Victory and the All-Stars Academy

by Stacy Gregg

  “He is in the other team, remember?” Morgan said with a scowl.

  “And it’s a friendly competition and he’s my boyfriend, remember?” Stella shot back sarcastically.

  The next Australian rider entered the arena. It was Bret and his horse Get Smart, trotting neatly in time to the music coming out of the loudspeakers. The song was the classic 60s hit, ‘Puppet on a String’. It had a bouncy beat and Get Smart lifted his legs in a lovely trot, executing a perfect canter down the side of the arena.

  As she watched the others ride, Issie kept running through her own dressage routine over and over again in her head.

  “Ohmygod!” Charlotte groaned as if she were reading Issie’s mind. “I just know I’m going to get into the arena and totally forget all my moves.”

  “Come on,” Stella said. “Watching them is just making us more nervous. Let’s get out of here.”

  Back at the horse truck the girls finished plaiting manes and oiling hooves while Avery consulted his clipboard for the running order.

  “Kate, you’re the captain so you’ll be first. You need to begin your warm-up now,” Avery told her. “You’re due in the arena in thirty minutes. Then it’s Charlotte, then Laura, then Emily. Dee Dee is next, then Stella, Morgan and Issie is the last to go. Pay attention, everyone, because the order that you’re riding in for the dressage will remain the same for the showjumping and cross-country phases as well.”

  Avery looked at his watch. “Any questions? No? Right then! What are you all doing still standing here? Let’s get those horses ready and get in that arena and win!”

  Issie didn’t see the first four tests that her New Zealand teammates rode that day—she was too busy getting Victory ready and warming him up in the schooling zone.

  The brown gelding was a little hotter than usual, as the crowds and the other horses had put him on edge. When Issie was saddling him up, he could hardly stand still, and she tried her best to keep calm herself so she didn’t make things worse by passing her own nerves on to the horse. Could Victory sense the butterflies that were churning in her tummy right now? Thoroughbreds were known for losing their cool in the dressage phase. Issie knew that the worst possible thing would be for Victory to explode with tension during his dressage test and blow their chances before they even reached the showjumping phase.

  Once Issie began to ride him though, Victory seemed to settle into his work and relax. She rode the gelding in serpentines and did figures of eight, cantering on both reins, doing perfect circles. After twenty minutes of this, Victory was ready to go into the ring, but it wasn’t time yet. There were still another three All-Stars to go before them, so Issie joined the rest of her teammates to wait her turn at the side of the arena.

  She arrived just in time to see Dee Dee enter the ring to perform her test. As Dee Dee’s theme song poured out of the sound system, Issie burst out laughing. It was ‘Dancing Queen’! Dee Dee had chosen Abba for her freestyle music!

  ‘Dancing Queen’ faded into ‘Fernando’, another Abba song, as Dee Dee did the most beautiful half-pass across the arena, Floyd crossing his fetlocks neatly without missing a beat.

  Dee Dee’s test was brilliant. Issie watched as Dee Dee finished off by riding her flying changes perfectly down the centre of the arena. She still found it amazing that her room-mate could be such a total klutz in everyday life and yet be such a genius when she was on a horse.

  “She’s aced it!” Avery said proudly as Dee Dee rode out of the ring and headed back to them with a grin on her face. “We still haven’t seen the scores yet, but I’m willing to bet that this is the best test we’ve seen so far today.”

  Dee Dee gave Floyd a huge hug around his milky white neck. “Oh, you are such a fab horse!” she cooed over him. “Good boy!”

  “I can’t believe you did your test to a medley of Abba songs!” Issie said.

  “Of course I did,” Dee Dee grinned back. “Why do you think I’ve been playing Abba non-stop on my iPod since I got here? I was figuring out my dressage moves!”

  Stella was up next and she made quite an entrance, trotting Woody down the centre line to the Madagascar soundtrack. ‘I Like To Move It, Move It’ The music thumped through the loudspeakers and Woody swung his trot along neatly in time.

