“I knew it,” Dad said, grabbing my arm. “Come here.”
He pulled me further away from the building crowd. It seemed like everyone had hung on to watch the biggest classes of the evening. Mine and my fathers, which was going to be the last class of the night.
“This is about Jess isn’t it? Because she’s all nice and now you think maybe she was never a horrible, spoiled girl. That maybe you were wrong about her and if you were wrong about her then maybe you were wrong about your own talent and your own pony. Yes?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“You’ve told me all along that your pony is the best. You’ve proved it time and time again in the show ring. Why do you think that you’ve qualified for this class? Because your pony is cute? No. Because he can compete with the best. Because he is the best and so are you. Now get your butt up in that saddle and don’t go in that ring unless you are sure that you are going to win because if your pony thinks for a second that you don’t believe in him then he won’t believe in himself either. Now I don’t care if you win or lose but I do care if you don’t go in there and do your best because my daughter has guts. If anyone can pull this off you can.”
He gave me a quick hug, slapped me on the back and then pushed me in the direction of Bluebird, who was being held by Missy and a screaming Owen. He looked at me and nickered, begging me to save him and let him do his job and in that one split second, my heart swelled and I couldn’t remember why I’d ever doubted him in the first place.
CHAPTER FORTY NINE
The course lay before us like a puzzle waiting to be solved. How many strides would I fit in the bending line between the log cabin and the green tree vertical? Would I fit a tight five strides in-between the second and third fence or would I push on and try for four? It was questions like these that I was supposed to have already answered when I walked the course but I still wasn’t sure. I watched other people ride and saw where it rode differently than it had walked and yet I still couldn’t make up my mind. All I knew was that my short legged pony would jump it a lot differently than all those big horses.
“Good luck,” I told Andy as he rode past us into the ring.
“Piece of cake,” he said with a smug grin.
Andy seemed pretty confident and that confidence paid off. This wasn’t a course where you could go in doubting yourself, the course designer had taken care of that. If you doubted for even a second then you’d have a rail. Andy and Mousse went clean but they were only the second pair to do so. The course was taking prisoners with rails and time faults adding up on every round.
“Great job,” I told him as they trotted out of the ring.
“It’s harder than it looks,” he said, wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead because even though the sun had gone down it was still in the high eighties with not a breeze in sight.
Trainers and grooms had buckets of water by the ring, ready to sponge off their sweaty charges when they came out after jumping. Bluebird already had foam on his neck where the reins laid against his hair and we’d only jumped the warm up jump twice.
“If only there was a breeze,” I said.
“If only they’d waived the jackets,” Jess said. “At least if they’d let us jump in our shirts that would have been something.”
I hadn’t noticed that she’d come to stand beside me and now that she had, I couldn’t just walk off without being rude, even though I suspected that Dad was right and she was only trying to intimidate me. I didn’t know what she was worried about anyway. She had one of those fancy soft shell jackets and it wasn’t the bargain basement kind either, it was the super expensive kind. She was probably as cool as a cucumber under there while I was sweating to death in the wool jacket that I’d been given last year by Taylor at the tack store which was now about two sizes too small. One of these days the buttons were going to pop right off while I was soaring over a jump and probably shoot some poor judge in the eye.
I stole a look at Jess’s horse, who was standing there quietly and patiently and not throwing a fit like her horses usually did.
“He’s nice isn’t he?” she said when she saw me looking at him and she didn’t say it in a conceited way either. She just said it like someone who was proud of their horse as she gently rubbed his neck.
“Yes,” I said because I didn’t know what else to say. He was a nice horse. Really nice. Too nice for the old Jess but maybe not for the new and improved version.
“We found him in Europe when I was over there training and just sort of hit it off.”
“You’ve been training in Europe?” I said.
That was where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. To compete on the European circuit and train with all the best trainers over there. To do all the indoor shows and learn how to navigate their tight, technical courses. No wonder Jess had improved so much.
“It was amazing,” she said. “You should go sometime.”
“Yes I’ll just ask my man servant Jeeves to fire up the private jet for me,” I said.
The words just sort of blurted out. I didn’t mean them to but they did. One second I was thinking them and the next I was just saying them as well. Nice Jess brought out the worst in me.
“Sorry,” I babbled. “I mean, yes I hope to do that one day.”
“It’s okay,” Jess said with a laugh. “I wasn’t rubbing it in your face or anything. I was just saying that if you ever get a chance to go, you should.”
“I will, thanks,” I said, my face red. “Good luck.”
Jess and Valor strode off into the ring and I turned away because I couldn’t watch. I knew that they go clear and I knew that they’d probably win the class. Jess had confidence in her horse and herself and if I didn’t get my act together I was going to blow it big time.
CHAPTER FIFTY
I walked Bluebird away from all the people, my feet out of the stirrups and hanging low. He fussed and fretted, wanting to go back to the crowds and the other horses. He knew that he hadn’t jumped his round yet and he was eager to, I could tell. He didn’t doubt his ability to go in there and get the job done and he didn’t doubt me because he knew that I’d always be there to support him. So why was I suddenly doubting myself?
