Hunter Derby: (Show Circuit Series -- Book 3)

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  “Gidget’s lucky she’s a horse,” John said. “I’m not sure her temperament would get her very far in life if she was a human.”

  “No,” Zoe said. “It probably wouldn’t.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The few weeks gearing up to the spring show season ticked along with schooling Gidget, helping John with his other horses, and riding for Linda. Soon it was the week of the first Old Salem shows.

  John often took a horse or two to Old Salem. The A show at the gorgeous farm Paul Newman had once owned was right in his backyard.

  Zoe was going to do Gidget in the high performance workings and if that went well the first week, she’d do the derby week two. Zoe would also be helping Linda at Old Salem. Since the show was close she would be able to go back and forth between the home barns and the show, and also fit in her hours at Narrow Lane.

  On Tuesday afternoon, she went over to John’s to help pack up, even though he’d told her he’d handle all the details for the show.

  “Please tell me you hired a groom and he’s meeting us at the show,” Zoe said half-jokingly as he stepped out of the feed room.

  “Don’t you wish,” he said. “But you can relax. I know how to get a horse ready for the ring. So go ahead and get back in your car and I’ll see you at the show.”

  “No, I’ll help. What’s left to do?” She didn’t give him time to protest further and picked up a few buckets from the pile of equipment in the front of the feed room. “Are these going?”

  “You don’t have to,” John said. “I’ve got it all under control.”

  “I know,” she said.

  She was actually happy to help John as much as he needed. Between helping him and riding for Linda, hopefully she’d be so busy she wouldn’t be overcome with jealousy at seeing all her old friends showing all their nice horses.

  Zoe followed behind the trailer. Pulling into the show grounds, she felt nearly weak with nerves and anxiety. She always felt a little excited flutter when she pulled into a show and she usually figured that was just a nice reminder of how much she still loved horse showing after all these years. But this heavy blanket of anxiety was something altogether different.

  John parked temporarily to check the stall chart and Zoe got out to join him. There, in neat grids on the posted board, were all the farm names she knew so well. Autumn Ridge, West Hills, James Sharpe, Inc. And of course Donnie’s farm. All those behemoths had blocks of stalls. She and John had to lean close and search for his two measly stalls, which were next to Morada Bay. Dakota’s horses weren’t coming over to the show till Thursday and Linda had told them to go ahead and share her grooming and feed stall.

  Zoe said a silent prayer of thanks that Donnie wasn’t in her tent, or near it for that matter.

  They got back in their vehicles and she followed John again, past the first few tents with the big rigs with the grooms rushing up and down the ramps, and the few two-horse trailers belonging to the last remaining riders who trailered their own horses and did their own work.

  She and John teamed up to set up the stall, the grooming stall, and get Gidget and Cruz settled. John went to the office and picked up the numbers.

  “I’m putting the numbers in my main trunk, just so you know,” John told her when he got back.

  “You’re not putting Gidget’s in there,” Zoe said, reaching out for him to give it to her. “We’re putting it with her bridle. Any time I ride her we need to have it on or else she can get disqualified from the derby.”

  “I didn’t know that rule,” John said. “I guess I don’t know much about the rules for the international derbies, just the regular ones.”

  “Stick with me, kid,” she said with a grin.

  When it was time for her to ride, Zoe tried to steel herself. She had no choice but face all the people she hadn’t seen since Florida. She told herself just to smile when she saw them and act like nothing had happened.

  What else could she do? She wasn’t the first person to ever go up in flames and leave the horse show world in disgrace for a period and then come back to it. She could either limp in feeling bad about herself or fake confidence. Faking confidence seemed like the right choice.

  The first person she saw was the barn manager for a barn she used to catch-ride a lot of horses for.

  “Hi-ya, Cindy,” Zoe called out, deciding that making the first move would be best. Don’t let it be awkward. Give a bright and chipper hello. A hello that meant: I’m back and I’m doing so well. Look how healthy and well-adjusted I seem! If she did this to enough people, by the end of the day most of the entire show world would have been informed that Zoe Tramell was back and God, did she seem good.