  It was a tidy test and Avery and Tara looked pleased with the results on the scoreboard. At this stage it looked like the Super Roos and the All-Stars were almost neck and neck, with just two dressage tests left to complete.

  Issie couldn’t watch Morgan do her test. She was too busy giving Victory one last warm-up lap around the edge of the arena. As the last All-Star to ride, she was even more nervous than she expected. The others had all performed so well, she would have to ride her freestyle perfectly if she wanted to make it into the top half of the team scoreboard. She trotted a lap around the outside of the ropes until Morgan left the arena to the sound of applause and the judge signalled to Issie that it was her turn to start.

  Issie stood at the gates and nodded at Avery to start the music. Even before it began, Issie was already playing the song in her head. She had spent the past two weeks trying to get the beat ingrained in her brain, dum-dah-dah-de-dum. Now, as her theme song began to boom over the loudspeaker, she nudged Victory firmly with her heels right on cue and the brown horse rose up into a perfectly timed trot, entering down the centre line of the arena.

  The Black Beauty theme music blared out of the loudspeakers. It was the perfect choice for Victory. The brown gelding seemed to swing his hocks along in time to the rhythm as Issie took him across the arena and asked him to do an extended trot. Issie moved into her half-passes, and Victory began crossing his hind legs expertly as he skipped sideways across the sand like the accomplished schoolmaster that he was.

  Issie tried to focus on her timing, knowing that there were points to be gained if she kept her horse’s stride exactly in time with the music. She didn’t need to worry though. Victory struck off perfectly on all her cues, and when he trotted up the centre line once more to halt for the judge, he came to a standstill precisely at the moment when the music stopped.

  There was more applause from the sidelines as they left the arena on a long rein, and Issie had a huge grin on her face as she gave Victory a slappy pat on his neck.

  “You’re a total superstar,” she told the brown horse. “That was amazing!”

  It was the best dressage test that Issie had ever done. But was it the best of the day? She knew that Dee Dee and Morgan had both aced their tests too, so all she was hoping was that her effort would at least put her near them in the top half of the scores.

  “We won’t have to wait long,” Dee Dee said. “Everything seems to be fast with Express Eventing—even the scoring.”

  She was right. The final dressage scores were posted within minutes and the girls were thrilled. Issie had come third in the All-Stars’ team rankings—behind Dee Dee in first place and Morgan in second.

  Dee Dee’s test had been the top score of the day, but the Super Roos had put in some good tests too and when the top four scores were added up from each team, the Super Roos were in the lead by a slim margin.

  Eventing is a strange business, where the lowest score indicates the winner. So the Super Roos took the lead on a score of 172 compared to the All-Stars’ score of 179. The Super Roos were ahead by only seven points!

  Kate had been the All-Star rider with the fourth highest score and she was beaming with pride. Charlotte came in fifth place and then Laura, Stella and Emily.

  Avery was pleased with the results. “It’s not surprising that Laura and Emily came at the bottom of the field,” he reasoned. “They’re both cross-country specialists really—dressage isn’t their strength and it’s not the reason they made the team.”

  With the dressage out of the way, showjumping and cross-country loomed on the horizon. The riders were given a chance to walk both the courses before lunch break, and the All-Stars had Tara and Avery walking with them.

  The
showjumping circuit had been erected right in the centre of the stadium. It was a very tightly constructed course of twelve fences, all classic post and rails. They had been brilliantly decorated with conifer pots at the corners and white pickets with brightly coloured advertising hoardings for the fill underneath.

  “Don’t let any of that bother you,” Avery said. “In essence, these fences are very straightforward. Watch the striding on the double and don’t cut the corner when you’re riding the line to the last fence.” He looked pleased. “We should see some clear rounds over this course.”

  From the showjumping course the riders walked the line they would take on their horses to reach the pit stop about a hundred metres away. Here, in the roped-off enclosure, they would perform their quick change, aided by their fellow team members, before remounting and riding again.

