THE FIRST FENCE …
“All right, Lisa—let’s go,” Max called out.
Despite her resolve, Lisa looked at the course and felt her heart begin hammering even faster. She couldn’t ride this course. The jumps were enormous. What was she thinking, asking to ride Samson in the Macrae?
Suddenly Lisa sat up straighter in the saddle and took up the reins firmly. Max wouldn’t let you ride in the Macrae Valley Open if he thought you were going to completely fail. I mean, she corrected herself, Max must have confidence in you to let you ride in the Macrae. He must feel you have a chance.
She looked straight ahead at Samson’s ears, which were pricked up eagerly for her signal to start. Confidence, Lisa knew, was a huge part of jumping. Determinedly she shortened the reins and cantered Samson in a circle. They broke out of the circle and headed for the first fence.
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RL 5, 009–012
SHOW JUMPER
A Bantam Skylark Book / May 1999
Skylark Books is a registered trademark of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and elsewhere.
“The Saddle Club” is a registered trademark of Bonnie Bryant Hiller.
The Saddle Club design/logo, which consists of a riding crop and a riding hat, is a trademark of Bantam Books.
“USPC” and “Pony Club” are registered trademarks of The United States Pony Clubs, Inc., at The Kentucky Horse Park, 4071 Iron Works Pike, Lexington, KY 40511–8462.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller.
Cover art © 1999 by Paul Casale.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.
eISBN: 978-0-307-82589-6
Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada.
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.
v3.1
I would like to express my special thanks
to Minna Jung for her
help in the writing of this book.
Contents
Cover
Other Skylark Books
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
About The Author
THE SUN SHONE brightly in a clear blue sky. A scattering of applause died down after the awarding of the second-place ribbon. A dramatic hush fell over the crowd as everyone waited for the announcement of the blue-ribbon winner.
Lisa Atwood, waiting near the entrance of the ring on Samson, felt a nervous flutter in her stomach. Even though she already knew what was coming next, she still couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. In fact, she couldn’t believe that she was even there, let alone about to experience the next moment.
Standing at the judges’ desk in their box, a stately, gray-haired man held up a microphone, and the loud-speakers blared. “I am pleased to announce the winner of today’s junior jumping division,” he said solemnly. “This poised young rider gave a spectacular performance on a spectacular horse. I’m sure you were all as thrilled as I was to see this young lady take these fences on what is, in my opinion, one of the most promising horses we’ve seen in a long time.”
He held up a silver cup and smiled broadly. “The blue ribbon and challenge trophy for junior jumping goes to Lisa Atwood, riding Samson from Pine Hollow Stables!”
The crowd broke into loud applause. When she heard it, Lisa’s nervousness vanished. Suddenly she felt a tremendous surge of excitement and happiness. They were clapping for her! And, of course, for Samson, the best jumper she had ever ridden. She gently urged the black gelding into the ring and rode toward the judges to accept the trophy and the blue ribbon. Samson seemed to understand that he had performed well and that this was an extra-special occasion. He picked up his feet briskly and tossed his mane several times.
As she and Samson made their way to the judges’ box, Lisa searched the crowd. Although she was almost too excited to focus, she wanted to share this moment with several very important people. After scanning the blur of faces, she finally glimpsed her mother and her two best friends, Carole Hanson and Stevie Lake. All three were clapping madly, and both Carole and Stevie were giving her a huge V sign for victory. Lisa grinned and waved at them.
Then she caught a glimpse of Max Regnery III, the owner of Pine Hollow, sitting with his mother. She was Pine Hollow’s stable manager and universally known as Mrs. Reg. Max also owned Samson. Lisa was accustomed to seeing Max every week as her occasionally stern, always professional riding instructor, but now all his normal restraint was gone. He had a huge smile on his face, and he and Mrs. Reg were clapping like crazy.
As the applause grew even louder, Samson began to get a little bothered by the noise. Without warning, he pulled sideways with little, jerky steps. Lisa acted quickly, taking firmer hold of the reins and leaning forward so that Samson could hear her over the noise. “Easy, Samson—nothing to get worried about, just a little applause for you,” she said gently. She tightened the reins to maintain light contact with his mouth and urged him to walk a little more quickly toward the judges’ box. Immediately Samson calmed down.
Then Lisa reached the box, and a judge leaned over to pin the blue ribbon on Samson’s bridle. The man with the microphone handed Lisa the silver cup. “Congratulations, Ms. Atwood,” he said, shaking her hand. Lisa thanked him; then she and Samson joined the other competitors in the center of the ring.
As another round of applause began for the junior jumpers, Lisa leaned forward and patted Samson’s neck. “We did it, boy!” she whispered to him. “We won!”
“LISA! WHERE ARE you? It’s time to go!”
