Flame and the Rebel Riders

by Stacy Gregg

  “Penny is riding Tottie instead,” Issie explained.

  “Ginty fired me!” Natasha said.

  “She’s totally crazy,” Aidan sympathised before turning his attention to Issie. “Tom sent me to find you. He’s been looking for you everywhere! He’s been waiting for you at the practice jump.”

  “Ohmygod!” Issie gasped. She was due in the ring straight after Natasha — only Natasha wasn’t riding any more. Penny was! Which meant it was her turn next!

  As she raced toward the practice fence, Issie’s heart was pounding. She could see Tom standing there waiting for her, looking tense as he checked his watch.

  “There you are!” he cried out with relief when he saw her. “Where have you been? We’re totally out of time.”

  “It’s OK,” Issie insisted. “We’ve still got a couple of minutes. They haven’t called my name yet—”

  Suddenly the loudspeaker crackled to life. “Isadora Brown, riding Flame. Proceed now to arena number one.”

  “Ohmygod!” Issie was struck with panic.

  “It’s OK, Issie,” Avery said, as he gave her a leg-up. “The main thing is to keep your cool. We’re out of time, but Flame is already warmed up. You don’t need a practice jump — he’ll be fine. Off you go!”

  “I still have a minute before I have to be in the ring,” Issie pleaded. “There’s enough time, Tom. Let me do one jump!”

  “Issie, there’s not enough time. If you rush him—” Avery began to say. But Issie wasn’t listening. She urged the big chestnut into a trot and circled him towards the practice jump. She took just a moment to eye up the cross rails, getting the practice fence in her sights. Her palms were wet with sweat. How much time did she have? It must be less than a minute by now. Was that enough time to get over the jump and then into the arena and through the flags? Beneath her she felt Flame tense up as she turned him to face the jump. The horse could sense the sudden urgency in his rider. He shook his head, trying to release himself from the hackamore restraining him, and without even thinking about it, Issie fought back.

  “Have patience,” Avery called out to her. “Stop trying to look for the stride. Let the jump come to you.”

  But Issie still wasn’t listening. Her hands gripped tighter on the reins as the gelding fought her even more and then suddenly it was just like the old days at Ginty’s stables—Flame racing at the fence with his head in the air and Issie hauling on the reins.

  In front of the jump Issie threw the reins at him and Flame took two massive strides as if he were readying himself to leap but then, at the last minute, he changed his mind and skidded into the jump.

  Issie felt the horse pull up and went into a defensive position, throwing her weight back and doing her best to hang on as Flame ploughed straight into the rails, crashing into them hard with his chest and scattering them everywhere!

  It had all gone horribly wrong. Flame had refused to jump and had bowled the whole fence over instead!

  “Isadora Brown on Flame — this is your last call. Into the arena now, please!” The voice over the loudspeaker was firm and clear. She had to go into the arena now or she would be disqualified!

  There was no time left for Issie to attempt the practice jump again. With a sick feeling in her belly, jangled nerves and a leaden heart, she turned Flame away from the disastrous practice fence and rode the big chestnut into the arena to begin their round.

  Chapter 16

  Issie desperately needed a moment to settle Flame down—but the clock was ticking. She had run out of time and if she wanted to avoid being disqualified she had to cross the start line right now!

  As she turned Flame towards the flags, the headstrong chestnut began to canter on the spot in anticipation. Their crash just moments before had really rattled his nerves. Issie could sense the tension bubbling under the surface, and she caught a glimpse of Flame’s wild eyes, and the froth of sweat that had already formed on his neck. Flame was on a hair trigger, ready to go totally berserk!

  Trying to keep control, Issie tightened her grip on the reins. But it was like trying to hold back an elephant. Flame ignored her hands, surging forward and bolting at the first jump in a mad panic. Issie had no choice but to try and stay onboard as Flame leapt from too far out and bashed the top rail as he flew the fence, whacking it hard with both hind legs.