  “Remember,” Avery said, “that all of this will be done against the clock. You’re racing the whole time.”

  From the pit stop they headed out to face the first cross-country jump, a wooden hayfeeder planted with yellow marigolds along the top of it.

  Issie stood next to the hayfeeder and felt herself tense up as she realised it was the same height as her shoulder.

  “One metre-twenty. I knew Delaney Swift would build them to their maximum height allowance,” Avery said to Tara, looking more than a little worried. “It’s not so much the size of these fences that concerns me though—it’s the course itself. It’s a bit of a maze, isn’t it?”

  He was right. As the girls began to walk the course, they had trouble figuring out which jump came next. Cross-country courses usually flow out over lots of open green farmland, but the Express cross-country had been built inside the confines of the stadium, which meant that to make room for the twenty jumps, Delaney Swift had backtracked and zigzagged over the arena.

  “Take this fence,” Avery said, gesturing to a corner combination that required horses to jump a corner and then go up on to a bank, taking two strides before jumping down again.

  “You’ll be jumping it as fence number six going this way,” he gestured, turning to the right, “and then you jump it again from the opposite direction as fence number twelve, taking the bank first and then the corner.”

  “Tom is right,” Tara agreed. “It’s a complex course. You’ll have to be focused the whole time to stay on track.”

  To make it even more confusing, some of the fences had options. At the seventh jump, the water complex, you could either jump straight in over a narrow brush jump to enter the pond, followed by another even narrower brush in the middle of the water, and then a big wooden retaining wall coming out of the water, or you could go the long way and jump down another retaining wall to come sideways into the water.

  Tara waded out into the water in her Hunter wellingtons to pace out the strides between the brush fences. “The short route over the brush will save at least ten seconds,” she insisted. “With time faults to consider, I want to see all of you taking the shortest route.”

  “It’s all right for her to say ‘take the short route through the water’,” Stella complained as they arrived back at the horse trucks. “But the long route is much easier—isn’t it better to get a few time faults rather than have a refusal and get twenty faults?”

  “I don’t know.” Charlotte shrugged. “If Tara says we should do it then maybe the fast route isn’t as tough as it looks.”

  “At least we’re not going first,” said Laura. “We can watch the Super Roos and see what they do.”

  In the starting box next to the showjumping ring Captain Campbell was lined up and ready to ride. Bendigo Queen was wearing her tendon boots and there was thick white cream smeared all the way down the front of her forelegs, to help her slide over the jumps on the cross-country.

  All eyes were on Shane as the flag dropped and Bendigo Queen cantered out of the starting box.

  “Go, Shane!” Stella shouted.

  “Oh, whatever!” snapped Morgan.

  “What’s up with you?” Stella frowned.

  “Nothing. I just wonder whose side you’re on sometimes,” Morgan replied.

  In the showjumping ring Shane Campbell was proving exactly why he was the captain of the Australian team. He was making the showjumping round look easy as Bendigo Queen took each fence cleanly, without so much as even rocking a pole in its brackets.

  There was a round of applause as Shane left the show ring with a clear round and galloped across the arena into the pit stop.

  Minka and three of his teammates were there waiting. Dobbo held Bendigo Queen’s reins while Nicky helped Shane unbutton his jacket and Kylie stood by holding the back protector and the helmet, ready to help him with his quick change.

  “Hey!” Stella said, pouting. “Why are the girls dressing him?”

  Issie looked over at the showjumping ring where Bret was already beginning his round. “That’s because the girls are the last to ride. You have to rotate your pit team and the others can’t help right now because they’re too busy getting ready to compete.”

  Stella put her hands on her hips in a mock fury. “I’m not interested in excuses! I’m going to go over there and tell them to get their hands off my boyfriend!”

  “You’ll have to be quick,” Kate grinned. “He’s off again!” She looked at her watch. “He got changed in one minute and three seconds!”

