Barn Sour (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 26)

by Claire Svendsen

  “So what do we know about him?” I asked Dad. “Other than that he is a royal pain in the butt?”

  “In addition to his unfortunate barn sour issues, he is also scared of just about everything in life.” Dad shook his head.

  “And how old is he again?” I asked.

  “He is seven,” Dad said.

  “What has he done all his life?” I said. “Been stuck in a stall twenty four hours a day?”

  “Pretty much.” Dad sighed.

  I looked at the poor horse. Some people thought that in order to protect their horse, he should never see the outside of a stall. That meant Oscar never got to run and play and learn about the outside world and as a result it scared him. All of it. He was like a person with a very bad anxiety issue. Someone with agoraphobia who was too afraid to leave his house and we were going to have to convince him that the world wouldn’t kill him and we were going to have to do it in one month.

  “Instead of riding him,” I said after I’d got him to settle in the cross ties and had given him a quick groom because he wasn’t really dirty. “How about I just take him for a nice walk? It would be better to show him the property on foot in case he blows up and maybe I can even get him to go in the little paddock. After all as you said before, we don’t have insurance. I can’t afford to get tossed off and break an arm like Faith.”

  “That is true,” Dad said. “All right. Well I’m going to take Canterbury in the ring so if you need anything, just holler.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  But I knew that the last thing I’d want to do would be to yell out and spook my father’s big chestnut while he was riding him, which he hadn’t done much of since we’d moved in. In fact I had a sneaking suspicion that the only reason my father was riding him at all was that he was thinking of selling him again.

  Canterbury had done well at the schooling show and even though he hadn’t done much of anything lately, he’d had a great show season over in Europe a couple of years ago when my father lived there. All he needed was a tune up and a couple of big show wins under his belt and my father could probably get a lot of money for him. Money that we really needed. And I hated to think of the fact that my father would sell his only horse when I had so many but he wouldn’t talk about it. In fact he wouldn’t talk about much of anything.

  “Ready for your walk?” I asked Oscar as I slipped the chain on his halter.

  I wasn’t planning to be rough with him but I also knew that I’d need a decent amount of control just in case he decided to freak out, which was pretty much a given considering his present mental state.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  We walked around the ring while Dad tacked up his horse. Oscar sniffed and snorted at the jumps. He also snorted at the piles of manure and at the leaves that had finally fallen from the trees and swirled around his feet. We walked down the pot holed drive and back again where he spooked at a bush and a tree and then another bush. He said hello to the horses that were outside but wasn’t too sure of their brightly colored blankets.

  Bluebird stuck out his nose so that they could meet but Oscar only gave one little sniff before scuttling backwards. Bluebird’s eyes popped wide open as if to say what on earth is wrong with you?

  “Don’t worry,” I told Bluebird. “He’s just scared of you.”

  My pony puffed up like he understood exactly what I was saying and trotted up and down the fence line like a tiny dressage horse, strutting his stuff. Oscar danced on the end of the lead rope, trying to get away from him.

  “I guess you two won’t be going out together any time soon,” I said.

  I took him to the empty paddock that the foal and his nurse mare usually went in. Today they were still in the barn because the wind was biting cold and it kept raining. That sort of misty rain that wasn’t enough to drive you indoors but that was enough to make you damp and cold.

  I shivered as I walked him around the paddock and let him check it out. There were no trees to scare him. No bushes or shrubs. Nothing but a few buckets hanging on the fence for grain and a water trough. I showed him that it was full of water and then I closed the gate and unclipped his lead rope.

  For a moment he stood there, still thinking that I was holding him. Then I started to back away. He spun on his heels and took off, almost slamming into the fence. Then he turned and came back to me at a full gallop.

  “Please don’t crash through,” I whispered to myself, crossing my fingers.

  For a moment I thought he was going to jump it. For a moment I think he thought about jumping it too but I could see him change his mind at the last minute. He threw himself left and then went round and round in a circle for what seemed like forever.

  “You can throw a tantrum all you like,” I told him. “But this is a paddock and horses go out in them. You can see the other horses from here. You are not alone. You are okay.”

  But I stood there and watched him anyway because there was no way I was going to just leave him alone going round and round in circles for hours on end. And then, just when I thought he was finally going to settle, he trotted up to the fence with his ears pricked and jumped over it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  For a moment I thought that it couldn’t be happening. The fence was at least four feet high and Oscar hadn’t even got a good canter up to it. He just trotted and then hopped over it like it was nothing more than a cross rail. He stood there for a moment looking all proud of himself, then he shook his mane and then took off.

  “Loose horse,” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

  My father was riding in the ring. Canterbury was probably being fresh and naughty. All we needed was Oscar galloping up and setting him off so that he dumped my father again. His ankle was better but in the cold weather I’d caught him walking with a slight limp. He couldn’t take another fall right now and besides, I’d need his help to catch Oscar. We couldn’t afford to have the horse hurt himself on his second day here. We’d just look like incompetent trainers if that happened.

