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

by Kim Ablon Whitney

  She spotted Linda and Dakota coming toward her and nearly wanted to run and hug them, utterly grateful for their presence.

  “Where’s Gidget?” Linda said.

  “She threw a shoe. After she lost her fake tail. John’s getting the shoe tacked back on.”

  “How was Cassidy?” Dakota asked.

  “Perfect,” Zoe said.

  The class was nearly through by the time John hustled Gidget up to the ring.

  “Are we in time?” he asked, slightly out of breath.

  Linda tightened the girth and pulled down the stirrups while Zoe did up her chin strap and pulled on her gloves. “Barely.” She was going to make a crack about self-sabotage but let it go, deciding to concentrate on the class.

  “I’ll tell Kevin you’re getting ready,” Dakota said.

  As she warmed up Zoe worried what would go wrong next. First, the tail. Then the shoe. Bad things ran in threes, didn’t they? She told herself she was being ridiculous but her mind flitted between what might go wrong in the ring, and Cassidy Rancher and how lucky that girl was to be so young and good, and why John seemed to be happy underachieving.

  As she rode up to the in-gate and saw the course she was about to ride, Zoe’s mind cleared. Thankfully the only thing she was soon thinking about were the jumps and her horse.

  Gidget was maybe the tiniest bit spooky over the new jumps but it only made her jump better. Zoe could feel her skying over the fences, even the high options.

  She finished to John and Linda’s whoops and scores in the low nineties.

  The handy round didn’t have a trot jump, which seemed like a gift from the horse show gods. Instead there were several roll backs, inside turns, and a hand gallop. They came back in reverse order of their first round scores, which meant Zoe came back third to last. Alison sat between Zoe and Cassidy on one of Donnie’s horses—not the one with the late change but his second entry, which had gone better.

  Gidget was slick through all the inside turns and roll backs and she jumped crazy good. She didn’t touch a rail, not even a tiny rub. Zoe really pressed her for the hand gallop too.

  Once out of the ring, she slid off Gidget and gave her a hearty pat while John ran up her stirrups.

  “See what we can do together?” she said to the mare.

  She watched Cassidy’s handy round from the in-gate, pretending to not care as much as she did. In her head, she wished for Cassidy to reveal her human side and flub a distance.

  But her round was flawless and Zoe knew before the whooping had died off and the scores had come in that she wouldn’t beat Cassidy. Not today. The scores confirmed it. Cassidy had won with Zoe in second.

  “Not bad for your first derby with her, “ Linda said as the ringmaster prepared for the awards ceremony and nearby a horde of people congratulated Cassidy, gushing over how well she’d ridden.

  “No kidding,” John said.

  Both of them noticed her looking a little disappointed.

  “You would have liked to beat Donnie,” Linda said.

  “And Cassidy,” Zoe admitted.

  “So basically you’re not happy unless you win?” Dakota said.

  “I’m happy, but yeah, I always want to win.” She glanced meaningfully at John. “That’s the way it’s supposed to be. You’re not supposed to want to come in second.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Zoe was glad that Narrow Lane wasn’t closed on Mondays like most horse show barns. Lessons at Narrow Lane went on as usual. Molly rode and Zoe was so glad to see her. John had brought Molly Gidget’s ribbons and Molly told Zoe she’d hung them up in her room.

  Zoe stayed longer at Narrow Lane than she was required to and still didn’t want to go home to her grim apartment. Instead she popped over to Morada Bay. Linda shouldn’t have been there on her day off but Zoe had the feeling she might be and she was right. Linda was in the office, working on the computer.

  “Hey, girl,” Zoe said as she came into the office.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Linda said. “I was going to text you to see if you could come by.”

  “What’s up?” Zoe said, looking concerned. She couldn’t imagine what was so time sensitive. Had Linda hired someone else? Did she not need Zoe anymore?

  “I went for my MRI this morning.”

