Dark Horse (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 23)

by Claire Svendsen

  And we walked out of the office with our heads held high where about a hundred people were waiting for me to tell them all about how I’d faced a man with a rifle and saved the bears and lived to tell about it.

  “Do you ever think that your life is a little bit out there?” Mickey said when everyone finally went off to get ready for their classes.

  “Yes,” I said. “Every day. It keeps things interesting though.”

  “You could say that,” she said. “But I do worry about you an awful lot.”

  “Thanks,” I said because I wasn’t sure what else to say. I was kind of worried about me too.

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  After the drama of saving the bears, the show hardly seemed important but by the time I’d changed into my breeches and boots I felt like I needed the rest of the day to go smoothly because I needed something normal in my life. Something fun that wasn’t about life or death or big family issues.

  Luckily the costume class was first and since I wasn’t in it anymore, I helped wrangle everyone into the ring. We’d split it into two so the little kids didn’t have to compete with everyone else and so we had nine under tens with their tiny ponies all dressed up as poodles or pirates. There was a princess and a sheep and a pony that looked eerily like Harry Potter. He had the glasses and the scar on his head to prove it.

  In the end I hadn’t had the time to do anything with Bandit so I’d lent him to a little girl who rode with us called Emma who, with the help of her mom, had dressed my little mini up like an owl. He was so adorable it was ridiculous.

  The ponies paraded around the ring one way and then reversed direction and went the other. Cat stood in the middle with Miss, Fontain, who had agreed to assist in picking the winners. And when they called out the numbers and the ponies all lined up in the middle of the ring, my little owl won. I don’t think I’d ever seen a horse as proud as my silly mini was when they pinned that blue ribbon on his halter. Little Emma hugged him and Bandit shook his head and his beak fell off. The Harry Potter pony spooked at the beak, he jumped backwards and stepped on his invisibility cloak that wasn’t so invisible after all and then took off round the ring while his kid ran after him.

  In the end all the ponies, kids and one very happy miniature horse all exited the ring without injuries to a round of applause from the crowd. Then it was the older kids turn.

  I felt a little sad seeing my friends go into the ring without me. Their costumes were all so creative and inventive. Mickey had fashioned an Eiffel Tower out of silver pipe cleaners and cardboard and fastened it to her saddle and she was dressed in a flowing blue dress that was meant to be the river Seine. She was clearly still not over her summer in Paris and whatever had happened there.

  Ethan, who had loudly proclaimed that he was far too old for costume classes, had caved and turned Wendell into a fire breathing dragon and he was the knight, his sword clanking against his boot as he walked. It sounded suspiciously real and not plastic at all.

  In fact all the costumes were authentic and awesome and even though Hashtag’s bones had been good, I wasn’t sure we would have won, especially when I saw Faith. She’d really outdone herself this year. She had on ripped breeches and fake blood and flesh peeling off her face like she was a zombie and Macaroni had the same. It looked like they’d just made it through an apocalypse only not quite because they’d been turned into flesh eaters along the way.

  “Impressive,” I told her as she lurched into the ring.

  She just turned and growled at me, apparently already in character.

  It took longer for Cat and Miss. Fontain to pick a winner this time but in the end Faith won, just like I knew she would the moment I saw her. The way she lurched around the ring like a member of the undead was uncanny and really rather unnerving. I would probably have nightmares about her munching on my brain from now on. And her undead pony looked pretty happy with his blue ribbon, even if he did have fake blood dripping down his forelock.

  “I beat you again,” Faith told her brother smugly.

  “That is the last time I go in a costume class with you,” Ethan told her, even though his knight of the round table deal had won him third place, only narrowly missing out on second by the shark horse and scuba diving girl.

  And from then on it was a mad dash for everyone to get their horses and ponies out of their costumes and into their show attire. I pitched in and helped people get ready because really that was what I was there for and the day wasn’t about me. It was about making sure that the Fox Run crowd had a good time.

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX

  The classes went off without a hitch and everyone seemed to be having fun, even Cat.

  “Maybe I should take some lessons,” she said as she handed out a round of ribbons to the under saddle class. “It looks like fun.”

  “Well it’s harder than it looks,” I said. “But I think you should start riding. You might as well if you are going to be living on a horse farm.”

  “I probably should,” she said with a grin.

  It wouldn’t have been that long ago that I would have done anything to stop Cat from riding. Back then it seemed like if she rode she would be taking my special thing away from me. Horses, the one thing I treasured more than anything were mine and mine alone but now that just seemed silly. Why shouldn’t Cat learn to ride if she wanted to? It wasn’t like she was going to be good enough to compete against me any time soon, unlike Faith.

  Macaroni pulled out all the stops in the pony jumper class, racing around to finish seconds faster than anyone else.

  “That’s two blue ribbons now,” Faith gloated to her brother.

  “Well it’s hardly fair,” Ethan said. “Come to a cross country event and compete against me on my own turf and then see how you do.”