  “Stop it, Flame!” Issie shouted angrily at him as she tried to wrestle the gelding back under control. The top rail had fallen, but really they were lucky they hadn’t bowled the whole jump over!

  At that moment Issie felt as if they were back in one of Ginty’s awful training sessions. She had a vision of Flame losing control and mowing down everything in his path. It was as if all the hard work that she had done with Avery had never happened.

  On the sidelines, Avery had his eyes glued on Issie and the big chestnut. They had come so far in the past two weeks, but now, in her hurry to get into the arena, Issie and Flame had fallen apart. The question was, could she pull the horse — and herself — back together again?

  “Come on, Issie,” Avery muttered under his breath. “Stop fighting him and start riding as a team.”

  In the arena, Issie was trying to unravel everything that had gone wrong. Avery was right, of course. She should never have rushed the practice jump. Her panic had got Flame hyped-up when she should have been calming him down. It was all her fault. But it wasn’t too late to fix her mistake. She had spent the past two weeks reschooling this horse with Avery. Surely there must be a way to settle Flame back down again?

  With the next fence still a few strides away, Flame was bouncing up and down on the spot like a jack-in-the-box, fighting her every single step of the way.

  “Flame, easy, boy, easy,” Issie breathed softly to the horse. There was nothing else for it. The fighting and the tension had to stop.

  Issie took a deep breath, sat heavy in the saddle and centered herself. She imagined that she wasn’t even in a showjumping ring any more. She was at home at Winterflood Farm with Tom. This wasn’t a competition—this was training. She remembered Avery’s words. It’s all part of the training. Even the competitions are nothing more than fancy schooling sessions with prizes.

  Staying calm and focused, she checked the powerful Hanoverian, and this time he didn’t fight her. Flame came to a complete halt.

  On the sidelines, Aidan was completely baffled. Issie had suddenly stopped dead after the first jump. “What is she doing in there?”

  “Issie’s doing the right thing,” Avery countered. “She’s getting control back before she continues.”

  In the arena, Issie was talking softly to Flame. “Good boy.” She gave him a reassuring pat on the neck. “It’s no big deal. They’re just little jumps. In fact, they’re so little we’re going to trot them!”

  Keeping a light contact on the reins Issie asked Flame to trot on. She approached the second jump as if it were one of the poles on the ground in her schooling sessions back home, focusing on keeping a steady rhythm and letting Flame have his head, sliding the reins loose to the buckle.

  “She’s trotting!” Aidan was beside himself. “She’ll never make it inside the time if she trots him!”

  Avery disagreed. “She’s doing brilliantly. It doesn’t matter if they make the time.”

  Issie and Flame took two more fences at a trot. Each time, Issie kept totally still and calm, remembering Avery’s words, trying to be patient and waiting for the jump to come to her.

  When Flame took the fourth fence without rushing at all, Issie knew he was ready to canter. By now, she was oblivious to the crowds watching them. She was no longer concentrating on winning. She was a professional rider in training mode.

  Flame cantered on and popped the next two fences as if they weren’t even there. Issie kept him balanced between jumps by sitting back in the saddle to slow his stride. There was the odd moment when she felt the desperate urge to check him with a sharp pull as he came in a little fast or too close to a jump, but she always
resisted it. She knew that Flame needed to learn to gauge his own take-off point, and the horse amazed her every time by rounding up and getting himself out of trouble. As they took the final jump and cantered back through the flags, they had only four faults on the board!

  In the end, it wasn’t the fastest round of the day. The trotting and the fussing had added extra seconds and taken a toll on the scoreboard. Issie and Flame finished up with three time faults along with the four jumping faults. That made seven faults in total. It wasn’t a winning score, but for Flame it was a triumph. As they left the arena to the sound of raucous applause from Aidan, Avery and Natasha, Issie realised she had never been so pleased with a horse in all her life.

  “Wasn’t he great?” Issie was beaming as she rode out of the arena to meet them. “You were right, Tom. He jumped like a champion!”

  “Fantastic!” Avery agreed. “You rode him perfectly.”