  “Oh, right, shit.” Zoe felt like a jerk for not having remembered and for not having asked right away, or better yet, texted her earlier. “I totally forgot. I’m sorry. I don’t know where my brain is. What did they say? Do you get the results right away?”

  “I don’t even know because I didn’t actually have the MRI.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because one of the questions on the form they made me fill out beforehand asks whether you might be pregnant . . .”

  Zoe’s hand flew up to her mouth. “Oh no, you might be pregnant?”

  “No, I am pregnant,” Linda said. “I thought there was a chance I might be since I was late so I told the nurse at the MRI place and she said I shouldn’t have the MRI till I go get a pregnancy test just to make sure so she sent me to the lab at the hospital and I had the blood test and, I’m pregnant.”

  For Zoe, pregnancy always loomed, a probable consequence of her reckless lifestyle. It was why she’d gone on the pill back when she was sixteen but too many times she forgot to take it. She had been late herself a few times and had stressed endlessly about whether she might have to get an abortion.

  So far, somewhat miraculously given her sexual history, she’d managed to avoid getting knocked up.

  “You don’t look like I’m expecting you to look.” Zoe expected Linda to be anguished but her face was placid.

  Linda finally broke into a smile. “I’m happy. I’m very happy.”

  Zoe shook her head like she’d missed something big. “Wait, you’re not married, you just started dating Eamon, and you’re happy? It is his baby, right?”

  “Yes, it’s his.” Linda repositioned the sunglasses she always wore on top of her head. “I’m thirty-six. I’m single. And I’m a horse trainer. These are like the three worst things you can be if you ever want to have a family. I live a nomadic lifestyle in a world where the men get to screw around with pretty girls ten or twenty or even thirty years their junior and no one thinks anything of it. I’ve always wanted to have kids, or at least one kid. I hadn’t really given up. I’d sort of told myself that it was still possible till I was forty at least. But it didn’t look like it was about to happen anytime soon. And now I’m actually pregnant and I’m pretty sure I’m in love with Eamon.”

  “Have you told him yet?”

  “About which part? The baby or the might-be-in-love-with-him?”

  “The baby.”

  Linda looked concerned for the first time that day. “Not yet.”

  “He’s Irish, though,” Zoe said, rushing to reassure her. “They love kids and family. It’s like super important to them.”

  “I know, that’s what I’m praying for. But, honestly, if he doesn’t want this baby, I don’t think I care. I’m having it myself.”

  “Good for you. You totally should,” Zoe said, even though she had no idea what she was talking about.

  Zoe reflected for a moment on the fact that Linda had chosen to share her news with her when she didn’t know the first thing about having kids, or even having a healthy relationship. She was touched that Linda had confided in her, even if it was just because she knew she wouldn’t be the type to judge her.

  “When are you going to tell him?” It seemed like the next logical question.

  “I don’t know. I think I’ll wait till I see him in person again. I guess at HITS. Don’t you think that sounds good? I mean better than doing it over the phone?”

  “Definitely. In person is always better for big news. You don’t want to text, like, guess what? You’re my baby daddy!”

  She and Linda burst out in laughter. “I can’t believe you’re pregnant,” Zoe said. “What about your back? Can you
still have the MRI?”

  “I set up an appointment with my OBGYN for Wednesday. I’m going to ask her.”

  “Are you going to tell the Pearces?”

  “At some point. Not yet. I’m only eight weeks pregnant.” Linda leaned back in her chair and beamed. “I’m going to have a baby!”

  “Yeah!” Zoe squealed. “Let’s go buy a pony!”

  Only Linda chickened out and couldn’t bring herself to tell Eamon at HITS.

  “It’s still really early,” she told Zoe. “Maybe I’ll just wait a few more weeks. Just to make sure it sticks, you know?”

  John brought Gidget to HITS, since he could drive back and forth. It was over an hour drive and Zoe stayed at the show over the weekend so she wouldn’t have to get up insanely early to help Linda.

