Horse Sense

by Bonnie Bryant

  “Interesting idea,” her father said. “I’ve got to hit the rack now. Inspection’s very early.”

  “Me too. Judy’s coming to check Delilah early tomorrow, so even though it’s Saturday, you can still drop me off at Pine Hollow.”

  “Good night, Carole.”

  “Night, Dad,” she said, giving him the great big hug he deserved. “You’re the greatest.”

  FIRST THING MONDAY morning, Carole wanted to talk to Stevie and Lisa. The talk she’d had with her father had made her understand a lot of things—first and foremost that she and her friends really needed one another. She got to the stable especially early to allow extra time, but she’d forgotten that Stevie and Lisa couldn’t have known she wanted to see them. She was just pulling on her second boot when Judy’s truck drove up in front of the stable. She waved at the vet through the dirty window and met her in Delilah’s stall. She’d talk to her friends later, she decided.

  Stevie dashed into the locker area a half hour before class started. She needed every spare moment these days. She finished dressing in a matter of minutes, then started looking for some gear for the gymkhana in the tack box outside Mrs. Reg’s office.

  When Lisa arrived at the stable fifteen minutes before class, she wasn’t surprised to see both of her friends totally occupied. As usual, Carole was with Judy in Delilah’s stall. Stevie was shuffling through boxes of stuff in the tack room. It wasn’t clear what she wanted, but it was clear she wasn’t finding it. Lisa left her alone.

  Once she’d donned her riding clothes, Lisa sat on the fence in front of the stable, waiting for The Saddle Club’s newest member. Estelle usually arrived at the last minute, so Lisa wasn’t going to have much time. What she had to say would only take a moment, but it should be fun. It was always nice to share good news.

  Lisa was wearing her own Saddle Club pin. She knew it was just a pin, although in her opinion, it was a very pretty pin. What was important to her—even more important than the pin itself—was what the pin represented. It told her, and the people who mattered to her, that she cared deeply about horses—that she loved them and could ride them and that, after her friends, horses were about the most important thing in the world to her. She was sure the sun gleaming off the shiny surface of her horse-head pin made it even more beautiful.

  Just then, Estelle’s chauffered Citroën pulled into the drive. The rear door opened slowly and Estelle emerged sedately. That was an interesting thing about Estelle, Lisa thought as she waited for her. There were only about three minutes until class. If she were that late, she’d be running at full speed. Estelle, however, never seemed to be in a hurry. As a result, Max was forever speaking to her about keeping other people (especially him) waiting. That didn’t speed her up, though.

  “Hi, Estelle,” Lisa said brightly, falling in step with the French girl.

  “Oh, good morning, Lisa,” she replied, walking toward the stable.

  “I’ve got some good news for you,” Lisa said, hoping she sounded as cool and sophisticated as Estelle always did.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s about The Saddle Club,” Lisa said. “There was a meeting Friday night and you were voted in.”

  “Voted in?” Estelle repeated. “What does this mean?”

  “It means you’re now a member of The Saddle Club,” Lisa told her, grinning proudly. “And as a member, you’re entitled to wear our pin.”

  “Oh?”

  Lisa was pleased by Estelle’s obvious interest and she handed Estelle her pin. It was wrapped in tissue so it wouldn’t get any fingerprints on it.

  Estelle carefully unwrapped the tissue and then held the pin in her hand for a moment. “It’s a horse head,” she said flatly.

  “Yes, and isn’t it pretty? See how nice and shiny it is? We can all wear our pins on our jackets and that can show other riders that we’re all friends. Here, I’ll help you pin it on,” Lisa offered.

  “Thanks, but I can put it on myself,” Estelle said. “I’ll do it later. I’m late now.” For once, Estelle seemed to be in a hurry. She shoved the pin in her pocket, letting the tissue fall onto the ground. “See you in class,” she told Lisa, turning to the stable.

  Lisa was too stunned to move. Could she be mistaken? Lisa was trying to share one of the most important things in her life with her new friend, and unless she was totally off her mark, Estelle wasn’t in the least bit excited, either about the Club or about the beautiful pin. How could that be?