  I ran after Oscar, who of course had made a beeline straight for the ring. He let out a trumpeting whinny and Canterbury answered with a screeching neigh. All I could do was hope that my father had jumped off before anything bad happened.

  By the time I made it round to the front of the house, Dad had caught the wayward horse. He was standing there with Canterbury’s reins in one hand and Oscar’s halter in the other.

  “You couldn’t keep hold of him?” Dad snapped. He sounded annoyed.

  “I put him in the little paddock,” I said breathlessly, clutching a stitch in my side and trying to ignore my throbbing toe. “And he jumped out.”

  “Of course he didn’t,” Dad said. “There isn’t enough room to jump out of that paddock. What did he do, jump it from a standstill?”

  “Pretty much,” I said, clipping the lead rope back on Oscar’s halter. “He just trotted up to the fence and popped right over it.”

  “Ridiculous,” Dad said.

  “Come and see for yourself,” I told him. “I bet he’ll do it again. In fact I bet that is why they stopped turning him out in the first place and you should see him jump. He has scope that you wouldn't believe.”

  “He would have to in order to clear the fence like that.” Dad shook his head. “But I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “Well come on then,” I said.

  It probably wasn’t the best idea to encourage Oscar to do something as naughty as jumping out of his paddock but I bet he’d been doing it his whole life so it wasn’t exactly like we were encouraging bad behavior, only witnessing it so that we could correct it. Though I had no idea how we were going to do that except to maybe build a really tall fence.

  “Go on then,” Dad said as we got back to the paddock where he could clearly see the gate was closed.

  What did he think I had done anyway? Taken time to close the gate before I ran after the horse or let go of the lead rope while I was leading him and made up a story. It wasn’t like my father
to not believe me but he was extra distracted today. I wondered if he’d had a bad ride on Canterbury.

  I opened the gate and led Oscar inside the paddock. He snorted and spooked a bit but I unclipped the lead rope anyway and then closed the gate.

  Oscar just stood there, his sides still puffing in and out after his gallop around our farm. Then he sniffed the ground and snatched a mouthful of hay that had been left behind by the other horses.

  “Well then?” Dad said.

  “I don’t understand,” I replied. “He was going round this paddock before like he was nuts and then he just jumped out. Maybe he’s too tired now,” I said with a shrug.

  “Or maybe it didn’t happen at all,” Dad replied.

  “But Dad,” I said but it was too late.

  Dad had turned and was walking away, taking Canterbury back to the barn. I ran after him, feeling pretty mad that my own father wouldn’t listen to a word I said.

  “He did jump out,” I said. “Why won’t you believe me?”

  Dad took his helmet off with a sigh and was just about to tell me why he didn’t believe me when we heard a panicked whinny. Oscar had suddenly realized that we’d left him all alone out there and we turned just in time to see him jump over his paddock fence and come trotting up to us. He snorted at Canterbury, who stomped his hoof and then got this sappy look on his face. The two horses were scratching each other’s withers by the time I managed to clip the lead rope back on Oscar’s halter again.

  “See,” I said proudly, feeling all vindicated.

  “I don’t believe it,” Dad said, shaking his head.

  “You just saw it with your own eyes,” I told him. “You have to believe it now.”

  “I know,” he said. “And the training schedule for this horse just changed.”

  “Changed to what?” I said.

  “Changed from you babying him around the farm to jumping him,” Dad told me.

  “But what about the owner?” I said.

  “You let me worry about the owner,” he said, pulling Canterbury away from his new best friend.

  “And what is with your horse anyway,” I said, looking at Canterbury's sad face as I led Oscar away. “I thought you said he didn’t like other horses.”

  “I guess he’s getting soft in his old age,” Dad said.

  Too bad he wasn’t the one getting soft. By the time I had put Oscar away he had already come up with a training schedule that involved me jumping the horse four days a week and all I could think about was my poor possibly broken toe that hurt so bad I somehow felt it might be better to just chop it off and be done with it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I was riding Oscar in the ring the next day when Mickey came over. We hadn’t exchanged Christmas presents because she’d been all tied up with her family over the holidays and then she’d been prepping for a dressage show. It was the first time I’d seen her in ages and it felt kind of weird to see her get out of the car.

  “Who is that?” she asked, pointing to Oscar. “He is pretty.”

  “This is Oscar,” I said, patting his neck. “And he is here for training because he is scared of the world but we found out that he can practically jump a house by accident so of course he’s getting jumped now too.”

  “And you are riding without stirrups,” Mickey said, sitting on the fence. “Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

  Very funny,” I said. “We have to practice without stirrups for the Junior Olympic team. It’s part of our homework.”

  “You get riding homework for being on the team?” she said. “Yuck.”