“Do you really think we can do this?” I whispered.
He tossed his head and snorted.
“Am I asking too much of you?”
I didn’t doubt that my pony could do his job but I knew that we all had our limitations. I couldn’t make him any bigger than he was just like I couldn’t make Faith grow faster so that she could ride all the big horses like she wanted and I couldn’t help thinking that maybe this would be our last hurrah. That maybe I’d have to find a new partner to continue on with and maybe it would be Arion or maybe it would be Hashtag or maybe Bluebird would be the one who blew the competition out of the water but for right now, I was going to have to believe that he could do this because faith was all I had left.
CHAPTER FIFTY ONE
The minute we cantered into the ring under the bright lights, my pony puffed himself up as big as any horse. His strides got longer and his neck was all crested. He may have only had the body of a pony but he had the heart of a horse through and through.
“Let’s do this,” I cried as the bell rang.
I knew the time was tight so I had to keep up a good pace but we didn’t want to gallop and get sloppy. Not yet. Our mission was to make it to the jump off where we’d have to face off against Andy and Jess and whoever else made it.
We popped over the first fence and down to the second. I held him together and got five strides between the second and third fence. There was an unrelated distance to the log cabin and then the bending line to the tree jump. We got there in six strides while others had done it in five but that was okay. Then a big gallop to the water jump that was made to look like a miniature lake. Bluebird stretched across it, grunting at the effort it took to hurl his tiny body over the distance but we made it,
thanks in part to all the practice we’d put in at home. By this point in the course I was starting to enjoy myself. I forgot all about the pressure to win and accumulate points for the Talent Scout series. I was just out there to have a good time. We bounced through the double combination and then hopped over the Swedish oxer. It was just like a schooling day back home and a grin broke out on my face because I knew we were going to go clear.
There were three jumps left. Then two. Then the last. I held my breath because having the last fence down was pretty much one of the worst feelings in the whole world and as soon as I thought that I was afraid that I’d jinxed it. Bluebird took off half a stride early and I heard his front hoof tap the top rail and waited for the thud to signal it had fallen but it never came. We blasted through the finish line just inside the time allowed, clear.
Bluebird trotted out of the ring with his ears pricked like he knew he’d just done something amazing and I patted his neck, not able to speak because I was all choked up. I couldn’t believe that I’d ever doubted him. He loved his job just as much as I did and that love we had for jumping and for each other was what had propelled us over each fence.
“Nice,” Andy cried, holding up his hand to high five me.
“Thanks,” I replied, reaching out to slap him.
Dad came over with a bucket and sponge for Bluebird and a bottle of water for me.
“Halfway there,” he said, which I guess was his way of saying congratulations without jinxing me.
Tara and Becka were off to the side, sitting by the rail. Jess wasn’t with them. For a change she was actually taking care of her horse. Feeding him a treat and rubbing his face. Maybe Europe had changed her for the better? Or maybe it had just taught her to hide her sneakiness beneath smiles and politeness.
In the end there were five of us in the jump off. Andy, Jess, me and two other girls. I wasn’t too worried. The jump off was where we excelled. We took the inside turns, the tight lines. We fit through holes that no one else would dream of trying. Sure the other horses had longer legs and more power but they weren’t handy and we were. There was a spot on course between the last two fences where you had to go around an oxer but I’d already planned to squeeze between it and the vertical that was next to it. None of the other horses would dare try. If we were successful, I knew we’d win.
CHAPTER FIFTY TWO
Andy went clean and his time pretty fast. The two other girls each had rails. That left Jess and me and I was going before her because the jump off order had been drawn at random. That meant she’d have the upper hand but this time I didn’t care.
I galloped into the ring letting Bluebird know that this time we were going all in and he didn’t disappoint. He was quick and nimble, galloping like his life depended on it, chestnut ears pricked. When we came to the second to last jump I was ready to turn him. The crowd gasped, they thought we’d gone off course because we had turned the other way but I knew what I was doing. We ducked between the two fences and galloped over the last, shaving seconds off Andy’s time.
The crowd went wild. I patted Bluebird’s neck, tears in my eyes. It didn’t matter if Jess beat us now because I knew that we’d done our best. There wasn’t anywhere on course that we could have saved any more time. That was it. Our best laid out there for Jess to beat if she could.
The old Jess would have copied me. She would have galloped flat out and tried to squeeze her giant horse through the hole that we’d slipped through. A hole that never would have been big enough. The new Jess was smart enough to know that copying me and my nimble pony would never work. She stuck to her own plan and galloped around clean and fast and she just beat Andy’s time but she couldn’t catch mine.
“You won!” Faith screamed, jumping up and down.
“It wasn’t me,” I said. “It was all Bluebird.”
“Congratulations,” Jess said.
“Thanks,” I replied. “Same to you.”