Her mother’s voice shattered Lisa’s thoughts and she jumped. The crowd and the applause melted away and she blinked, looking around her in a daze. She recognized her neatly made bed, the horse posters, and the books that lined the walls. She was in her bedroom, sitting at her desk—exactly the same spot where she had been fifteen minutes before, when she had started daydreaming.
But what a daydream! She had imagined winning the blue ribbon at the Macrae Valley Open. And as she slowly came back to reality, she knew that it was Wednesday morning, and that the real Macrae Valley Open was only two days away. It was one of the biggest horse shows on the A-rated show circuit, and she, Lisa Atwood, was going to be competing in the junior jumping division.
Carole and Stevie were also going to the Macrae Valley Open, which made Lisa all the more excited. Without her best friends there, she would have fe
lt lost at the Macrae. Since the three girls had met and formed The Saddle Club, they had gone through many adventures together: They had rescued horses from danger, met movie stars, and gone out West to ride at a dude ranch. Throughout these experiences, the girls had been brought even closer to each other and had won lots of friends by sticking to the two rules of The Saddle Club. First, Saddle Club members had to be crazy about horses. Second, Saddle Club members had to be willing to help each other out.
Several weeks before, the prospect of going to the Macrae Valley Open had really put the two rules to the test. The girls, of course, were already familiar with the Macrae, one of the most famous horse shows in the country. The bad news was that Veronica diAngelo, The Saddle Club’s worst enemy, was also entered in the competition, and worse yet, she was bragging to everyone at Pine Hollow that she would win the junior jumping division. Veronica was the laziest, most spoiled member of the girls’ Pony Club, Horse Wise. With her parents’ wealth and her champion jumper, Danny, Veronica had managed to persuade Max to enter her in the Macrae and transport Danny there in the Pine Hollow horse trailer—with an extra stall reserved for her equipment.
When they had heard this news—and gotten a dose of Veronica’s bragging—The Saddle Club had put their heads together and acted quickly and decisively. Not only did the three girls want very badly to compete in the Macrae Valley Open, they also didn’t want Veronica to be the only representative of Pine Hollow at the show and possibly—their worst nightmare—win the junior jumping event. So they hatched a plan to convince Max to take them along to the Macrae.
The first part of the plan had been simple in theory, painful in practice. Without any urging from Max, Carole, Lisa, and Stevie decided to show that they were completely indispensable. They had started spending hours and hours at Pine Hollow, doing stable chores and trying to help out in any way they could. Max had really welcomed their help because Red O’Malley, the head stable hand and himself an accomplished rider, had taken two weeks off to attend a riding clinic with a famous instructor. During his absence, The Saddle Club had pitched in to help run the stable. Mucking out stalls, cleaning tack, sweeping floors—“No job too small or too grimy!” Carole had joked during one particularly exhausting day. Max loved a well-run, clean stable and believed that every good rider should put in his or her share of stable work. Only Veronica, backed by her father’s money and influence, managed to find some way to avoid helping out.
“You know, if Veronica put as much effort into doing work as she puts into getting out of it, she’d really accomplish something!” Stevie remarked one day. Her friends agreed, but it was obvious to everyone that Veronica was never going to change.
The other part of the campaign was trickier, especially since Pine Hollow was a tight-knit stable and everyone usually knew what everyone else was doing. The Saddle Club began to train Samson secretly to get him ready for the junior jumping division at the Macrae Valley Open—the same division that Veronica had entered. The three girls had all been active in Samson’s early training, because he’d been born at Pine Hollow (with their help) and they’d always had a special bond with the coal black gelding. Lisa had been the first to discover Samson’s astounding natural jumping ability while exercising him as part of the group’s stable chores.
The three girls were desperate for Samson to go to the Macrae. But as they spent more time training him and his talent became more and more obvious, Lisa began to worry: If Max did want Samson to go the Macrae Valley Open, who was going to ride him? Carole was definitely the most experienced member of the group, and Lisa fretted that Max would pick Carole to ride the gelding for the Open.
Additionally, Lisa had thought that Carole might have wanted to be the one to ride the young horse in his first competition. After all, it was Carole who had been especially fond of Cobalt, Samson’s sire. Cobalt had been a beautiful, noble horse and an outstanding jumper. Carole, who had had no horse of her own at the time, had often volunteered to exercise and take care of the stallion when Veronica, who actually owned him, showed any disinclination to do so. As a result, Carole had loved the horse deeply—and had been devastated by his death after Veronica rode him carelessly over a dangerous jump.
Shortly after Cobalt’s death, Samson had been born. His dam was Delilah, a palomino mare from Pine Hollow. Carole had also eventually acquired her own horse, Starlight—a bay gelding with a playful, gentle disposition, lively gaits, and a natural flair for jumping. Carole was so devoted to Starlight, it was almost unthinkable that she would ride another horse in a competition. Despite this, however, Lisa had still worried that Max would try to persuade Carole to ride Samson in the Macrae when he found out about the gelding’s ability.