  I didn’t add that I couldn’t ride with stirrups anyway because when I tried it, my toe felt like it was going to explode. I didn’t know how long toes took to heal but this one was killing me. And I still hadn’t told my dad because I didn’t want him to have to spend money we didn’t have by taking me to the doctors and my mother would freak out if she knew and declare all horses dangerous for the millionth time so I kept my mouth shut because really, what could you do for a stepped on toe anyway? Not a lot, I figured.

  “Let me put him away and then we can catch up,” I said.

  “You can finish,” she replied. “I don’t mind watching.”

  “Alright,” I said.

  I trotted Oscar and then cantered him. Although he was a basket case on the ground, he was a nice easy going horse under saddle, even if it had taken me fifteen minutes to coax him out of his stall. In the ring he was settled and focused and I’d jumped him over a couple of low fences and he’d been so bored that I’d raised them up. He cleared them all.

  We cantered across the ring and I asked him to jump the tallest fence we had set up out there, a wide triple bar. He didn’t even struggle over it. I patted his neck as he walked afterwards.

  “Wow,” Mickey said. “You weren’t kidding. Are you guys going to buy him?”

  “I bet we would,” I said. “If we had any money.”

  “Oh right,” Mickey said. “Sorry, I forgot.”

  It was weird to think that we’d gone from running a fancy barn and being upstanding horse people in the community to being the kind that had their horses in their backyard. Now people seemed to think they should feel sorry for us but the truth was that I didn’t really mind at all. Apart from the having less money bit, that sucked. But money was just money and you could always make more of it if you had to. I just hadn’t figured out quite how I was going to do that while I was stuck here working for free.

  “Dad might sell Canterbury,” I said as we walked back to the barn. “Then I guess we could buy Oscar, if his owner wants to sell.”

  “Who is his owner?” Mickey asked.

  “Actually I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t met her yet. She is supposed to come out tomorrow. Anyway, wait until you see the new stalls in the barn,” I added excitedly.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I don’t think Mickey thought that the stalls were as great as I did. She’d been spoiled by her time at Fox Run and her fancy new dressage career and I think she’d forgotten the times we spent at Sand Hill Stables, mucking stalls and not caring that things were falling down around us. Second Chance Farm had brought all that back to me, brought me back to a life that was a little simpler but just as good. Somehow I didn’t think Mickey would ever go back to that time. As it was I couldn’t help noticing that she had a French manicure and was wearing a diamond tennis bracelet. I wondered if it was real.

  “They are nice,” she said as she looked at our second hand stalls.

  “They are better than nice,” I said, showing her the sliding doors and the stall guards we’d found on sale so that the horses could stick their heads out. “Look. And we are going to paint them up too when it is warm enough for the horses to be outside and not get paint all over themselves.”

  “Cool,” she replied.

  The old Mickey would have offered to help. This one probably didn’t want to spoil her fancy manicure. It felt like just yesterday that we’d been promising to see each other all the time but the truth was that I hadn’t seen Mickey in weeks and after this visit, I probably wouldn’t see her again for a while. I wondered if this was what it was like to finally grow apart from your best friend. I felt more at ease with Andy and Rose, my new team members than I did with the girl who stood beside me, looking all awkward and uncomfortable in our rickety old barn.

  “It will get better once we have more money,” I babbled on. “We’ll put in the rest of the stalls soon and this is where the office is going to be. We’ll have a proper tack room and a wash rack right here.”

  I pointed out all the things we planned to do in the future, my voice high and squeaky as I did and I wondered why I suddenly felt like I had to impress Mickey. She was my best friend. She wasn’t supposed to care about fancy stalls and barns but now it felt like it was this giant wedge between us and all it was doing was driving us further apart.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Mickey didn’t stay long
,” Dad said later when I went in the house.

  “No, she had to go,” I said.

  “You didn’t have a good visit?” he asked, probably knowing from the sound of my voice that something was wrong.

  “It was fine,” I said.

  I went up to my room, carrying the present that Mickey had got me for Christmas. It was a makeup set. It had eye shadow and lip gloss and other stuff in there that I wouldn’t even know what to do with. And she’d looked at me when I opened it like I should have been the most excited person on the planet when really all I wanted to do was ask her why on earth she would have bought me such a thing. Instead I just smiled and thanked her as she pointed out the different things in the set and where to put them but I couldn’t even hear her. My ears were buzzing and I felt faint. All I could remember was the Mickey who bought me gifts for my horses at Christmas and how I’d done the same for her.

  “Oh, it’s great,” she’d said as she opened my gift to her.

  It was a leather halter with a nameplate that had Hampton’s registered name on it, Hampton Court. The halter wasn’t brand new but it was a really good make and the leather was soft and supple. I’d spent an hour cleaning and oiling it and when the nameplate came in the mail I polished it and made sure it was set straight on the halter.

  “This will come in really handy as a spare,” Mickey had said, letting the halter slip through her fingers like it wasn’t worthy of her French manicure. It fell on the floor with a thud, the nameplate face down and probably already scratched.