“We’re happy with second, this time,” she added.
But she patted Valor on the neck and he bent his head around to get a sugar cube from her gloved hand. The old Jess would have already handed him off to her groom and be screaming that she needed a new horse because this one wouldn’t win. Maybe she really was different after all.
Bluebird got a giant tri colored ribbon and a neck sash and we accumulated ten points to go towards our total score for the three Talent Scout shows.
“One down, two to go,” I said to Andy as we all cantered around the ring.
He just shook his head and grinned but Bluebird and I were riding high. It felt like we could jump anything. We could jump a building or even the moon. It didn’t matter. Nothing was too big for us.
CHAPTER FIFTY THREE
Bluebird was lavished with treats and washed down with liniment and I wrapped his legs while Dad got ready for his class. It was late. We were tired and so were the horses. Dad looked exhausted after his long day taking care of us and our horses and Canterbury didn’t look that thrilled either. His chestnut ears were pinned. He was used to being tucked in his stall by now back at Fox Run going to sleep, not getting ready to jump in a big class.
“Maybe you should just scratch?” I asked Dad as Canterbury tried to bite his arm. “It’s late, the horses are tired. Can’t we just end on a high note?”
“What makes you think I won’t win and end my day on a high note too?” Dad said.
But I thought he looked just as nervous as Canterbury did. He hadn’t shown since I’d been living with them and I didn’t know why but I felt nervous for him.
“Do you think he’s going to be okay?” I whispered to Missy as Dad rode off to the warm up ring.
“Of course,” she said. “Why wouldn’t he be?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just have a feeling.”
“You won,” Missy said. “Don’t you think your father deserves that too?”
“Yes,” I said.
But I spent ages hanging out with Bluebird, not sure why I didn’t want to go over to the ring. Was I really jealous because my own father was riding a better horse in a bigger class than I had? I wasn’t sure if that was the reason or not but I needed to show my support. I owed him that. I ran over to the ring just in time to see him trot in.
“Good luck,” I called out but I don’t think he heard me.
Canterbury was pumped up. The shadows looked like monsters and the clouds had obscured the moon that had shone brightly earlier making the ring seem darker and more sinister than it had before.
Dad gathered up his reins and Canterbury thundered up to the first fence, jumping it with a grunt. Where Bluebird was light and graceful, Canterbury was heavy and solid. The fences were big and the course hard. I realized that my palms were sweaty and my heart was pounding. I was nervous for my father and I didn’t know why.
They came down to the water and Canterbury balked at it and stuttered on takeoff. He didn’t make it all the way across, dropping a heel in the water. After that he lost his focus. He had a rail at the green tree vertical and both parts of the double down.
“Why doesn’t he just pull up and retire?” I asked Missy. “Canterbury is not on his game today.”
“Your father, pull up?” Missy said. “Are you joking?”
But I wished that he would. Canterbury was racking up faults at every jump now and they were down to the triple combination. It was an oxer to a vertical to another oxer and they were coming in fast. Canterbury jumped in and completely misjudged the middle jump, flailing over it with poles flying. I thought Dad would pull up, circle and regroup but he didn’t. I knew he’d say that pulling up would be teaching the horse bad habits but I could see the train wreck coming and felt completely helpless. Canterbury decided that if Dad wasn’t going to pull him up then he was going to pull himself up. He paused on takeoff and then slammed on the brakes but my father kept going, sailing over his neck and landing on the back rail of the big oxer with a crack. The pole split in two and my father’s lifeless b
ody hit the ground and stay there, not moving.
“Dad,” I screamed.
THE END
COMING SOON
SHOW JUMPING DREAMS #20: DOUBLE STANDARDS
Emily Dickenson won the first phase of the Talent Scout series but none of that seemed to matter the moment her father sailed headfirst over the neck of his horse Canterbury and landed on a jump pole. Riding can be dangerous, everyone knows that but the people who have made horses their lives have come to terms with the fact, until it affects one of their own.
And while her father is in the hospital with Missy by his side, it falls on Emily’s shoulders to take over the running of Fox Run Farm. But the grooms don’t want to take orders from a fourteen year old and neither do the wealthy clients. They want to know when their real trainer is coming back or they’ll be moving to another barn. And a revolt is really the last thing Emily needs when she is trying desperately to hold her life together.
So when a new trainer shows up to help, it seems like things are finally going to be okay. Emily can concentrate on getting ready for the second Talent Scout show and the boarders will stop complaining and everything can go back to normal. But there is something about the new trainer that Emily doesn’t like, a bad feeling that she just can’t shake. And if things seem too good to be true, it’s probably because they are.
DOUBLE STANDARDS: CHAPTER ONE
The ambulance came and took my father away. His lifeless body had been prepped by the paramedics. An oxygen mask strapped to his face. Needles put in his arm. He sort of groaned when they loaded him up and I thought I saw his eyes flutter open for a second but then he was gone again.
Chasing Ribbons (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 19) Page 11