  “Zoe,” Cindy said, almost startling like she’d seen a ghost.

  Zoe could tell Cindy was trying to decide if she should ask where she’d been or how she was doing.

  Cindy settled on, “Great to see you. You look great.”

  “Thanks,” Zoe said. “I am great!”

  This was the way it went as she rode Gidget around the showgrounds. She chirped hellos to grooms, trainers, riders, the show manager who was out and about on his four-wheeler, and the show announcer who was walking from the announcer’s booth to the bathroom. They all seemed genuinely glad to see her and Zoe began to think this was not going to be nearly as difficult as she had anticipated.

  Maybe these people actually liked her! Maybe, in fact, they felt badly for her and blamed Donnie for everything, even the saddle stealing, which of course wasn’t at all related to him but one could argue that the flow chart went: Donnie knocked her around—her self esteem plummeted—making her turn to drugs—and get involved with even worse people—(Étienne)—which in turn led to helping him steal saddles. The flowchart wasn’t exactly accurate but if it made her sympathetic to them, all the better.

  A few, like Cindy, commented on how good she looked, a vague reference to the hell she’d been through. Several asked whom she was riding for. “I’m helping Linda Maro and showing a horse for John Bradstreet,” became her go-to line.

  People nodded and said, “That’s great,” even though they probably had no idea who John was. A few brave ones asked. She simply told them he had a sales barn in Bedford. All true.

  Maybe the truth could set you free because she felt pretty damn good about how this was all going. Except she wasn’t quite ready for the truth to set her free with John just yet. She hoped no one mentioned the saddles or the drugs to him. It was bad enough that he knew she’d been sleeping with Donnie.

  The grand hunter ring was open for hacking and Zoe took Gidget on a tour. She flatted her around, amongst the many trainers getting horses ready for clients. Some had draw reins on their mounts or elaborate bits. Others sat deep in the saddle, over-flexing their horses. A few breezed around in half-seat.

  Zoe made sure to circle around the clusters of jump standards. Gidget seemed relaxed but attentive, the perfect combo for a hunter.

  As she was coming out of the ring, Callie Vish was headed in.

  Callie was a young professional, a few years older than Zoe. They’d partied together a few times on Sunday nights in Florida.

  “Hey, girl, it’s good to see you back in these parts!” Callie said genuinely.

  “Thanks.”

  “Who’s this?” she pointed her reins to Gidget.

  “I got myself a new derby horse,” Zoe said proudly.

  “Really?” Callie gave Gidget a thorough once over. “Cute.”

  “You should see her jump.”

  “Cool.” Callie widened her eyes. “Are you doing better? I was worried about you.”

  “I’m so much better.”

  “Oh, good,” Callie said.

  Zoe spotted John approaching on Cruz. He asked how Gidget was going and said he was going to flat Cruz in the jumper ring. Zoe walked Gidget around the grounds while he worked Cruz. Then they walked back to the barn together.

  The start of the spring show season always felt like a kind o
f rebirth. And the flowers and green grass made Zoe feel hopeful that rebirth was possible for her too.

  Nearly everyone she passed on the way back to the tent said hello to her. She let herself enjoy the way John was seeing her, as a near celebrity walking the red carpet again.

  She noticed some of the women checking John out. Probably wondering if he was gay or straight, and if he was straight if Zoe was sleeping with him.

  “You got a braider lined up?” she asked him.

  “I braid.”

  “Really? Do you braid good?”

  “I think so. This isn’t exactly how you’re used to doing a horse show, huh?”

  “Not really,” Zoe said. “But it’s all good.”

  “Seriously?”

  She gave him a big smile. “Seriously.”

