Beginner's Luck (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 18)

by Claire Svendsen

  “I think we’ll pass on these two,” Dad finally said as Tracy chased one of them around with the bridle.

  ‘I’ll get it on in a minute,” Tracy said through gritted teeth.

  “Don’t bother,” Dad said. “Come on Emily, let’s go.”

  “But what about the roan?” I asked.

  “He’s probably worse than these two,” Dad said.

  “He’s not though,” I said, trying not to sound like I was that into him. “He let me pick his feet out.”

  “Something any sane horse should do,” Dad said.

  “Please?” I asked him.

  He looked at me and shook his head.

  “All right,” he said.

  I crossed my fingers behind my back as Tracy approached Four with the bridle. He didn’t get bug eyed like the bays did. Instead he opened his mouth like a well behaved horse.

  “See,” I told my father.

  “It’s a start,” he said. “Just don’t get your hopes up.”

  But my hopes were up. I liked the roan horse. He had a kind eye and seemed sweet. I wanted to rescue him from the run down farm even though my father said we weren’t in the business of rescuing horses.

  “You have to be good, okay?” I whispered as I tightened the girth. “If you want to escape this horrible place then you have to show my father that you have some potential.”

  Only I didn’t know if the horse had any potential or not. He could have been lame or crazy for all I knew. Maybe he didn’t know how to canter on the correct lead or jump anything at all. And maybe he wasn’t meant to come home with us but somehow I just felt like he was.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The roan gelding had been trained at some point by someone. He was not unbroken and unruly like the bays were. In fact he was trying really hard despite being out of shape. He probably hadn’t been ridden in ages. At least that was what it felt like. He was super sensitive to my leg and surged forward any time I lightly applied pressure and in contrast his mouth was a bit dead.

  “Do you want my spurs?” Tracy called out, holding up a pair with big spiky rowels that clinked together.

  “No thanks,” I said as I trotted past.

  “I always ride with them,” she said.

  “I can tell,” I mumbled under my breath.

  It was kind of hard to tell what Four was capable of considering Tracy had been riding him western and he had a big shanked bit in his mouth. I trotted and cantered one way and then reversed and went the other. He couldn’t get his right lead and counter cantered his way around the ring until I finally got him to swap but he was willing and eager. Not once did he pin his ears or act out. I patted his neck and told him that he was a good boy but I already knew that he wasn’t good enough for my father and he was probably right. Four would require months of training. Maybe even years. We were in the business of selling polished show horses not DIY projects.

  “That’s enough,” Dad called out.

  I asked the horse to walk and he did so with a sigh.

  “I told you,” Tracy said. “Well trained that one.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Dad said.

  “Well do you want him or not?” Tracy snapped. “Because I have someone else coming to look at him at three.”

  “We’ll let you know,” Dad said.

  I gave the horse a sticky mint that I found in my pocket and left him in the stall after I’d untacked him. I didn’t want to leave him but I didn’t have a choice.

  “Bye,” I said, leaning over the splintered wood to rub his face. “I hope maybe I’ll see you again.”

  He reached out and licked my hand and I strangled a sob and then bolted past Tracy and out to the truck where my father was already waiting.

  “You don’t want him, do you?” I said as we drove away.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “No.” I sighed.

  “No, really, what do you think?” Dad said. “I want to know. Do you think he would make a good sale horse?”

  “He’s pretty,” I said. “And looks count. He has basic ground manners and he didn’t try to kill me or do anything stupid.”

  “But?” Dad prompted.

  “But I think it would take a lot of time and effort to get him to where we could sell him for a decent amount of money. And of course we have no idea if he can jump or if he even wants to jump. Buying him would be a gamble.”

  “Good girl,” Dad said. “See? You are learning.”

  The trouble was that I didn’t want to learn that I couldn’t rescue all the horses of the world but Missy was right. Horses cost money every month in feed and shoes and board. They weren’t free and each month you kept a sale horse it ate into your return. It wasn’t something I wanted to think about but Dad had forced me to.

  “Maybe we’ll have better luck tomorrow,” he said.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  But I wasn’t sure how many times I could go out there and try horses that we wouldn’t be able to save and bring home because each time I did it felt like my heart was being ripped into a million pieces.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “This looks more like it,” I said.

  It was the next day and we were driving down a shaded drive. This one didn’t have pot holes or scary broken boards and plump, shiny horses were grazing in the grassy fields.

  “This looks expensive,” Dad said. “Remember, if we spend too much on the horse to start with, we won’t turn a profit.”

  “Right,” I said.

  This whole horse resale business was kind of complicated. It was almost like the stock market that the people on TV were always yelling about. Buy low. Sell high. Don’t get attached to your assets. I didn’t know if I could take it.

  We pulled up alongside undented trailers and shiny cars and were met by a tall thin man called Gary, who led us into the barn.