But by the time Max had finally learned of Samson’s talent, Carole had already figured out what to do about the Macrae. First the three girls convinced him that Samson ought to compete in the big horse show. Then Carole argued that Lisa should be the one to ride the black horse, because she was the first to discover his talent. After watching Lisa ride over a jump course, and after hearing The Saddle Club’s persuasive arguments, Max finally agreed to let Lisa ride Samson at the show. Stevie volunteered to be the tack manager and Carole took the last slot in Max’s trailer with Starlight.
Thinking about the Macrae, now only two days away, Lisa picked up a pencil and began to chew the end nervously. “I’m going to do well,” she said out loud, as if trying to convince herself. “I have a great horse.”
Carole, Lisa believed, would definitely turn in a good performance—Starlight was a talented horse, and Carole was a skilled rider. But Lisa had never participated in such a major show before, and the Macrae Valley Open attracted the top riders from all over the country. Carole had already regaled Lisa and Stevie with stories of how fancy the Open was—the beautiful stables, the gourmet food served in the concession tents, and how unpleasantly snooty some of the competitors could be. Lisa couldn’t even imagine how high the fences were going to be. What if they’ve decided to raise them higher than ever this year? she began to worry. What if—
“Lisa!” Her mother stood in the doorway of her bedroom, her hands on her hips and an exasperated expression on her face. “I’ve called you three times! If you don’t hurry, we won’t have time to get to the tack shop before your lesson begins.”
Lisa scrambled up from her chair. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly. As Mrs. Atwood shook her head resignedly and disappeared downstairs, Lisa glanced at the clock on her bedroom wall and then began grabbing her riding things. She had been thinking so hard about the Macrae, she hadn’t even noticed the time. If Carole and Stevie had been there, they would have been shocked. Normally Lisa was the most punctual and organized member of The Saddle Club.
But if she had shared her thoughts with her friends, they would have understood. The Macrae was an important event, and besides, Carole and Stevie knew that Lisa, in addition to being punctual and organized, was also the biggest worrier of the group. “That’s why you get good grades at school and I get graded on just keeping my head above water!” Stevie had said once.
Lisa quickly changed into her old breeches and a shirt. After gathering her boots and the rest of her riding gear, she ran out the door to join her mother.
Mrs. Atwood was already sitting behind the wheel of her car. She smiled at Lisa as she scrambled into the passenger seat. Her impatience had vanished, and Lisa suspected she knew why. For the past few weeks, her mother had been on cloud nine after learning that her daughter was going to ride in the Macrae Valley Open. Mrs. Atwood, who yearned to mingle with the “right” sorts of people in society, knew that the Macrae, held just outside Philadelphia’s most exclusive neighborhoods, was one of the area’s biggest society events.
Mrs. Atwood pulled out of the driveway and began heading toward the tack shop near Pine Hollow. “Are you excited about your new riding outfit?” she asked, leaning over and patting Lisa on the arm.
Lisa nodded, still out of breath from her dash
down the stairs and into the car. Her mother had insisted on buying her a whole new riding outfit—boots, breeches, jacket, shirt. In fact, she had had to make the offer several times, because Lisa couldn’t believe at first that her mother wanted to be so generous about anything to do with riding. Although Mrs. Atwood had originally signed Lisa up for riding lessons as part of her education in becoming “a young lady,” she had been dismayed at the extent of Lisa’s horse-craziness. All Lisa’s other lessons—ballet, piano, needlepoint—had taken a backseat to her love of riding. But the fact that Lisa was riding in the Macrae Valley Open, an event that registered on her mother’s society radar, made all the difference in Mrs. Atwood’s attitude.
“I saw the most darling jacket in a catalog yesterday,” Mrs. Atwood continued gushingly. “It was navy blue, which I think will be just right with your fair skin. Perhaps I’d better take you for a makeover at my beauty salon. You can get some new blusher and lip gloss. You don’t want to look too pale for the show, do you?”
At any other time, Lisa would have winced and then good-humoredly persuaded her mother not to get her a makeover appointment. Lisa always tried to limit her involvement in activities that her mother thought would develop her “feminine qualities.” Past experience had taught her that any activities planned by her mother could take away precious time from riding.
As her mother happily chattered about the Macrae, Lisa absently mumbled, “Sure, Mom,” at regular intervals and continued to gaze out the car window. Within seconds she was daydreaming about the show again—but from a very different angle than her mother.
The girls had worked hard to convince Max to enter Samson in the show because they all believed that the black horse deserved his first chance at a big event. But they also wanted Samson or Starlight to beat Veronica in the junior jumping division. The victory would be all the sweeter if Veronica had no idea what she was up against. Although Veronica respected Carole’s experience as a rider, she had belittled Lisa’s riding ability on more than one occasion, because Lisa hadn’t been riding as long as Carole, Stevie, or Veronica.
Show Jumper Page 1