  It just wasn’t possible, Lisa decided. Estelle really was in a hurry. She’d probably have her pin on in time for class.

  Once Lisa had given Estelle the pin, she felt very relieved. The deed was done. If Stevie and Carole didn’t like it, that was their problem. They should have come to the meetings.

  MAX WAS IN an especially strict mood that day. He had all of his students working harder than ever before. There was no fooling around at all, all day long.

  “Boy, if he tells me to keep my heels down one more time, I’m going to scream,” Lisa confided to Carole during the chore period. Lisa had hoped to be assigned to do something with Estelle so they could talk about the Club some more, but Estelle and Veronica were tending to the horses in the paddocks. As it turned out, Lisa, Carole, and Stevie were all assigned to cleaning tack.

  “He’s got a thing about heels today, that’s for sure,” Carole agreed, “and toes. I found myself forcing mine inward every time he was facing me!”

  “That must be why I heard him tell you not to stick your heels out!”

  “Just my luck,” Carole said. “I hope he’ll go a little easier during jump class.”

  “You always do well then, don’t you?”

  “Not always,” Carole said.

  “I wish you could be in jump class too, Lisa,” Stevie said.

  “Me too. I like riding on the trail, but the only students there are the babies, except for me and Estelle.” Carole and Stevie exchanged glances. “Red is so worried that somebody’s going to get hurt that he’ll barely let us trot. You’d think he’d let us do something more daring, like cantering, more often,” Lisa said.

  “Well, you certainly can,” Stevie began. “I don’t know about Estelle, though. She seems pretty green to me.”

  “Oh, no,” Lisa said. “She’s been riding for years—since she was five.”

  “She has?”

  “Yes, and she has her own horse and her family has this country home with a stable near Paris where they go on weekends. They’re all just as horse crazy as we are. But they do things differently in France, that’s all. She has to get used to the American way of doing things.”

  “Girls,” Mrs. Reg called from her office. “Not so much gabbing, please. There’s a lot of work to be done today. All of the dressage saddles are positively dingy and we’ll need them for the upcoming show. Now, see if you can finish those before your next class.”

  “I think it’s running in the family today,” Stevie whispered. The three girls burst into giggles—and then muffled them right away so Mrs. Reg wouldn’t hear.

  “You still talking in there?” she called out.

  “No ma’am,” Carole said politely. “We’re not talking anymore.”

  “Right, we’re just giggling,” Stevie whispered to her friends. “That’s more fun anyway.”

  “Which are the dressage saddles?” Lisa asked.

  “Those over there,” Carole said, pointing to ten saddles stored together. “See how the flap is straight on both sides and how the rider will sit back in the saddle? It gives the rider more control over the horse. Wait’ll you see. When dressage is done right, it’s fantastic.”

  “Girls!”

  Lisa hung up the bridle she’d been working on and brought one of the dressage saddles over to clean. They’d each have to do three, and then whoever finished first could do the last one while the other two cleaned up. It wouldn’t be so bad if they worked together, she thought.

  AT THREE O’CLOCK, Stevie, Lisa, and Carole wer
e all together again, this time for drill practice. Normally, Stevie wasn’t particularly interested in things that required such precision. Her whole personality was more flamboyant. But this drill work was just plain fun as far as she was concerned.

  “What we’re working on now is something I call the clover leaf,” Max explained. “Normally, it’s a four-leaf clover, but with just three of you, a three-leafer is better. But harder.”

  With that, he explained how each rider was to lead off on her own “leaf” in a clockwise path, leading into the next rider’s leaf.

  “The whole pleasure here for the audience is seeing how you don’t run into each other at the cross. Try it.”

  Carole led off on the bottom right leaf. Stevie followed, two trotting paces later, on the upright leaf. Lisa went last, two paces after Stevie. Somehow, magically, when it came to the cross, Carole passed through first, then Stevie, then Lisa.

  “Wonderful, girls! That was great. I’ve seen so-called experts who couldn’t manage that maneuver anywhere near as well as you can. You three work together so well! Now, try it again, but keep it going as long as you can.”

