Jade at the Champs

by Amy Brown

  ‘If your mum saw that, she wouldn’t be able to resist letting you have him,’ Jade said.

  ‘That’s the idea.’ Matthew grinned.

  The following weekend, Becca, Matthew, their mum and Dusty all came to Mr White’s in the truck. Although Becca had insisted that she just wanted to practise jumping with Jade, Becca’s mum smelt a rat.

  ‘The abandoned horse?’ Becca’s mum said, when Matthew admitted that he was keen to take Floyd. ‘I thought he was barely broken in. And anyway, when did your interest in riding return?’

  ‘Floyd and I get on well. Wait and see.’

  With an audience of his mother, Mr White, Becca and Jade, Matthew performed a little show with Floyd. By speeding up and slowing down his own walking pace, Matthew could make Floyd to follow him at a walk or trot, on command.

  ‘Very good!’ Mr White laughed, clapping as Matthew took a little bow then hugged Floyd’s neck. ‘That’s just what he’s needed — a bit of fun to help him trust people again. He’s yours for free if your mum agrees.’

  Everyone looked at Becca’s mum. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, alright. We’ll take him. I was worrying about trying to push an unbroken horse up the ramp of the truck, but it looks like he’ll follow you anywhere, Matthew.’ However, when Becca and Jade had finished their practice and the time came to coax Floyd onto the truck, the task wasn’t as simple as Becca’s mum had predicted. Floyd baulked, then spun around as soon as he heard the hollow sound of his hoof hitting the wooden ramp.

  ‘Careful of your hip!’ Becca’s mum shouted as she watched Matthew, who was holding Floyd’s lead rope, get pulled down the ramp.

  Although he was clearly in pain, Matthew was patient with Floyd. He spoke quietly to the trembling horse, leading Floyd away from the truck until he was calm enough to have his neck and shoulder stroked.

  Without saying a word, Mr White came over to Floyd with the bum-rope and started patting him too. Unflustered, he eased the big loop at the end of the rope around the horse’s hindquarters and threaded the long end through the ring of the halter.

  ‘There, now,’ Mr White said gently. ‘You ready for another try, Floyd?’

  Becca, who had been waiting inside the truck with a now agitated Dusty, looked worried as she watched her brother approach the ramp again. ‘Be careful!’ she shrieked. ‘Dusty’s panicking.’

  ‘He’s only panicking because you’re shrieking like a banshee. Calm down,’ Matthew hissed.

  Jade and Becca’s mum were on either side of the ramp, acting as barriers just in case Floyd dashed to one side. Mr White was standing behind at a safe distance, ready with the lunging whip, and Matthew had Floyd’s lead rope in one hand and a horse mint in the other.

  ‘C’mon, mate — good boy,’ he pleaded to Floyd, who’d walked right to the bottom of the ramp but was going no further. Wincing as he bent down, Matthew gently picked up Floyd’s near foreleg, and placed the hoof quietly on the ramp. Moving to the horse’s offside, he did the same to the other hoof.

  Frozen with nerves, Floyd stood stock-still, two hooves on the ramp, two on familiar ground. Everyone was clicking their tongues and making cajoling noises. Even Dusty, probably out of frustration rather than encouragement, had started whinnying. Every creature nearby seemed to be willing him to get onto the truck, and eventually Floyd stopped dithering. With a nervous leap that nearly bowled Matthew over, the young horse charged up the ramp and joined Dusty.

  ‘Well, that could’ve taken a lot longer,’ Becca’s mum said, bolting the truck door. ‘At least getting him off shouldn’t be such a problem. And you, young man, are going to spend the rest of the evening with your feet up. You’re limping badly.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Matthew, trying not to wince as he hoisted himself into the passenger side of the truck.

  ‘How’s Floyd getting on without Matthew?’ Jade asked Becca, as they warmed up their ponies together at the fifth and now second-to-last showjumping team practice.

  ‘He’s a bit heartbroken, I think,’ Becca replied. ‘It’s been three days since Matthew went back to uni, and Floyd’s already worn a track along the fence line of his paddock. He won’t stop neighing either. It’s quite sweet really, except that he seems to hate me and Mum as much as he loves Matthew. Dad has to get his cover on and off and chuck him his biscuit of hay.’