  Zoe was grateful to be back at a horse show with a horse to ride. It wasn’t the six or seven horses she was used to riding but it didn’t matter. The routine and motion of the show was incredibly comforting. The way everything cycled along just like always. The hum of the barns as the grooms finished their last stalls and hoisted riders up onto their first mounts of the day. The smell of bacon drifting over from the food tent. The people coming in and out of the office, there to make a last minute entry change or file a medication report.

  Closer to eight o’clock came the tinny barn calls by the in-gate crew, entreating riders in the first classes to get up to the ring. Then the formal announcement that the show was getting underway and the list of officiating judges. Even hearing the judges’ familiar names was comforting, like hearing a name of a childhood pal. The same judges had scored Zoe so many times before, had judged her from her earliest days on the show circuit. They knew her well, had watched her grow up from pony kid to junior to now professional.

  The high performance hunters went after the first and second years, of which there weren’t a ton. After Gidget’s stall was cleaned, John braided her up. Zoe had to admit John braided well. Maybe not quite as perfectly as the professional braiders but close enough.

  Instead of getting more nervous as the class approached, Zoe felt emboldened. This was what she knew how to do. She knew how to find ten jumps. She knew how to make the space between those jumps look smooth and beautiful. She knew how to be subtle in her aids so the judge sat back in his or her chair, barely marking the card; instead just watching.

  Inside the ring, she was confident and clever. She made good choices and knew how to make things come out right. It was outside the ring that her life tended to go haywire. It was outside the ring that she seemed to have the opposite of good intuition, always making the tragic choices.

  Before she tacked up, she spent a few moments in the stall with Gidget. The mare sniffed her pockets, nibbling on the fabric of her jacket when she didn’t find anything to her liking.

  “I’ll give you a banana after if you’re good,” she told her.

  Gidget shook her head as if she was annoyed by this answer. Zoe turned to leave and Gidget reached out and nipped her arm, just hard enough to make it hurt, but not so hard as to break the skin.

  “I thought you didn’t bite,” Zoe said with a little bit of an edge to her voice.

  Gidget drew back quickly like she was expecting some sort of punishment, her ears flattened and her head down.

  Zoe softened her voice. “Don’t worry, girl. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not that mad. It was a love bite, right? That’s all.”

  Gidget still cowered in the corner. It was a pitiful sight. “Truce,” Zoe said. She softly patted her neck. “Let’s go show them what we can do.”

  More than ever it felt like she and Gidget were aligned in proving everyone who had ever put them down or treated them badly.

  John gave her a leg up and she rode up to the ring for the classes, with him following a few steps behind her. Gidget’s neck looked beautiful, stretched out in front of Zoe with the line of tight braids. Since she was out of her stall, her ears were pricked forward and her expression was happy.

  Zoe sat tall in the saddle, feeling the weight stretch down through her legs into her heels. Every step Gidget took affirmed her confidence.

  The schooling area was full of riders warming up. Grooms held horses by the side of the ring. Trainers conversed with clients.

  Zoe reveled in the familiarity of it all. This was where she belonged. These were her people. She took the mare up to the in-gate and positioned herself so she could look at the courses.

  That’s when she heard the unmistakable voice of Donnie behind her.

  “Lock up your tack trunks, people,” he said loud enough for everyone in the general vicinity of the in-gate, and probably the schooling area too, to hear. “Zoe Tramell’s back in town.”

  Zoe felt all the air go out of her lungs. Leave it to Donnie to be the one person who could cut her to the core. The one person who would sharply remind her of where she’d come from and what she’d done.

  For a short happy time, she’d thought she could move on from what had happened during circuit. She had thought that others were willing to let her move on.

  Not Donnie.

  He wanted to make her remember, and make everyone else remember too.

  She racked her brain to think of a cutting comeback. Something she could say to neutralize the uncomfortable situation. She wasn’t sure if she was imagining it but she swore she heard a few chuckles behind her.

  She had nothing. No smart comeback.

