemed pretty relaxed whereas I felt like there were a million bees buzzing around in my stomach. Riding out of shape, half trained horses wasn’t exactly what I had been expecting but as with anything in life, I guessed we just had to roll with the punches. At least I had some experience riding horses that hadn’t been in work for a while.

  “Is Topaz over that cough he had?” I asked Becka, shoving my suitcase under the bed.

  “He’s fine,” she said. “In fact having this whole week off is going to drive him nuts. He gets all cranky when he’s not working.”

  “Bluebird too,” I said. “Although Esther didn’t seem to think he would care.”

  “Well Todd said he might hop up on him a couple of times while I’m gone, just to keep him ticking over.”

  Esther hadn’t volunteered to ride Bluebird but I was kind of glad. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her. It was just that Bluebird and I had a special kind of bond and I was scared that anyone else riding him could mess it up. Even though deep down I knew that was kind of dumb.

  “So how do you think the riding assignments are going to go?” Becka asked.

  “Pull names out of a hat?” I said.

  “If we get to pick, I want the gray,” Lindsey said.

  “If we get to pick, everyone will want the gray,” Becka rolled her eyes. “She’s sweet and doesn’t look like she’d hurt a fly.”

  “In that case, Jess will make sure she gets the gray,” I said.

  It was hard to know what the best plan of action was. Pick the horse that needed the least amount of work and hope that it would make you look the best in the saddle? Or go with the rankest of the bunch and pray you could turn it around enough to make Miguel think you were a miracle worker.

  “They are all as bad as each other,” Lindsey said. “He might as well have gone out and wrangled up some wild mustangs. At least then we’d all be on equal footing. I don’t exactly see how this is going to be a fair fight.”

  And Lindsey was right. Some of the horses could be better trained than others or have more talent at jumping. But it was hard to tell with them standing in their stalls all hairy and out of shape.

  We were called down to the barn lounge just before dark. Miguel’s head groom Dan was there, setting out aluminum trays of food on hot plates. He saw me and waved and I grinned back. It was sort of like coming back to camp, where you had friends that you didn’t see any other time of the year and the counselors were more like older siblings than parents.

  “How is the wonder pony?” Justin came over to stand next to us.

  “Probably missing his walking carrot of a human by now,” I said.

  So far I’d resisted the urge to call or text Esther but I didn’t know how long I was going to last. I certainly knew that I wouldn’t make it the whole week.

  Jess was there, standing alone. The snobby girl she’d befriended the last time around wasn’t here. She obviously didn’t make the cut or have parents willing to shell out the big bucks to buy their way in like Jess did. As we all grabbed our food and grouped together at the tables, she just held her plate and looked awkward. I waved her over.

  “Do you want to sit with us?” I asked.

  Becka looked horrified but it felt like the right thing to do. Offer an olive branch at the start of the clinic and see if she would take it or toss it back in my face. Besides, it just felt wrong to let her stand there. I’d been that girl before. I knew what it felt like and it wasn’t good.

  She sat at the end of the table and ate her food quietly. There were no snarky remarks. No sarcastic put downs.

  “See?” I mouthed to Becka but she just rolled her eyes again.

  Miguel came in just as we were finishing up. He had on breeches and boots, his bare arms tanned to a rich brown. Thin as a whip with a sparkle in his eye and a dimple in his cheek, every girl there let out a collective sigh. And it wasn’t that I didn’t think he was cute too because he was. It was just that I would rather him notice me as a rider than as a girl.

  “Welcome, welcome everyone,” he cried. “You’ve made it this far. Pat yourself on the back.”

  A couple of people did and then looked embarrassed.

  “This is the next level. The final stage. You have come here as one half of a whole. Your equine partners are back at your barns living the good life while you will be working your butts off here.”

  He pulled a bucket from behind one of the tables and held it up. Becka nudged me.

  “This bucket holds your fate,” he said. “In here you will find your new partner and it is up to you to make me think you have been riding this horse for years. Bonds take time but can you figure out what makes a new horse tick in less than a week?”

  Nobody answered.

  “Well I guess we’ll find out,” he laughed.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  He called us up one by one and we pulled pieces of paper out of the bucket. Jess was first. She got a horse called Oasis. Becka got Rufus. I was last. I stuck my hand in the bucket and pulled out the crumpled piece of paper. I unfolded it and saw the name Fury. I didn’t think that was a very good omen.