  ‘Maybe Lisa put him off girls for life,’ Jade said. ‘Stop chatting now, ladies,’ Michaela called. ‘Come into the centre and I’ll tell you what we’ll be doing this afternoon.

  ‘Today, it’s a competition,’ Michaela continued, when the whole team was gathered around her. ‘We’re going to have a go at the Jigsaw event. Who can tell me what that involves? Corina?’

  ‘Um,’ said the shy seventeen-year-old, ‘is that the one where two of us have to go around a course at the same time?’

  ‘Yep,’ Michaela agreed. ‘Spot on. Say you have a course of ten jumps, like this one here, you each must clear five jumps. The idea is for both of you to complete the course and go through the finish flags as quickly as possible, which means you have to be tactical. I’ll hold your ponies now, while you walk the course I’ve set up. Walk it in pairs, keeping in mind your own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, Amanda, your horse, Blue, is bigger than Kristen’s pony, so you’d leave the really tight corners to them. Make it as easy for yourselves as possible.’

  ‘Pip doesn’t mind picket fences, does she?’ Becca asked Jade as they wandered around the course together, measuring strides by their walking paces as they went.

  ‘Only the ugly one at Mr White’s.’

  ‘Good, in that case, you can do the wall and the picket.’

  ‘Getting from the picket to the wall is really tight!’ Jade complained. ‘Unless we take the long route around the double, but that would waste time.’

  ‘And you might get in our way as we do the double,’ Becca added, seeing the problem. ‘This is tricky.’

  ‘How about we do the picket, the blue oxer, the double and the red upright?’ Jade said eventually. ‘That way, we’ll be going as fast as we can around the outside of the course, while you do the tight, twisty angles in the middle.’

  ‘That still leaves me with the wall,’ Becca whined.

  ‘Dusty baulked at that wall once, six months ago, and you’ve cleared it fine ever since. Stop being a wuss.’

  ‘That’s enough time!’ Michaela yelled. ‘Mount up now, everyone. Jade and Becca, you’ll go first, before I raise the jumps for the others.’

  The girls trotted around the ring, careful not to get in each other’s way, and waited for Michaela to ring the old pony club bell.

  When she heard the bell, Pip broke into a canter. Jade steered her through their start flags and they were off. After successfully clearing the picket, they nearly collided with Dusty and Becca who were approaching the green-and-white upright.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jade squeaked, pulling Pip back almost to a halt, then urging her on again when the path was clear. Pip was unimpressed with this erratic riding, and appeared to seriously consider running out the side of the blue oxer. If Jade hadn’t had her left leg firmly on and her sternest growl at the ready, they might have got three faults. But, as it was, Pip grudgingly cleared the oxer and cheered up as she cantered flat out around to the double on the other side of the ring.

  Four strides away from the first jump in the double, Jade collected Pip’s canter. Pleased to find her pony on the correct leg and feeling willing, Jade grinned as they cleared both jumps A and B. With only the red upright to go, Jade once again let Pip have her head. As they charged towards the last jump, Pip’s stride was a bit flat. She took off from too far back and caught the top rail with her shins. Hearing the clunk of the pole hitting the hard ground, Jade’s face fell as they cantered through the finish flags.

  ‘Sorry!’ Jade apologized to Becca as they left the ring.

  ‘I’m sorry, too,’ Becca replied. ‘We knocked a rail as well.’

  ‘Great first attempt
,’ Michaela told them, patting Pip’s neck as they halted next to her. ‘You know what you did wrong, Jade?’

  ‘Went too fast at the end,’ Jade said, crestfallen.

  ‘Yep, with uprights especially, you have to get Pip’s stride short and bouncy. If she’s cantering flat out, she’ll misjudge the jump’s height. When you have enough space between jumps to give Pip her head, by all means speed — time is of the essence, after all. Just make sure she’s collected in time to meet the jump correctly. You did that well before the double.’

  Jade nodded at this advice.

  ‘Same goes for you, Becca — although you had a bit of bad luck with that rail falling. I barely heard Dusty touch it.’ While Becca held Pip’s reins, Jade helped Michaela raise all the jumps in the course to 1 metre, ready for Amanda and Kristen’s round.

  Kristen, who’d competed at the showjumping champs as a junior the previous year, was familiar with the Jigsaw event and had quickly chosen a sensible course each for her and Amanda.