  Her throat had that fuzzy feeling when tears are building up.

  John came to stand next to Zoe, facing her, his hand on Gidget’s neck. “That guy’s an asshole and if you want me to fight him I will.”

  She had been about to cry, but now she burst out laughing. The preposterous image of John fighting Donnie, here at the in-gate, flashed through her mind.

  “You don’t think I can take him down?” John pretended to look hurt. “Because I can. Right here, right now.”

  “He’s not worth it,” Zoe said, a few drops of moisture slipping from the corner of her eyes.

  John made a fist and exaggerated a severe face. “You sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure, but thank you,” she said.

  She could have thrown her arms around him. She could have even kissed him. For saving her with a few joking words.

  For making her see that Donnie wasn’t worth it.

  “When do you want to go?” John asked her.

  “First,” Zoe said.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Some riders didn’t like to go first but those were generally the juniors and the amateurs. The professionals usually didn’t mind. There were certainly times when Zoe wouldn’t have wanted to go first, like in a derby so she could see how the course rode, but there were only six in the high performance hunters, the courses were straightforward, and the longer she waited to go in the ring, the more time she’d have to get nervous.

  The second years wrapped up and the jump crew hustled out to hike the jumps and rake in front of them. Zoe and John headed out to the schooling area. John commandeered one of the jumps; Donnie had the other.

  Now he was using his physical presence to intimidate her. Earlier it would have worked. She might have fallen to pieces.

  But not now.

  Not with John on her side.

  Let him be a prick, she thought to herself. I’m not going to let him get to me.

  Alison Raynes was riding for Donnie now. She was a good rider, not amazing, but solidly good. She was in her mid-thirties and had bounced around from barn to barn since she’d been a junior. She was probably sleeping with Donnie too, although Zoe didn’t know that for sure.

  It was amazing Donnie got anyone to sleep with him but that was the horse show world for you. You could be crass, and not very attractive, and still get laid regularly. If more men knew what it was like they’d take up riding instead of golf.

  “Where the hell did you come from?” Zoe heard him say to John. “East butt-fuck nowhere?”

&n
bsp; “Bedford, New York,” John answered flatly.

  “You know about this girl?” he stabbed a finger in Zoe’s direction where she was cantering Gidget around.

  “You’re acting like a dick,” John said. “And we need to warm-up. So, let’s just agree to not talk and both focus on our jobs.”

  “Do you know who I am?” Donnie said.

  “I don’t really care who you are,” John replied.

  Zoe was coming around the corner. She hadn’t planned to jump quite yet but she decided the best thing to shut Donnie up was to get jumping so she cantered down to the low ramp oxer John had set up. It was either that or run Donnie over, which did sound appealing. She maneuvered a half-turn and John put the back rail up a hole so she could jump it the other way. Mercifully, Donnie shut the hell up for the rest of the warm up.

  “She looks ready,” John said after Zoe finished over a tall vertical.

  “She feels good,” Zoe agreed.

  Donnie finished right after her and trailed her to the in-gate.

  The ring sat empty. The course ready. Zoe just hoped the judge hadn’t taken this moment to take a walk to the blue room.

  “They ready for me, Kevin?” Zoe called out to the in-gate guy as John quickly wiped off her boots and Gidget’s mouth, and slapped on the hoof oil.

  “Yup, head on in.”

  John had barely finished taking off Gidget’s tail wrap as Zoe nudged her into the ring. She had to pass by the judge’s booth on her way to the first jump, a single coming home, and she smiled and said a polite hello.

  Then she kicked Gidget into a canter and nailed the course. Not a distance one hair off. Not a jump that Gidget didn’t show endless scope over.

  Zoe came out of the ring acting calm and composed when all she could think in her head was, take that, Donnie. John looked a little shell-shocked, like maybe he couldn’t believe that this was his horse or that a rider like Zoe was riding his horse.

  “Wow,” he said.

  “She went well, huh?” Zoe said.