  The stalls were clean and the horses were all in good health. Gary was a retired racehorse trainer who now used his connections to buy up racehorses that didn’t make it on the track and resell them to homes where they would be more suited. Suddenly I felt like I was in my element. I had a special spot in my heart for Thoroughbreds thanks to Arion and I walked through the barn feeling like a little kid in a candy store.

  There were bays and grays and chestnuts. Some had their legs wrapped, rehabbing from whatever injuries had ended their racing careers while others came curiously to the bars to sniff my fingers.

  “I think these were the two I told you about on the phone,” Gary said as he led us to the end stalls. “They both retired sound from the track. The mare ran a couple of races but wasn’t fast enough. The gelding had issues with the starting gate. Both have been ridden by my exercise rider since they’ve been here and have adjusted to life off the track well.”

  I looked into the stalls. The mare was a chestnut with a tiny white snip on the end of her nose. She was sleek and shiny and you could still see the muscles that she had once used to race rippling in the dappled light.

  The bay was a gelding. He was less fit than the mare but he still looked good. They both did. Compared to the train wrecks we’d seen the day before, these horses were amazing.

  “Ready to try them out?” Dad asked me.

  “Ready,” I said with a grin.

  But it turned out that the horses were harder to ride than I’d thought they would be. The mare was super speedy and didn’t like to trot. She also thought that a canter should really be a gallop. I wasn’t sure how long it was since she’d been off the track but it didn’t feel like her racing days were very far behind her. In fact it felt like she was ready to go out and run a race that afternoon. I could see her being good in a jump off but it was going to take a lot of work to get her to settle down in the first place.

  The gelding was the complete opposite. He was lazy and kind of crabby. He nipped at me a couple of times while I was getting him ready and under saddle he pinned his ears as well. When I tried to get him to go off my leg he fussed and f
retted and then he bucked. Eventually I gave up. It didn’t seem worth the fight.

  We went back to the barn where I felt kind of like a failure. If I was a better rider then maybe the horses would have shown more potential. I felt like I’d let them down in some way. They were in good shape and well cared for with decent conformations and no obvious vices. They should have been the perfect horses for us and yet they just didn’t feel like they were and for some reason all I could think about was the roan horse with no name and only a number instead. In spite of all his flaws, he was the one I wanted.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was a relief to get back to the barn and ride my own horses. I was worried that my father would be disappointed in the fact that I hadn’t ridden better but he seemed to be more disappointed in the horses than in me. He was already on the phone, talking to another dealer who said he might have a couple of suitable candidates. I wasn’t sure how much more of it I could take but I didn’t say anything because it was something that my father and I were doing together and it didn’t involve Missy for a change, which was nice. Although I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. Encore had left the day before and my father had told me not to worry because he’d find another great horse for me to ride. So far we hadn’t seen anything that was anywhere near great.

  “At least you are great,” I told Bluebird.

  I tacked him up and took him out to the jump field but my heart wasn’t in it and we ended up out on the trail. The breeze was warm and there were fluffy white clouds in the sky. They raced along and we raced with them, the wind whipping my hair from under my helmet. It felt like we were being lazy just goofing off on the trail so I let my pony hop over the cross country jumps that were out there, the fallen logs and the picnic table. He trotted up the small bank that the students had made and then jumped off, cantering away to a small ditch. It was fun and Bluebird loved it. There was something about being out there and jumping the natural obstacles that was so much more rewarding than jumping over the same poles in the ring again and again.

  After we were done, I let Bluebird walk on a loose rein and kicked my feet out of the stirrups. I wondered what Encore was doing. Had he settled in at the new barn? Was Tara riding him right now? He wasn’t a horse that wore his emotions on his sleeve but even I had seen the confusion in his face as he was loaded into the strange trailer and driven away. I’d patted him on the neck and told him to be a good boy but I knew he didn’t understand. He thought that Fox Run was his new home, his forever home and we’d betrayed his trust by getting him to like us and then sending him on to someone else. I hated the way that it made me feel and I didn’t want to train horses and fall in love with them only to have them ripped away from me. If that was what my father wanted then he could do it himself. I decided that I was going to tell him that I wasn’t going to be a part of it but when I got back to the barn, my father was gone and so was the Fox Run trailer.

  “Do you know where Dad is?” I asked Missy.

  She had Socks in the aisle, tacking him up. He looked at me and I rubbed his face. He then proceeded to wipe some slobber on my arm. I didn’t care. I missed him because even though he was still here, I didn’t get to ride him anymore. He was Missy’s horse, not mine.

  “He went to pick up a horse,” Missy said.

  “A new boarder?” I asked.

  She stood up and looked at me, shaking her head. “No, I don’t think so. Maybe a sale horse? I’m not sure.”

  “Really? Which one?”

  I was almost convinced that my father hadn’t thought any of the projects we’d looked at suitable and to be honest neither had I.

  “If you don’t know, I don’t know,” Missy said with a shrug. “It’s your thing, not mine.”