  Gidget ruled the high performance hunters again. The derby was a national class, which meant less prize money, smaller jumps, and not as many big name horses entered. But Zoe hoped it would have a trot jump in the handy because it would be a good way to try the trot jump at a show. Gidget had been getting better at trot jumps at home but she still tended to raise her head and tense up on the approach.

  Her first round in the derby was great and she led the class going into the handy, which did have a trot jump. It was made of birch rails with lots of greenery on the sides. Zoe tried to calmly channel the mare between her hands and leg on the approach. It was hard because if she was too forceful and used too much leg Gidget would likely break into a canter step before the jump. But if she gave her too soft a ride, she might stick off the ground.

  It was all about reading tiny signals in a fraction of seconds and responding appropriately. As Gidget saw the birch rails, her head came up and her body tensed. Zoe tried to comfort her with her leg but keep her feel of her mouth so she wasn’t abandoning her. She thought she had pulled it off until at the last moment Gidget stuck off the ground. Zoe didn’t get left but it wasn’t pretty—that much she knew.

  She recovered and finished the course well, but the damage was done. She had slipped to fifth place. Fifth place in a national class was just not good enough.

  Back at the barn after the class, Zoe told John she thought they needed to work her in draw reins over tiny trot jumps. “I know you’re not going to like this,” she prefaced her suggestion with. She knew how he’d reacted to her suggesting he try to teach Cruz a lesson about not running through his hand.

  He shook his head the moment he heard the word draw. “No.”

  “She puts her head up and we need to get her to learn to relax and keep her head down and just pop over the jump. I’m not talking about jumping a meter twenty with draw reins on. I’m just talking about tiny, tiny jumps, like cross-rail height.”

  “No,” he said again.

  “Okay, so what do you suggest?” Zoe crossed her arms.

  “We just keep working with her the way we have been.”

  “We don’t have time to keep doing it like that and there’s no sense showing her in the derbies if she can’t win them because she won’t trot the trot jump.”

  “This is what I hate about the show circuit,” John said. “Everything’s a quick fix.”

  “I’m not suggesting anything cruel or illegal. But you said yourself when I first met you that she’s a derby horse and that’s exactly what she is. If you keep playing around with her in the high performance hunters and not showing her in the derbies while you take forever to fix the trot jump issue people are going to decide there’s a reason why you’re not doing the derbies and then you’ll be stuck with a derby horse not showing in the derbies that no one will buy. I seem to recall you said you needed to sell some horses?”

  John gave a reluctant nod.

  “You need to trust me here,” Zoe said. “There’s no use taking her to Fairfield and Lake Placid if she can’t jump a trot jump and it’s a crime to leave a horse this good home.”

  “Who said anything about Fairfield and Lake Placid?”

  “If we go along with Linda’s schedule and do Fairfield, Lake Placid, and Vermont, that’ll give her at least four more derbies before Derby Finals.”

  “Whoa, slow down. Derby Finals?” John said. “Don’t you have to qualify for Derby Finals?”

  But Zoe wouldn’t slow down. She thought maybe if she talked fast John would give in and have to go with her plans. “She qualified at Old Salem. You want to sell your horses, you need to go to big shows. You could totally get Cruz and Dibs sold this summer if you take them and show them.”

  “I’m not sure they’re ready for a show like Lake Placid,” John said, putting her off.

  “You have this idea that all the big shows are like amazing and every horse that walks in the ring is perfectly broke and gorgeous. You need to sit by the ring and watch some of the lower divisions. There’s a lot of trash blowing around those rings.”

  “So you’re saying my horses are trash?” he said playfully.

  “No, I wouldn’t ride your horses, or suggest we go, if your horses were trash. I think you have nicer, better-broke horses than you think you do. But I also think you have some ridiculous assumptions of what the big shows are like. There are so many horses and riders that suck there. That’s why your nice horses would sell in a minute.” Zoe hesitated. “Well, I mean, with me to help broker them. It is who you know after all.”

  John smiled. “So you want a commission?”

