Last Chance (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 6)

by Claire Svendsen

  “I am sorry about your friend,” Miguel said. “But sometimes that happens. People realize horses aren’t as safe as they once thought and they don’t want to ride anymore.”

  “Well it will never happen to me,” I stood up. “And I don’t want you to be sorry for me. I want you to train me. I want to make the junior jumper team so that I can learn everything you have to teach me. I’ll do anything for my punishment. Clean stalls. Scrub buckets. But please, you can’t send me home. If my mother finds out that you are sending me home for doing something dangerous then she will never let me ride again.”

  “That’s being a bit melodramatic, don’t you think?” he asked.

  “No,” I shook my head. “It’s not. My sister died in a riding accident when I was five and it’s taken me years to claw my way back into horses. I can’t let one stupid mistake ruin everything I’ve worked so hard for.”

  I’d been reduced to begging but I didn’t even care if it helped me stay at Black Gate. Miguel opened a drawer and pulled out a file. He flipped it open and studied the papers inside.

  “You ride the pony Bluebird, is that correct?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And you rescued him?”

  “From the kill auction.”

  “Admirable,” he nodded. “Your last name is Dickenson?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought I saw something cross his face. A glimmer of recognition and then it was gone. He closed the file.

  “Very well,” he said. “You may stay but I mean it Dickenson, no more jumping over things that are not poles on jump standards. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  “Where have you been?”

  Becka saw me coming down the barn aisle. She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the feed room.

  “What happened? Did you get kicked out?” she asked, leaning against a pile of supplement buckets.

  “Almost,” I said. “I don’t know what happened. One minute I was sure that I was going home and then the next I was allowed to stay so long as I don’t break anymore rules.”

  “I’m so glad,” she hugged me tight. “I don’t want to be stuck here without you.”

  “Well in that case you have to make sure that I toe the line.”

  “Maybe we should find an actual list of rules just to be on the safe side,” she said.

  “Good idea.”

  We found Dan cleaning out Rufus’s stall. The horse was so lazy that he couldn’t even be bothered to spread his poop around. He just did his business and then stood there in it. Not that Dan seemed to mind. I knew those were the easiest stalls to clean, unlike Fury’s where everything ended up ground to a pulp from her constant twirling.

  “You staying or going?” he asked.

  “Most definitely staying,” I grinned.

  “Glad to hear it,” he said.

  “Hey, you don’t happen to have a list of the rules, do you?” I asked.

  “Rules?” he said.

  “You know, barn rules, riding rules. Do this, don’t do that or you might be escorted off the property by armed guards type of rules?” Becka said.

  “There is probably one around here somewhere,” he said. “I’ll try and dig it up for you.”

  “Thanks Dan,” I said.

  “I bet jumping out of the arena isn’t on that rule list,” Becka whispered as we walked away.

  “No but I bet it will be added now,” I whispered back. “No one probably thought of it before.”

  Becka was right, jumping out of the arena was not on the rule list and neither was jumping back in but there were a bunch of other things that I might possibly have done so it was good to have a solid list to stick to. Things like making sure your lead rope never touched the ground and always asking for permission if you were going to enter an area where someone else was already riding.

  “What do you think he’s going to have us do this afternoon?” Becka asked as we dragged our reluctant mounts back to the ring.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But this morning was such a train wreck that it surely can’t get any worse.”

  “Don’t even say that,” Becka squealed. “Find a piece of wood to knock on right now.”

  I wasn’t even anywhere near a piece of wood so I tapped my head but that wasn’t good enough for Becka. She shoved Rufus’s reins into my hand and ran off, coming back moments later with a stick.

  “You’re really serious about this,” I laughed, tapping the sick and then tossing it into the bushes.

  “It’s alright for you,” she said breathlessly. “Jumping out of the arena was probably the worst thing that will happen to you but I’m still waiting for my bad thing.”

  “I don’t think Rufus has a bad bone in his body,” I said. “Look, he’s taking a nap.”

  “Exactly,” Becka prodded Rufus who opened his eyes for a moment and then closed them again. “What if he just lies down to take a nap in the ring? What if Miguel asks us to jump something and he just grinds to a halt in front of the jump?”

  “Well do you have spurs?” I said.

  She looked down at her boots in horror.

  “No, you’re right. I should have put spurs on. This is horrible. And look, Miguel is coming, it’s too late. What am I going to do?”

  “Don’t panic,” I said. “Here.” I unbuckled my spurs and handed them to her. “Put these on. I meant to take them off anyway. Fury doesn’t need them. I think they only make her madder.”

  “Gosh, you’re a lifesaver,” Becka said. “I owe you.”

  I remembered Mickey calling me a lifesaver when I’d helped her braid Hampton’s mane. Now she hated me. I hoped my friendship with Becka wouldn’t end the same way if one of us got picked for the team and the other did not.

  “I see you all made it back,” Miguel said. “Mount up please.”

  We did. Immediately I felt Fury tense beneath me. I patted her neck and tried to calm her down. Every ride didn’t have to be a race. I just wasn’t sure how to let her know that.