  But Faith’s happiness couldn’t be crushed and I knew she was just glad to be back in the ring with her pony again after he’d been forced to take the summer off due to his non sweating issue. But today that wasn’t a problem. The humidity was low, there were clouds in the sky that the sun peeked through every now and then and a nice breeze. It was the perfect day for a show and like Faith, I couldn’t wait to get my own pony back in the ring.

  “It’s been a while,” I told Bluebird as I tacked him up. “Think you still remember what to do?”

  I wasn’t really worried, even though anyone who jumped anything at our barn had entered the class because my father put up a hundred dollars as the prize money for the winner. He might as well have put up a thousand for the way people were acting. But my father knew how to plot a sneaky course and one by one our riders came out of the ring with faults upon faults. By the time I took Bluebird in, no one had gone clear.

  “Let’s show them how it’s done,” I whispered to my chestnut pony. Then I closed my legs around his sides and we walked into the ring with our heads held high.

  CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

  The course was tough. Dad could totally quit teaching and have a job as a course designer. It hadn’t seemed that hard when I walked it but it was decidedly tricky and Bluebird and I were more out of practice than I thought we were. He got lazy through the double and I didn’t use enough leg and so he had an unlucky rail down, which was more my fault than his but I still came out of the ring disappointed. So much for our big comeback.

  “We’ll go clear next time,” I told him as I patted his neck.

  I knew he’d tried his best. We just weren’t quite back to where we were before.

  Socks was next to go and to say he was excited was an understatement. He seemed to think that having a show at his home barn was literally the best thing in the whole world and he bounced into the ring like a hyper bunny. He was so excited that he had the very first jump down. After that we pulled it together and he settled down and had a lovely round but that was my second horse down with no clears and two people had already gone round clean, one of them being Ethan.

  “That just leaves you,” I told Arion. “And you were just sup
posed to be using this as a schooling round. Now you are my only hope.”

  Arion’s gray ears flicked back and forth as he listened to me. He’d filled out over the past year and was muscled and fit. He was the horse that I wasn’t sure had what it took to be a jumper and now here he was, competing in the same class as my more seasoned horses. And he seemed quietly confident, like he knew this was his time to shine. And maybe it was.

  CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

  Arion walked into the ring quietly and confidently and surveyed the crowd like he was the king of the ring. All of a sudden it was like my willful Thoroughbred had grown up. He knew his job and he loved it and I loved him, which was really all that mattered.

  We cantered easily towards the first jump, the black and white vertical that Socks had clipped but Arion popped over it without touching the rails. We jumped over the yellow oxer, down to the double where Bluebird had pulled a rail and then on to the spooky brush fence. Arion took each fence in stride and before I knew it, we’d gone clean.

  “Good boy,” I said, dropping the reins and patting his neck.

  Arion just looked smug as he sauntered out of the ring.

  “How did that happen?” Dad said as he passed me on his way to adjust the course for the jump off.

  “I have no idea,” I said with a smile.

  I walked Arion around on a loose rein as we waited for the jump off. There were just three of us, me, Ethan and Hazel, a girl who took lessons with us on her horse Promise, a plucky bay mare.

  “Even if you don’t win, you’ll still get third,” I told Arion. “And over a big course like this, that is a huge deal. I’m so proud of you.”

  I lay on his neck and hugged him and he just stood there quietly, watching the world go by and waiting for me to finish.

  “Who is that horse and what have you done with Arion?” Mickey said.

  She came over with a rag and ran it over my dusty boots just like we were at a proper show.

  “It’s weird, right?” I said.

  “No, it’s not weird,” Mickey said. “My best friend trained him. Of course he’s going to be awesome.”

  As we waited Mickey’s words stuck in my head and I thought of Nyx. The horse that wouldn’t be tamed or couldn’t be. And I was okay with that. If I could train the ones like Arion, the ones that had good hearts and souls, then that was all that really mattered.

  “Think you can beat me?” Ethan said, coming to stand beside me.

  “Think you can beat her?” I asked as Hazel rode Promise into the ring. “You know that horse used to compete on the A circuit.”

  “Used to,” Ethan said. “I think we can beat her and you.”

  “You can try,” I said with a wink. “Catch us if you can.”

  CHAPTER FORTY NINE

  Hazel rode a great round. Her mare was neat and tight. She reminded me of how Bluebird was in a jump off, quick as a cat. Ducking and turning through spaces that horses wouldn’t normally squeeze through. She finished clean and she was fast too. She patted her horse’s neck as she came out of the ring.

  “Nice ride,” I called out to her.

  “Thanks,” she replied with a grin. “But it was all Promise. I just sat there.”

  She got off and gave her horse a sugar lump before loosening her girth and running up her stirrups. She was the one to beat and she knew that we’d have to ride like hell to catch her and Ethan did just that. But Wendell was a big horse, far better suited to the great expanse of the cross country course than the tiny confines of our ring and even though he managed to pull off a clean round, his turns were wide and sloppy. He couldn’t beat Hazel and Promise.

  “It’s up to you now,” he said as he rode by.

  “No,” I said under my breath. “It’s up to Arion.”

  It was weird. When I’d pictured the Halloween show in my head it had been Bluebird who had wowed the crowd, my pony jumper returning to his former glory. Instead it had been Hashtag who had stolen the show with his bone demonstration and now my young horse was about to go in and prove that he wasn’t a green horse anymore.