  “Actually, I don’t really care, although I am broke. But I’m not angling for a commission.”

  “No, you’d deserve it. I should be paying you for all the riding you’re doing for me, and the help you’re giving me.”

  “I’m not looking for money,” Zoe said. “That’s not why I want you to take your horses. I want you to take them because I think your horses belong there. I guess I thought that’s what you’ve been aiming for? I thought it was what you wanted.”

  “It is,” John said.

  “Good, then let’s go.” To her it was simple.

  “I can’t be away that long,” John said. “I’m supposed to be taking care of the farm and who would ride the horses I left at home?”

  “We could find someone local to ride the horses and so the grass at the farm grows a little longer while you’re gone.”

  “I’d have to pay someone to ride them and do all the barn work I do. Feeding, night check.”

  “Which would be worth it when you sell a horse.” Zoe hoped she wasn’t promising something she couldn’t deliver. But she had to get Gidget better at trot jumps and then she had to get to those shows. “I guess you could also just send Gidget with me and Linda.”

  “I want to go,” John said. “It’s not that I don’t want to . . .It’s my parents and Molly. It’s hard to get her upstairs to her bedroom. Then you have to get her back down again in the morning . . .”

  Zoe felt like an ass again. Of course he couldn’t just take off and leave them. But if he couldn’t go the shows how was he ever going to make a living selling horses?

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think of that. So let me take her then.”

  “Let me think about it,” John said.

  “See, you totally don’t trust me with your horses.” She remembered how John had looked at her the night she’d told him about Donnie and the stealing.

  “It’s not that. I just, I need to think about it. About going to those shows. But I feel like somehow you got me off the topic of draw reins.”

  “Because we already decided she needs to do trot jumps in draw reins and you’re okay with it because you totally trust my judgement.”

  John smiled like he knew he’d been beat. “Fine, we can try it.”

  Of course John didn’t even own a pair of draw reins. But Zoe found a pair in her car, buried beneath a lunge line, several bits, and a few gloves with holes at the ends of the fingers.

  She rode her on the flat and over poles for several days, keeping the draw reins loose. Then she moved onto cavaletti and small jumps. She cantered them first so Gi
dget could get used to the idea of how they felt when she wasn’t adding the stress of the trot jump.

  John watched and seemed to approve.

  “See, I’m not tying her nose to her chest,” Zoe pointed out.

  “Yet,” John joked.

  When she moved to trot jumps, the draw reins definitely helped. They subtly supported what Zoe was trying to achieve. When she turned the corner Zoe would feel Gidget begin to raise up her head and withers and then Zoe would put her leg on while taking a feel on her mouth and with the slight addition of the draw reins Gidget began to stop resisting and accepted keeping her frame. She started to get some good trot jumps where Gidget relaxed and used her back.

  “Draw reins are okay in certain instances for certain riders,” Zoe said. “Riders that know what they’re doing. Are you convinced yet?”

  “Getting there,” John admitted. “Oh yeah—” He ran a hand through his hair, looking slightly uncomfortable. “My parents would really love you to come to dinner.”

  “Me?” Zoe had never been the type of girl parents invited over for dinner. She and John weren’t dating, but she wasn’t even the type of girl friends’ parents invited for dinner. She was the type of girl parents warned their kids against hanging around with.

  “They know how you’ve been helping me with Gidget and how much Molly likes you.”

  “Really? They want me to come over?” Zoe said again.

  “Yes. You. Over. Dinner.” John made a face. “How hard is this? Will you come?”

  “I’ll come,” Zoe said. “Of course I’ll come. When?”

  “I thought maybe after Devon? How about Tuesday? Seven o’clock?”

  Zoe was going to Devon for junior weekend to help Linda. Linda’s back was a little better but she didn’t want to do too much and hurt it again, especially now that she was pregnant. It would be the first time since she was nine or ten that she hadn’t shown at Devon. She’d only be preparing Dakota’s horses. But at least she’d be there.

  “That works.” It wasn’t as if she ever had plans.