  ‘I honestly think that this is our best bet,’ Kristen said, for the second time. Amanda was arguing that she should be allowed to have the picket, which was now the highest jump in the course, because she was on a horse rather than a pony.

  ‘If you did the picket, you’d have to come all the way over to the east side of the ring and you’d lose time,’ Kristen reasoned. ‘Don’t worry about Dozz clearing 1 metre. She’s dealt with 1.30 metres in the Grand Prix.’

  ‘Stop showing off,’ Amanda said sulkily. ‘The only reason you’ve got such a fancy pony is ‘cause of your mum.’

  Jade, who was helping raise the last jump, caught Michaela’s eye as they both heard Amanda’s comment. Michaela’s lips were pursed, as if they were holding in her mouth several words that she knew she shouldn’t say.

  ‘Fine,’ replied Kristen. ‘I’ll swap you that nice little, pony-sized yellow oxer for the big horse-sized picket. This means we’ll both take way longer than we have to, but it’s not a real competition so I don’t care.’

  ‘When you’ve finished bickering, girls, you might like to start the course’ Michaela said, ringing the bell.

  Dorian and Blueberry Tart, both lean grey showjumpers, would have looked impressive cantering slowly around the ring if it weren’t for their angry riders. Kristen gave little of her mood away, but she was holding Dorian back more than necessary as she went through her start flags. Amanda was doing the same, and Blue, a young thoroughbred, was clearly frustrated.

  Once they’d started, the girls rode hard, as if competing against each other rather than together. Instead of pausing to let Kristen go first as they intersected after the second jump, Amanda barged past, leaving Dorian almost crashing into Blue’s hindquarters. Threatened by the sudden proximity of the pony, Blue struck out irritably with her near hindleg. By luck or quick thinking, Kristen pulled Dorian in a hard left-hand turn and saved her pony from a hoof to the breast.

  Jade heard Michaela exhale loudly and looked over. The coach’s face was frozen and her eyes hard. Although Kristen went clear and Amanda dropped only one rail, when they’d finished Michaela barked, ‘You two, over here now!’

  Jade hugged Pip’s neck and bit her lip as she listened to the older girls getting told off.

  ‘I’m glad that didn’t happen to us,’ Becca whispered, watching Amanda, who looked like she wanted to cry, riding back to her horse-float. Kristen, who seemed more sullen than upset, set off back to her truck at a gallop.

  ‘Walk the last hundred metres!’ Michaela shouted. ‘You stupid girl.’

  Instead of slowing down, Kristen veered towards the fence line and pointed her pony at a tiger trap that was usually included in the intermediate crosscountry course. It was a big, solid obstacle for the 14.2-hand pony, who was used to show-jumps which fell if her hooves touched them. Dorian seemed to hang in mid-air over the log for a long time before landing heavily on the other side.

  ‘Wow!’ David said.

  ‘Don’t sound so impressed,’ Michaela snapped. ‘I think it’s disgusting how she’s venting her anger via Dorian. Never, but never, should you take it out on a horse.’

  If David and Corina hadn’t completed a fast, clear round during their turn at the Jigsaw, Jade dreaded to think how furious Michaela would have been. But the two eldest team members did a beautiful round, which cooled their coach’s temper.

  ‘I wish those naughty girls had seen that,’ Michaela said. ‘Your round had everything theirs was lacking: co-operation, courtesy, maturity. You’ve restored my faith in the team. You two littlies did well, too. Let’s call it a day on this good note.’

  Ordinarily, Jade and Becca would’ve flinched at being referred to as ‘littlies’, but that afternoon they were just relieved not to be the ones in Michaela’s bad books.

  ‘Just think, only two weeks until the Champs!’ Becca said, as the girls prepared their tired ponies for the truck ride home.

  ‘I know! Only one more practice.’ Jade grimaced, but really she was more excited than nervous. ‘I reckon we’ll be ready though.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Becca agreed unexpectedly. ‘We’ve improved quite a lot, eh?’

  ‘Yeah, Pip’s way fitter now; and the nightly hard feed seems to have given her more energy. If I’m not too nervous on the day, we’ll be fine.’ Even just mentioning the actual competition made Jade’s heart beat a bit faster, though.