  Shane checked his stopwatch as he pressed the mare on through the gates towards the cross-country course. He had been slow in the pit stop and he knew he would need to set a fast pace if he wanted to make it home without time faults.

  Bendigo Queen took the hayfeeder as if it wasn’t even there and galloped on to the next fence, the trakehner, flying over that just as easily. They took the fence after that at a gallop too.

  “Delaney’s course is riding better than I expected,” Avery told the girls as Shane and Bendigo Queen took jump number six, the corner combination, and headed on towards the water complex.

  At the water they took the direct route, just as Tara had said the riders should. Bendigo Queen took the first fence with ease, but as the mare hit the water, she stumbled. Shane tried to pull her back up to her feet and line her up to take the brush, but the angle was tight and the jump was so narrow. The bay mare tried to baulk, then changed her mind as Shane urged her harder and jumped. It was a messy take-off. She lurched forward and her front legs made it over the fence, but her hindquarters didn’t. Dragging her legs over, the mare twisted and tumbled. There were shrieks of horror from the sidelines as Bendigo Queen went down on her back in the water—with Shane Campbell trapped underneath her.

  Chapter 13

  On the sidelines the All-Stars had watched in horror as Bendigo Queen fell on top of Shane. Stella let out a strangled shriek and immediately began to run towards the water jump, with Avery right beside her.

  Bendigo Queen was already back up on her feet before they could reach her. She looked terrified, the whites of her eyes showing as she stood quivering in the water, but she was clearly unharmed. Miraculously, Shane was still holding on to her reins as he stood up beside her. He had emerged from beneath the murky pond surface gasping for air and soaked to the skin, but otherwise unhurt.

  Ryan reached his side first, and took the reins to lead Bendigo Queen out of the way while Shane searched in the muddy water for his whip which had floated off when they fell. As he waded out of the water, Stella came rushing up to him. Issie couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was clear from the way that Shane was vigorously shaking his head and pointing at the jumps with his whip that he was angry with himself and bitterly disappointed with the fall.

  When an ambulance arrived moments later at the side of the water jump, Shane waved it off and insisted that he was all right to walk. He had retired from the competition. There was no point in continuing after his dunking. Any fall on a cross-country course kills a rider’s chances by adding sixty faults. Shane Campbell’s score would be of no use to the Super Roos today.


  As the other Super Roos began to attempt the course, however, many of their scores were no better. The three riders that did try to take the short route into the water complex like Shane were all eliminated. The water was proving to be the real bogey fence, but there were other problems with the course too. Nicky had a clear round, but was over the time and Kylie incurred faults when her horse had a run-out at the corner combination at jump number six. Bret had two refusals at the country-style wooden gates which comprised fence fifteen, earning him forty faults, plus time faults.

  Avery had been right about the event being decided on the cross-country field. The Super Roos who did actually finish the course were incurring massive penalties. The Australian team had previously looked hard to beat. But they had been totally annihilated by the cross-country course. Now the All-Stars’ target was within their sights as the Super Roos sat on a group score of 262 points!

  There was every chance that the All-Stars could win now, but the mood in their camp was far from cocky. As Kate lined up on Costa in the starting box, Avery gave her some last-minute advice on how to handle the course. Then Kate gave a nod to indicate she was ready to go. There was a bang and the flag dropped and Costa sprang forward from the box, riding against the clock.

  Stella, Morgan and Issie were off and running too. The three girls were the last ones in their team to ride, which meant they were the first ones in the pit stop with Tara. This was totally different to their practice sessions back at Havenfields. This was the real thing. In a few minutes Kate and Costa would be in the pit stop and the clock would be ticking. They had to be prepared and there was no room for silly mistakes.

  Kate got the team off to a brilliant start in the showjumping ring. She was always strong in the showjumping phase and the big half-Clydesdale Costa was a naturally careful jumper. The partnership left the jumping arena with a clear round and as they galloped into the pit stop, they were actually ahead of the clock!