  Miguel looked down at my piece of paper.

  “Oh dear,” he said.

  I went back to the table, feeling a little sick.

  “Who did you get?” Becka asked.

  “Fury,” I said. “Somehow I don’t think I’ll be the person who gets bucked off the least.”

  “At least yours sounds like it has spunk,” she said. “I got Rufus. That sounds like some old cart horse. I probably won’t even be able to get him over any jumps at all.”

  Everyone was talking and sharing the names of the horses and ponies they had picked. So far the names meant nothing to us and they wouldn’t until we matched them up with the horses outside in the barn.

  “Maybe we can trade with each other if we don’t like who we get,” Justin said, tossing his paper on the table.

  Miguel clapped his hands together and the chatter dwindled to silence.

  “The horse you picked out of the bucket will be yours for the whole week. There will be no switching or trading. Before you leave this room you will write your name and that of your horse on this clipboard.”

  Everyone groaned.

  “There goes that bright idea,” Becka told Justin.

  “Now I don’t expect you to perform a miracle,” Miguel carried on. “I know what I have out there but these are not wild horses. They have all been trained to some degree and jumped over fences in their past. I’m not asking you to start from scratch, just to dig beneath the rust and polish up the silver. Got it?”

  No one agreed. Miguel didn’t seem to like that very much.

  “Well are you excited about this or not?” he said. “Because I have a reserve list of riders that can replace you here at a moment’s notice.”

  Everyone mumbled that they were excited, even though no one sounded like they were. We were all more concerned with getting out into the barn to find out who we were riding. I also had a soft spot for the gray that had come to see me. She was curious and sweet and didn’t look at all like she would be interested in pounding me into the dirt like some of the others did. But somehow I just didn’t think that her name would be Fury.

  “Alright, alright,” Miguel said. “I know you want to see who you are riding. Come and write your names down and then you are dismissed.”

  There was a clattering of chairs as everyone bolted to write their name down.

  “You will all be expected in the ring at nine tomorrow morning and I’m sure you all remember what a stickler I am for turn out so make sure you and your horse are presentable. You will find tack lockers with the names of your mounts in the tack room with everything that you will need.”

  People dashed forward to write their names down, pushing and shoving and then running out into the barn where I could hear cries of both joy and dismay. I waited for the dust to clear. It didn’t really matter anyway. We couldn’t trade or beg to swi
tch. We were stuck with what we had and I was stuck with Fury, who sounded like a horse that might just breathe fire out of its nostrils or something.

  “Good luck with that one,” Miguel said as I wrote my name at the bottom of the list.

  “It’s not going to hurt me, is it?” I asked.

  “I make no promises,” Miguel said.

  Then he just took the clipboard back and walked off.

  “I don’t think he likes me,” I said.

  “I got Rufus,” Becka sighed. “I don’t think he likes any of us.”

  Out in the barn we passed other people who were already in the stalls, fussing over their new horses. To my dismay, Jess was in the stall with the gray mare. Of course she would be. She was the lucky one. She had Oasis, possibly the sweetest of the bunch. There she was, licking Jess’s hand. It was just like Hampton. He liked her because he didn’t know how much she could hurt him and it would be the same with Oasis. Jess would mess her up. A week was long enough for her to fall out with the mare and show her true colors.

  “Oh no,” Becka sighed, stopping in front of the stall of a dirty black horse. “Look,” she pointed. “Rufus.”

  Rufus looked like a miniature cart horse. He had thick stocky legs and a broad rump. He looked over at us and yawned.

  “See,” she said. “He’s never going to jump anything.”

  “Well good luck with that one,” I said. “I have to go and find Fury.”

  It was hard not to be jealous of Jess but I took consolation in the fact that all the other horses were on par with Rufus. There was nothing wrong with them, it was just they were your run of the mill riding school horses. All of mostly indeterminate breed and talent. But I tried to remind myself that Bluebird had looked like that when I found him at the auction and before I rode him, I had no idea if he knew how to jump or even wanted to jump. This was what Miguel wanted us to do. See the hidden potential in the horses before us and coax it out of them like spun silk. It wasn’t going to be easy.

  Fury was in the stall right at the end of the barn. I peered inside, almost afraid that I would find a fire breathing dragon. Instead there was a skinny chestnut pony.