  ‘Our team might even win — if only that nasty Amanda can stop herself from sabotaging Kristen’s rounds.’ Becca said this in her excited outdoor voice, without realizing whose float was parked next to their truck.

  ‘Don’t you speak about my daughter like that!’ Amanda’s mother, who’d been quietly reading a Cuisine magazine in the driver’s seat, opened the door and stepped out. She was a tall, imposing woman wearing pearls, an Aertex shirt and a sickly perfume.

  Becca went pale. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were there.’

  ‘Obviously not.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Becca said again, weakly. ‘I only said it because Michaela told Amanda and Kristen off just now.’

  ‘Amanda and Kristen? So it wasn’t just my daughter’s fault?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘I’m glad we’ve got that straight. I expect you’re just jealous of Mandy, but it’s no excuse.’

  ‘Why would Rebecca be jealous of Amanda?’ Becca’s mum cut in, emerging from the cab of the truck.

  ‘No, Mum, don’t!’ Becca pleaded.

  ‘Load the ponies, girls,’ Becca’s mum ordered. Jade and Becca did what they were told. From inside the truck they heard the mothers carrying on the argument.

  ‘Mum, we’re ready to go,’ Becca said quietly, when Amanda’s mother had finished ranting about cheap ponies and bad company.

  ‘Right, we’re off,’ Becca’s mum said. As she backed the truck out, Jade saw Amanda, who’d been hiding on the other side of the float with Blue, mouthing ‘Sorry!’ at them.

  ‘Gosh, you can see where Amanda gets it from, can’t you?’ Becca’s mum said with a forced laugh. ‘I’m going to have to stay out of that woman’s way if she comes to Cambridge, I think.’

  ‘What did she mean about bad company?’ Jade asked.

  ‘Nothing, sweet. She was just being small-minded.’

  ‘Was it about Jade?’ Becca asked, shocked.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, love,’ Becca’s mum said.

  ‘Was it because of Jade’s dad?’ Becca persisted.

  ‘Leave it, Becca!’ Becca’s mum snapped. She could see that Jade was looking uncomfortable.

  ‘What would I have done without you?’ Jade said to Pip as she let her go in the paddock that night. ‘You’re so much nicer than most people.’

  Jade watched her black pony trot down to the back fence to see Brandy and Hamlet. She looked slightly stiff and was raising her head in the air at each stride. That’s odd, Jade thought, trying to remember if there had been any heat in Pip’s legs when she was washing them. No, surel
y she wasn’t lame. It was probably just the low dusk light.

  During lunch break the next day at school, Mr White called Jade on her cellphone, something he’d never done before.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Jade asked, instantly worried.

  ‘Jade, I’m sorry to call you at school like this. You’re not in class, are you?’

  ‘No. Is it Pip? What’s happened?’

  ‘I just thought I ought to tell you as soon as possible, what with the Champs coming up: Pip’s lame.’

  Jade’s face started to tingle. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Well, she was lying down this morning when I took the horses some hay, which is unusual for her. She didn’t even get up when I went over to say hello and she was sweating. Anyway, I got her halter on and pulled her to her feet, but she was obviously in pain, so I walked her slowly back to the yards and called Dan Lewis straight away.’ Dan Lewis, Michaela’s husband, was a specialist equine vet.

  ‘Has he been yet?’ Jade asked, not even stopping to worry about the cost.

  ‘Yes, I thought I’d wait for his diagnosis before I called you, just in case I’d fussed over nothing.’

  ‘It’s not nothing, though, is it?’

  ‘No. It’s laminitis, Jade.’

  Jade thought back to her C-Certificate study. Equine diseases hadn’t really interested her, although she remembered a symptom of laminitis because it had made her and Becca wish they hadn’t skipped ahead to the B-Certificate section when she’d read aloud the description. In acute cases, the pedal bone would rotate inside the hoof, sometimes even pushing through the sole.

  ‘I thought only fat ponies got laminitis?’ Jade said. ‘Pip’s never been fitter.’

  ‘I’ll tell you all about what Dan said after school,’ Mr White replied, trying to soothe Jade. ‘I’ve done my best to make Pip comfortable: she’s in the shady yard and has had a small feed of chaff with Bute powder. That’s easing the pain for now.’ Jade thanked Mr White and promised she’d be around straight after school.