  She took Socks out to the ring and left me standing there, wondering which horse my father had gone to get and why he hadn’t told me.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I needed to work Arion but I was far too distracted and I wanted to be around to see which horse my father brought back. Part of me was hoping that it was the roan horse that had been numbered four. He was sweet and kind and I could see myself having lots of fun working with him but that was also part of the reason why I hoped it wasn’t him at all. I didn’t want my heart stomped on all over again when he was sold just like it had been with Encore.

  I cleaned all my tack. Then I cleaned the lesson horse’s tack. I straightened up the office and organized the feed room. I was actually sweeping the cobwebs off the front of the stalls when Mickey arrived.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, reaching out to pull a particularly disgusting cobweb from my hair. “Are you being punished for something?”

  “No,” I said. “Can’t I be helpful?”

  “I don’t know?” She looked at me thoughtfully. “Can you?”

  “I’m just trying to take my mind off things,” I said.

  “What things?” Mickey asked. “Winning your pony championship at the show? Yes, I can imagine how you would want to forget all about that.”

  “Very funny,” I said. “I have problems.”

  “You always have problems. Come on.” She grabbed my arm. “Help me get Hampton ready for my lesson and tell me all about your problems.”

  She said the word problems like it was some kind of joke and she probably thought it was but as she groomed her big bay horse, I sat on an upturned bucket and told her all about Encore and the sale horses and the heart ache. Then I told her about the show and the mini Grand Prix and how Jordan had stood me up. Mickey didn’t say anything until I had finished and even then she had to be prompted.

  “Well?” I said.

  “Well what?” she replied.

  “You’re not just supposed to listen. You’re supposed to give me advice as well.”

  “You don’t want my advice.” She laughed. “I suck at advice, remember?”

  I sunk my head into my hands. “I just don’t know what to do.”

  “There doesn’t sound like much you can do,” Mickey said. “Your father is going to bring in whatever horses he wants and you’ll end up riding them because you really want to get experience. Then they’ll be sold but you’ll get new ones to think about instead and so the cycle will start over again and it will all work out in the end.”

  “And Jordan?” I said.

  “Jordan is a butt,” she said, lifting her dressage saddle onto Hampton’s broad back. “Anyone who can stand up my best friend is an idiot and he obviously doesn’t deserve you so I’d just forget about him if I were you.”

  “The funny thing is,” I said. “I kind of already have.”

  “Cool.” She grinned. “See? Problem solved. What else do you want me to fix? World hunger? War? Global warming?”

  “Go for it.” I laughed.

  I followed her out to the dressage ring and plopped down on the warm grass to watch her lesson with Miss. Fontain, all the while keeping an eye on the drive for my father’s return.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I sat on the grass and watched my best friend ride. It was amazing to see how far she’d come. When she gave up the hunters for dressage, I knew it was because she didn’t really like jumping at all but I wasn’t sure that she would like dressage all that much better either. It was full of rules and movements that you had to make your horse do at certain points in the dressage arena. You couldn’t just wing it and hope that you got the right lead or the right striding like I usually did. It was all about precision and Mickey was anything if not completely disorganized and flakey. At least she used to be. She seemed to have found her calling in that rectangle arena and somehow the dressage life had filtered over into her regular one as well. Now she was neat and tidy and always on time and I was the one who was always in a mad dash, forgetting something along the way and invariably messing up.

  “Very nice,” Miss. Fontain called out as Mickey and Hampton did a flying change across the diagonal. It was high praise from her considering she usually didn’t like to tell
anyone that they were doing well at all.

  She beckoned Mickey down to the furthest end of the ring where they started working on some ten meter circles at the sitting trot. Mickey must have been working on her position a lot because she hardly bounced around at all.

  I lay back and put my hands behind my head, staring up at the clouds that raced across the sky. It was hot but not yet uncomfortable. I closed my eyes, listening to Hampton’s hoof beats and the sound of two birds fighting over something.

  It was almost summer here in Florida. Was it warm in Wisconsin now too? Had the snow melted and with it my mother’s heart? After all it was almost mother’s day. She couldn’t stay mad at me if I sent her a fantastic gift, could she? The only trouble was that I didn’t know what that fantastic gift was going to be. There were always flowers or chocolates or maybe a piece of jewelry but I knew that she didn’t really care about that stuff. But what did she care about now? I didn’t know. The grumpy part of me didn’t want to send her anything at all because I wanted her to know that I was now mad at her too for being so childish but I was hoping that maybe I could just be the adult for a change and set a good example. If I took the high road then maybe we could mend our broken relationship. Well at least I was going to send a card anyway. It would be a start and we had to start somewhere. I couldn’t just forget about her. After all she would always be my mother.

  I sat up with a sigh, the relaxed feeling now gone. Why did things always have to be so complicated?

  But as Mickey walked Hampton over to me, her lesson finished, I heard the rumble of the horse trailer and I knew that it was my father, bringing in a new horse for me to ride and it helped to take my mind off my mother.