  At the last clinic, Miguel would have us ride in the ring in the morning and the jump field in the afternoon to give the horses a change of pace and stop them from getting ring sour. But I guess he figured that after the disaster that was this morning, it wasn’t exactly safe to have us all careening around the fields. Especially when people like me might decide to take a trip over all of the fences.

  So we walked, or at least everyone else walked and Fury jigged. Then we trotted and Fury did what I could only describe as a collected canter, a very, very collected canter. Then everyone else actually cantered and Fury just galloped. And when Miguel set up a cross rail in the center of the ring, her mind just about went into orbit. She snorted at the fence and her muscles were hard as a rock beneath me.

  “It’s okay girl,” I told her, gently stroking her mane.

  But her neck was short and her nose tucked in. She eyed the fence with both apprehension and glee and just like being hit by the lightning bolt that ran down her face, I suddenly knew what had happened to her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  It was relatively easy to fry a jumper’s brain. Too easy. Esther had warned me against it with Bluebird. Galloping over fences at breakneck speeds was fun at first but then the horse would get more and more worked up, the rider resorting to stronger bits and harsher training devices until you ended up with something like Fury. A horse who couldn’t be ridden without getting so worked up that you couldn’t do anything with them. They were broken. Insane in a way. Jumping had gone from being fun to frantic. Poor Fury.

  I walked her down the rail, away from the group and the fences that Miguel was putting up. She jigged until we got to the end, then she stopped.

  “I’m not going to make you jump anything you don’t want to girl,” I told her.

  I knew it would only make her worse. She needed time to decompress without the stress of being expected to jump but how was I going to do that? This was a jumping
clinic. I was trying to get picked for a jumping team. It wasn’t a walk around and give your horse a break team. I had to talk to Miguel.

  I got off and walked Fury over to where he was fixing the fences. People were staring at me again. I was starting to feel like a freak.

  “Can I talk to you?” I asked him.

  “Is something wrong?” he said, putting down the pole and wiping the dirt off his hands.

  “Yes,” I said.

  I told him my theory and hoped it wouldn’t make him mad. He should have been the one to see that the last thing Fury needed was more jumping, not me. And he shouldn’t have put me on her in the first place. She needed an experienced rider, one who could give her back the confidence she had lost. Someone who could make jumping fun for her again. To rebuild her trust.

  “I think you may be right,” he said. “Besides, it’s worth a shot. Take her out in the jump field, you can work out there. She doesn’t need to be in here with horses flying over the jumps while she does nothing.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “Quitting so soon?” Jess said as we walked past.

  Oasis was still being an angel. That horse was never going to give her any trouble. In fact she was making Jess look like she was the best rider in the group but I didn’t have a reply. It did feel like quitting. How was Miguel going to judge me for the team if he didn’t even watch me ride?

  “I think I just gave up my chance of being on the team thanks to you,” I told the pony.

  Her chestnut ears flicked back and forth as we walked out to the field. She was calmer out of the ring. I was able to get her to walk nicely under saddle and I worked on bending and making her supple. No pressure. Just concentrating on relaxing my body and hoping she would follow. I even got her to walk past the fences out there without tensing up and starting to jig.

  There was a soft breeze and it blew over the grass, warming my skin. The sky was big and blue, full of fluffy white clouds that looked like someone had painted them. It was a perfect place and a perfect time and I tried not to feel jealous as Miguel called out instructions to the riders in the ring and cheers erupted when people got it right.

  Instead I slowly and gently asked Fury to trot on a loose rein. Even out here on the grass she tried to run off. Every time I brought her back and quietly asked her again. Eventually I think she got tired of trying and I had it. A pony trotting beneath me on the loosest of reins. I was practically holding them on the buckle and turning her only with my legs. She seemed to like that.

  We worked on walk, trot transitions. Boring stuff. Beginners stuff. But I was re-teaching a pony that was confused and scared, lashing out because no one understood what she was trying to tell them. No one except me. And that made up for everything else.

  I walked Fury back to the barn when I saw everyone else leaving the ring. They were smiling and giggling, talking excitedly about the jumps they had managed to get their projects over and how they were going to body clip and pull manes well into the night so that Miguel would be impressed. I didn’t have anything left to impress Miguel with. My pony was neat and tidy. We’d jumped a fence we weren’t supposed to, twice, and been reprimanded. Now we were destined to walk around the fields for the rest of the week doing no jumping at all.

  “What happened now?” Becka said. “Why did you leave the ring? Did Miguel kick you out?”

  Rufus was panting and sweaty. She still needed to cool him off so we walked around the fence lines.

  “No,” I said. “I asked to leave.”

  “Why on earth would you do something like that?” Becka looked confused.

  “Jumping freaks her out,” I said. “She gets over excited and nervous. I think she’s been run over courses until her poor brain fried.”

  “Well that sucks,” Becka said. “Can’t Miguel give you another horse? This is supposed to be a jumping clinic, isn’t it?”

  “It’s okay,” I said, patting Fury on the neck. “She’s kind of growing on me.”