  It turned out that “as long as you can” was only three times through the exercise. By then, Carole was well ahead of the other riders, and Lisa and Stevie were practically ramming into each other at the cross.

  “It’s still good,” Max told them. “At least you could get through it enough times so each of you could complete the clover. You should be proud of what you can do together.”

  Stevie was beaming with the pleasure of success, and one glance at her friends confirmed that they were feeling the same way. But was this really Max talking?

  “What I want you to do next is to begin trotting at the edge of the ring, evenly spaced and proceeding in a circle. As I instruct you, make your circle smaller, but maintaining a uniform distance from one another. At the end, you should have your horses practically head-to-tail, at the same speed, in a very small circle at the center of the ring. Think you can do it?”

  At that moment, Stevie thought they could do anything. The three girls brought their horses to a nice collected trot, as close to the pace of the horse in front as they could. Then Max had them begin the exercise.

  It turned out to be much trickier than Stevie expected. If horses follow one another, they always seem to want to catch up to the horse in front. Horses are naturally competitive, and one of the ways they prove that is by racing—even when they’re not supposed to, like in a drill exercise. No matter how hard Stevie tried, it seemed almost impossible to control Comanche’s trot. And as soon as Comanche quickened his pace to catch up with Diablo, Pepper wanted to get into the act. Pretty soon, all three horses were trotting contentedly on one side of the ring. The girls tried it four times and each time the same thing happened.

  “I think there’s some work to be done here, girls,” Max said. “You should have better control of your horses, you know. Perhaps we should try again next time.”

  “Can’t we try again now?” Stevie asked.

  “Not now, Stevie. I’ve got a private lesson to give on the trail and it’s time for you all to go home now.”

  “One more time?” Lisa asked.

  “As I said, I have to go. If you all want to work on it by yourselves, of course, you may, but only for a few minutes. The horses need a rest, too. Good night,” he said. Then, as only Max could, he bowed to his students and left the ring.

  “We can do better,” Stevie said.

  “You bet we can,” Lisa agreed. “I mean, I know that clover thing was harder than this, but it seems almost impossible to keep Pepper from running up to Diablo.”

  “Music,” Carole said suddenly. “I think that’s the answer.”

  “Hey, great idea!” Stevie said.

  “The horses can follow the beat of the music?” Lisa said in wonderment.

  “I doubt it,” Carole told her, “but we can. See, then we can maintain an even beat with our posting. If we’re all going up-down at the same beat, we can use that to guide our horses to the pace we want.”

  “Well, we’ll work this out together, won’t we?” Stevie asked. The grins on her friends’ faces answered the question.

  “I’ll go see what tapes Mrs. Reg has that she can put on the P.A. system for us, okay? Here, hold Diablo for me, will you?”

  Stevie took the reins from Carole and watched while she dashed off to Mrs. Reg’s office.

  CAROLE WAS NEARLY breathless with excitement. She loved the drill work as much as her friends did and she was thrilled to have come up with a possible solution to a big problem.

  Mrs. Reg wasn’t in her office, though, and Carole suddenly remembered that she had scheduled a trip to the saddle shop for supplies for the horse show. The office was completely locked up, so although the music idea was a good one, they couldn’t try it today.

  Disappointed, Carole headed back to the outdoor ring. The stable was quiet. Max was on the trail with his private student; Mrs. Reg was at the shop; and except for the three of them, the camp class had all gone for the day. Even Red O’Malley was away. He’d gone along with Mrs. Reg.

  Carole glanced at the horses’ stalls as she passed, clucking gently, patting noses here and there, feeling very much in charge, and liking it.

  She detoured around to say hello to Delilah, isolated in her foaling stall. Usually Delilah had her head out over the top of the sliding door, but there was no sign of her today.

  Curious, Carole clucked, but there was no response, no familiar nodding head with its platinum forelock. She clucked again. This time she heard a mild whinny. Carole hastened to the door of the special stall. When she looked in, what she saw made her heart jump.