  “It doesn’t matter if you knock a rail,” I told him. “I’ll still be proud of you.” But somehow I knew that he wouldn’t.

  We cantered over the fences easily, keeping our turns tight and clean. I didn’t push Arion like I would have done Bluebird or Socks, I just wanted him to have a good experience but my gray horse seemed to know that this was a jump off anyway. He galloped down to the last fence and flew over it. And as we came out of the ring and I patted his neck while the crowd clapped and cheered, I wasn’t sure if we’d won or not and I didn’t really care because my horse had given me his all.

  It turned out that we did win the class, even though it didn’t really seem fair to win a class that was being hosted by your own farm on a course that your father designed but Dad had been right. No one complained because you couldn’t argue with the clock. We’d been the fastest by two seconds. Hazel and Promise were second and Wendell was third. The rest of the ribbons were awarded to the fastest of the four fault rounds.

  We cantered around the ring, the blue ribbon fluttering from Arion’s bridle, his ears pricked and head high like he was the proudest horse in the whole world and I couldn’t have been prouder because he’d finally had his time to shine.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  As the show wound down and the sun began to set, Dad hauled out the barbeque and a few of the horse show dads pitched in to help cook burgers and hot dogs.

  “This is like the best day ever,” Cat said as she flopped down on the warm grass beside me.

  People had begun bringing their pumpkins over for the carving contest and we’d provided everyone with battery operated candles to place inside them so that they didn’t accidentally catch the dry grass on fire. They flickered and cast an eerie glow on the ground and some of them were really good. There was a unicorn, a show jumper and a dressage horse, which was Mickey’s and it was really well done, the horse performing a piaffe across the orange pumpkin.

  “I asked your mother to come down,” Cat said. “But she wouldn’t.”

  “She doesn’t like horses.” I shook my head.

  “Because of your sister.” Cat nodded. “I know.”

  I couldn’t help wondering what my mother had told Cat. Had she told her all the details that she wouldn’t tell me? Had she told her what really happened that day? Maybe she had but I couldn’t find the words to ask Cat about it. Instead we sat there watching the pumpkins, eating our food in silence until Faith, Ethan and Mickey came over. They flopped down next to us.

  “This is the best show ever,” Faith said. “I think we should have one every month.”

  “No thanks,” I said. “Unless you want to volunteer to do all the work?”

  “Where is the fun in that?” she said, scrunching up her nose.

  “Exactly,” I told her.

  Dakota arrived with a plate piled high with food.

  “Hey, I thought you were doing the costume class with Four?” I said. “Where were you?”

  “Carving my pumpkin,” she said, pointing to a rather oddly shaped pumpkin that had a scary clown face carved into it.

  “Ugh,” I said, holding my hand up to block the gruesome sight. “You could have warned me.”

  “What is the matter?” Dakota said.

  “She hates clowns,” Mickey leaned over me and whispered loudly. “Like really, totally hates them. She’ll probably have nightmares for weeks now.”

  “I will,” I said. “Thanks a lot. Besides, aren’t the pumpkins supposed to be horse themed?”

  “Well that’s dumb because horses aren’t scary at all,” Dakota said.

  “Nyx was,” Mickey said.

  “Anyway,” Dakota carried on. “I’m doing the haunted pumpkin patch with Four.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” I said.

  “No.” She shook her head, looking serious. “We have an understanding, Four and I.”

  “Okay,” I to
ld her. “Just make sure you hang on for dear life because I’m not sure your understanding is the same as his understanding.”

  “You’ll see,” Dakota replied with a smug smile.

  I just hoped I wouldn’t see her tossed off as my former horse reared his way through the noodles and took off with spiders in his mane and tail, never to be seen again.

  CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

  The pumpkin carving contest was judged by votes, just to make sure that it was fair. We had everyone write down their favorite on a piece of paper and put it in a plastic pumpkin and then tallied up the votes and much to Mickey’s delight, her dressage horse pumpkin won. You would have thought that she just won a Grand Prix freestyle or something the way she clutched her blue ribbon with her eyes bright and sparkling.

  “You’re not going to cry, are you?” I said.

  “Oh like you can talk,” she said. “I saw the way you were hugging Arion earlier.”

  “Because I was proud of him,” I said.

  “Well I’m proud of my pumpkin.” She stuck her nose in the air.

  “And I’m glad you won,” I said putting my arm around her.

  “Thanks,” she replied. “I’m glad you won too but you always win. You should be used to it by now.”

  “Not on Arion,” I said.

  And my thoughts wandered to Bluebird and how he’d knocked that rail down. It really wasn’t like him. Maybe he wasn’t back to where he was before or maybe being poisoned had messed him up for good. What if he would never get back to where he was? The thought was so horrifying that I felt physically sick.

  “Are you okay?” Mickey said. “Because you look like you are going to hurl all over me.”

  “I just think I ate too much,” I lied.

  “Me too,” she said. “I don’t know how I’m going to get Hampton through the haunted pumpkin patch.”