  But I knew that Becka was right. Maybe I would rehab this pony, not that I could perform a miracle in a week or anything but she was already starting to relax now that I had taken her out of the ring. In a week, who knew how much better she would be. But she wouldn’t be ready to jump the sort of courses we were used to doing in Miguel’s lessons and she wouldn’t be ready for a show in a really long time. Maybe never. She needed more time than I had and I was throwing away all my chances by helping her.

  But when we got back to the barn, she actually stuck her nose in my pocket, looking for her treat and she didn’t pin her ears back. That made it all worth it to me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  The body clipping marathon went on well into the night. There weren’t enough clippers to go around so everyone drew straws. I didn’t need to clip Fury, which was just as well since she probably would have needed a tranquilizer to get anywhere near her with noisy clippers. Instead I helped Becka who had been lucky enough to draw a set of clippers from the first batch.

  “I don’t even know where to start,” she said.

  Rufus was standing in the cross ties, his head hanging down. I think he was a little put out that we were cutting into his nap time but he wasn’t going to waste any energy bothering to show us his displeasure. He was just going to carry on sleeping right there in front of us.

  “Start at the top and work down?” I said.

  “Works for me,” she shrugged.

  She had the big set and I’d managed to snag a smaller set so while she got started on his neck, I tackled his legs. He really must have been part draft horse since he had feathers and everything. They kept getting caught in the clippers.

  “This is going to take forever,” Becka groaned, poking her head over his neck.

  “Just don’t stop,” I said. “And don’t forget to make him look good. You know what Miguel said.”

  “Right,” she rolled her eyes. “Making him pretty is the least of my worries.”

  But I have to say that by the time we were done, Rufus looked like a completely different horse. Without all the hair he was trim and fit and every part a proper riding horse. He stood there, his eyes big, looking around at himself like he couldn’t believe it.

  “He likes it,” Becka laughed.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s just great,” Justin said. “Now hand over the clippers, I’ve got my own wooly beast to hack at.”

  Justin’s horse was a bay called Bear, who was as cute and cuddly as his name suggested and lazy to boot just like Rufus.

  “Need a hand?” I asked him, hoping he would say no. My muscles felt like they were on fire.

  “No, it’s okay,” he said. “Thanks though but Hadley said she’d help me if I help her with Patrick.”

  “Good luck with that,” I said.

  “I know, right?” he groaned.

  Patrick was a black and white pinto who thought it might be fun to run backwards every time Hadley asked him to do something. At least Fury took off in the right direction. I took some solace in the fact that I wasn’t the only one having problems with the horse I had been assigned but so far no one else had been forced to work outside the ring like I had.

  Before bed I stood in the shower and let the hot water soothe my muscles until someone banged on the door and yelled that I’d better not be using up all the hot water. So I reluctantly got out.

  “How would you fix a horse who is too fried to jump?” I asked Becka, sitting on the bed and drying my hair with a towel.

  “Turn it out for a year? Or sell it to someone who likes to trail ride,” she said.

  “Okay, great,” I said. “But that doesn’t exactly help me any does it?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “Fury needs time. That’s not exactly something you can give her. I still think that you should ask Miguel for another horse.”

  “There aren’t any other horses,” I said.

  That night I fell into a restless sleep where I dreamt that Fury was galloping on foreve
r and no matter what I did, she wouldn’t stop. When we got to the edge of the world, which was flat, we fell off.

  “Thank goodness the world isn’t actually flat,” I told Becka when I woke up.

  “What are you talking about?” she leant over the edge of the bed, rubbing sleep out of her eyes and looking at me like I was mad.

  “Never mind,” I said.

  Fury didn’t pin her ears quite as much when I went in to groom her with a Pop Tart as a peace offering. I liked to think that maybe she had figured out I understood her but maybe she just saw me as the tart dispensing girl.

  “Are you going to be good today?” I asked her.

  She replied by almost pooping on my foot.

  We reported out to the ring with the other horses but when Miguel told everyone to mount up, we were dismissed to the field. I left my friends behind and Fury jigged her way out into the sun. When she finally realized that I wasn’t going to make her work in the ring, the jigging stopped.

  We worked on the same things as yesterday but I tried to change them up a little. She was already sour in the ring. I didn’t need her getting sour out in the fields too. We worked on walk, trot transitions like the day before. Half halts and backing up and anything that didn’t seem to stress her out. I was keeping a loose rein when I finally asked her to canter in a circle and when she did without bolting away, I almost cried.

  “Good girl,” I stroked her neck as she cantered over the grass. “Good girl.”

  All in all it was a good morning, except Miguel hadn’t been there to see any of it. But this morning I could hear people getting yelled at for things they should have remembered from yesterday so maybe it wasn’t so bad that we were left to our own devices.

  I brought Fury back into the barn before they were done. She’d completed everything I’d asked of her and that was good enough for me.

  “How is she doing?” Dan asked as I put her back in her stall.

  “Better,” I said. “Hey, do you have time to help me with some poles?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I like rooting for the underdog.”