  “All he needs is a few more events like this one to get his confidence up,” Issie said as she slid down off Flame’s back. “I just need a bit more time and he’ll be amazing.”

  She looked imploringly at Avery. “Tom, you have to convince Cassandra somehow. She has to understand that Flame is complicated. You couldn’t expect him to win today after all he’d been through. She has to let us keep on training him!”

  “I agree with you, Issie, but I don’t know if Cassandra can be convinced,” Avery said. “She was expecting results today, but there’s no way we’ll be in with a chance for a ribbon.”

  A few moments later, the final scores had been tallied. Issie and Flame had done better than she could have hoped. As expected, their seven faults wasn’t good enough to win a ribbon, but it did put them in fourth place. At the top of the rankings of course, with a clear round and a super-quick time, were Penny and Tottie. Ginty had done exactly what she set out to do—beaten them hands-down in front of Cassandra.

  Compared to Ginty’s win, would Flame and Issie’s fourth place be enough to keep Flame’s owner happy? If Cassandra decided to take him back to Dulmoth Park then Issie couldn’t stop her. She’d have no option but to let him go.

  “What is taking them so long?” Avery looked at his watch. “They should have done the prize-giving for this class ten minutes ago! They’re keeping everyone waiting now. The whole event will end up running behind schedule.”

  As if on Avery’s command, the loudspeaker once again crackled back to life. “Ladies and gentlemen, we apologise for the delay. Could Cassandra Steele please come to the judges’ tent immediately? Cassandra Steele, please come to the judges’ tent now!”

  “I don’t get it…” Aidan looked at the empty arena. “Why aren’t they announcing the winners?”

  There was a look on Avery’s face as if the penny had suddenly dropped. He turned his gaze to the judges’ tent, where a crowd seemed to be gathering.

  “Come on!” Avery said. “The judges’ tent! There’s something happening!” And he strode off across the field towards the tent with Issie, Natasha and Aidan following closely behind him.

  There was an angry crowd gathering at the tent. The competition was now officially running twenty minutes late and frustrated riders had begun to assemble, all of them trying to find out what was going on.

  “Can everybody, please calm down!” A man in a suit was standing on a table just outside the tent addressing the riders. “We apologise for the delay. If you are entered in the next event we will be getting underway shortly. It appears there has been a problem with the previous event and an announcement is about to be made. The next event will start very shortly!”

  “Excuse me.” Avery tapped the shoulder of a woman standing in front of him. “Do you know what’s going on?”

  “Well,” the woman said, “it seems that the horse that just won the last class was given a random drug test and failed it!”

  “A random drug test?” Issie was stunned.

  Avery nodded. “They often send the vet along to do them at the regional competitions.”

  “What would they test for?” asked Issie.

  “Substances that are illegal in competitions,” Avery said, “like bute or capsaicin.”

  “Ohmygod!” Issie gasped. “Tottie will be full of bute!”

  Two seconds later the news crackled out for everyone to hear over the Tannoy. “We regret to announce that in the last class Penny Greville on Tottenham Hotspur has been disqualified. Would the following riders please now present themselves in the arena for prize giving: in first place, Veronica Perkins on Jupiter Jones, second is Chelsea Dunstan on Cleopatra, and third is Isadora Brown on Flame. Please come to the arena immediately to collect your ribbons. We apologise again for the delay.”

  Issie couldn’t believe it. They had come third! Flame had won a ribbon.

  “Don’t dawdle,” Avery said as he legged her up on to Flame’s back. “They might give that ribbon to someone else!”

  It was the longest prize giving Issie ever had to sit through. Not that she was ungrateful to get her ribbon - she was beyond thrilled. But she was also desperate to get back over to the judges’ tent and find out once and for all what had really gone on. As soon as she was out of the prize-giving ring, Natasha came bounding up to her, full of news.

  “It was a random drug test!” She was panting and trying to catch her breath as she spoke. “Ginty was totally furious when the vet told her Tottie had tested positive. She hit the roof — but there was nothing she could do about it. You should see the stuff the vet’s got in his kit. They’ve got these amazing scanners and all he had to do was run them over Tottie’s legs and they could see that Ginty had used capsaicin on her!”