  Delilah was in a far corner of the stall. She was pacing back and forth, alternately pawing at the ground and kicking at her own belly. Her tail switched rapidly, flicking upward as well as sideways. There was a froth of sweat on her flanks and her chest.

  There was no doubt about it. Delilah was in labor. Her foal was about to be born—and the only people in the stable were Carole, Stevie, and Lisa!

  WITHIN SECONDS, CAROLE marshaled her troops. “Stevie, you call Judy. Tell her I’m just about certain Delilah’s in labor, and find out how long it’ll take her to get here. Lisa, put the horses in their stalls and untack them. Then both of you come on back to Delilah’s stall. There’s work to be done!”

  Carole pivoted on her toes and raced back to Delilah, excited, nervous, relieved that the time had come, really come. The mare was still storming back and forth in the stall when Carole got back. Hoping to calm her, Carole reached over the tall door and tried to pat Delilah soothingly. Delilah swept her head back, obviously rejecting the affectionate pat. Once again, the horse appeared to be kicking at her belly, and then she began digging away at the clean hay in her stall, almost as if she were making a nest.

  “Judy’ll get here as soon as she can,” Stevie reported, approaching the stall cautiously. “Her assistant told me a horse over at Ridge Farm got attacked by a group of dogs and needs a zillion stitches. She really can’t leave now. It’ll be at least an hour before she’s done and then a half hour to get here. She won’t have the foal that fast, will she?” Stevie asked.

  “No way to tell,” Carole said calmly. “This is Delilah’s first foal. It could be a few minutes. It could be a day or more. To tell you the truth, I know she’s showing early symptoms of being in labor, but I have no idea how long these last.” Carole glanced at the horse and her calm quickly vanished. “Oh, no!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Look at her udder,” Carole said. “See the milk coming out of it? I’m sure Judy told me that meant things were moving rapidly—or did she say it was something that could happen a lot before the foal arrives? I don’t know—I don’t remember!” she said, nearly frantic.

  “Hey, hey, calm down,” Stevie said. “We’re all here, and we’re going to help you and Delilah. It’s going to be okay. This horse is going
to have the most beautiful foal ever born, and we’ll see to it that it happens right. Besides, if I remember correctly, horses have been having baby horses a lot longer than people have been trying to help them. Isn’t Delilah going to do most of the work, anyway?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Carole said, smiling bashfully. “I just care so much about this foal, and its mother—”

  “And its father, right?” Stevie asked softly, reminding Carole of Cobalt, the coal-black Thoroughbred who had sired the foal. “We won’t let him down, either, will we?”

  “Yeah, right. I just don’t want to let how much I care make me nervous.”

  “Nervous? Who’s nervous?” Lisa asked, arriving all out of breath.

  “Me,” Carole confessed.

  “No need to be nervous,” Lisa said reassuringly. “Stevie and I are right here beside you, ready to do your bidding. What’s the first thing we do?”

  All of a sudden, Carole’s mind was a complete blank. She couldn’t remember anything Judy had ever told her about anything, much less about foaling. Delilah’s insistent stomping only made her more confused. She felt tense knowing she would be practically useless to Delilah just when the mare needed her the very most. But without her help, would the foal make it? Carole could barely speak.

  “The birthing kit—where is it?” Stevie asked, breaking through Carole’s terror.

  “Oh, yes, that’s right. We need that. It’s in the chest, right over there.”

  Stevie turned and opened the chest where Carole and Judy had only recently stowed the birthing kit. It was really just a cardboard carton, but it contained all the things an owner routinely needed to assist at a normal delivery. Everything was carefully arranged in the order in which it was most likely to be needed. Right on top was a big roll of three-inch gauze bandage.

  That made it all come back to Carole. “I remember now. Thanks for reminding me about the birthing kit, Stevie. For a moment there, I couldn’t have told you my name, much less what we’d have to do for Delilah. First thing, though, grab that roll of gauze, okay? We have to bind up Delilah’s tail. I’ll hold her head and see if I can keep her relatively calm and distracted while you wrap her tail. See, we don’t want those long hairs to get in the way of anything or to carry any germs that could cause infections. She’s better off if we just fold it up and wrap it up.”