  “So why did it take them so long?” Issie said.

  “They had to do a proper blood test before they could disqualify her,” Natasha continued. “They called Cassandra over because Tottie’s her horse and of course Ginty denied everything — but then I showed the vet where the medicine locker was under the sink in the horse truck and that was it! As soon as they saw the capsaicin they disqualified her on the spot!”

  “Ohmygod, Natasha! Ginty will totally kill you.”

  Natasha rolled her eyes. “Who cares! She’s already fired me. What else can she do? Anyway I was already going to move Romeo to a new stable. I’m fed up with Ginty’s place. I’d like to keep him somewhere nice next time.”

  She smiled at Issie. “Do you think Avery has any room at Winterflood Farm?”

  It turned out that Natasha wasn’t the only one interested in talking to Avery. Cassandra Steele had a business proposition for him.

  “Avery! I’m sure you’ve heard about the scandal?” Cassandra’s sharp tone was even more dramatic than usual. “Clearly you and I have much to discuss. Things will have to change after the developments today. I must do what’s best for my horses.”

  “Absolutely, Cassandra,” Avery said. “We’d love to keep training Flame at Winterflood Farm if that’s what you want.”

  “Good gravy, man!” Cassandra shook her head in bewilderment. “Are you barking? Of course you’re keeping Flame! It’s the others I’m worried about.”

  “I’m sorry?” Avery was confused. “What others?”

  “All my horses!” Cassandra said. “I’ve fired Ginty. I’ve given her the rest of the day to pack her bags and get off the premises. I’ve already sent security guards to accompany her while she picks up her things. They’ll escort her from the grounds and change the codes on the gate so she can’t get back in again.”

  Cassandra pulled herself up to her full height—which wasn’t very high at all—and looked Avery in the eye.

  “With Ginty gone, I’ve got a stable full of world-class horses that need looking after. And that’s where you come in. I’d like to make you an offer, Tom.”

  Cassandra Steele smiled. “I’d like you to take over at Dulmoth Park.”

  Chapter 17

  It was the last day of the holidays. Issie had woken up and felt that strange sense of melancholy that y
ou always get when you know summer is coming to an end. Tomorrow she would be back at school again. Her uniform was already lying on the chair in her bedroom waiting for her. From her bed she could see the blackwatch tartan of her pleated skirt peeking out from beneath the crisp white cotton of her school shirt. Tomorrow she would put her uniform on and begin her fifth-form year at Chevalier Point High School. But today she reached for her jodphurs, pulled on her favourite T-shirt and headed out of the door.

  A week had passed since Cassandra Steele had offered Tom Avery the position of head trainer at Dulmoth Park Stables. Avery had been so shocked at the time, he could barely speak. He just managed to stammer out “I’ll think about it”. The real surprise came on Monday when Chevalier Point’s head instructor phoned Issie up and broke the news that he had accepted!

  “I don’t believe it!” Issie was stunned. “This is huge!”

  “I know,” Avery agreed. “I talked it through with Cassandra and I’ve taken the job — but only with certain conditions attached. I’m more of a cross-country man than a straight showjumper. And it turns out that Cassandra’s keen to expand her business and buy some eventing horses. I’ve taken a good look at Dulmoth Park and I think the farmland has potential. The fields and the forest are perfect terrain — an ideal location for a world-class cross-country course. And with the state-of-the-art stables we can even start our own sporthorse breeding programme.”

  Cassandra had been won over by Avery’s plan to fill the paddocks with future generations of colts and fillies that would grow into great eventing horses. She also agreed when Avery told her that he wanted to hire Verity back as his stable manager.

  “Verity knows the routines and requirements of your horses better than anyone,” Avery pointed out to Cassandra, “and she’s proved that she has the horses’ best interests at heart. She was willing to lose her job to keep Tottie healthy. That’s the sort of dedication that I’m looking for from my team.”