Alice, determined not to be galloped back to the other ponies, took a firm hold on her right rein with the result that Saffron began to come down sideways, almost at full pass.
“Ride straight,” roared David. “It’s dangerous to come down sideways. He could cross his legs and fall. Use your legs and keep him straight.”
Alice straightened him hastily and Saffron immediately broke into a canter and swept down the hill, but this time Alice managed to circle away to the right.
“Take him back and this time come down at the walk,” shouted David.
Lynne had appeared. She came down the hill at a trot, but it became faster and faster as Berry lost her balance. As the trot became a canter Lynne’s crash cap flew off and she was laughing and giving excited shrieks as they whirled round and stopped dead among the other ponies.
“Very bad. You didn’t even attempt to use your legs,” said David. “Take her back and come down properly.” Hanif had set off steadily, and the steepness of the uphill had kept Jupiter going at a sober pace, but along the top he had increased his speed despite endless half-halts. Hanif knew he was losing control and viewed the flag ahead with feelings of impending doom. “Steady boy. Whoa, Ju steady,” he said as he turned the corner. Jupiter saw the other ponies and Hanif the full horror of the slope.
“Half-halt, legs,” roared David as Jupiter broke into canter, but Hanif felt as though his legs were made of some soft substance, cotton wool, he thought, as Jupiter snatched the reins from him and thundered down the hill.
“Circle,” shouted David.
Hanif tried. Right rein, left leg, he told himself. He must at least prevent Jupe from galloping into the other ponies and getting kicked. With Jupiter fighting to turn left and Hanif struggling to turn him to the right, they stayed on a straight course, racing towards the thick, overgrown hedge which fenced the field from the lane. At the very last moment the pony realized he had to stop. He threw back his weight, his hoofs skidded, and Hanif shot over his head and landed in a thicket of thorn and bramble.
“Are you all right?” asked David.
Rupert went after Jupiter, who trotted away, reins dangling. Alice hurried to the hedge.
“Are you hurt, Harry?”
“No, I don’t think so. Just spiked and pierced,” answered Hanif, trying to disentangle himself from clutching brambles as he emerged backwards from the hedge.
“Your face is bleeding.”
“Where?”
Alice pointed and Hanif dabbed at his cheek with his handkerchief. “It’s not much,” he said, inspecting the blood, “and I’ve no beauty to lose.”
“One disgracefully bad pony.” Rupert appeared towing Jupiter from Rosie.
“It was lack of legs,” said David. “You stopped using them when you saw the hill. You should have made a half-halt and used your legs in the interest of self-preservation. Up you go again and keep his hindlegs under him.” Hanif trotted up the hill feeling heavy-hearted and weak-legged. He knew he couldn’t do it and, sure enough, Jupiter was off the moment he pointed him downhill, only this time he agreed to circle and they avoided crashing into hedge.
“All right, you wait here a minute. I want to send the others round again. Are you ready, James? Same steady trot. Unless there’s a hold-up, you all start when the pony ahead of you is halfway up the hill. Alice, you’d better walk down.”
Nearly everyone was much better at the second attempt. Alice, who walked halfway down and then lost control when she tried a trot, was sent back. But Lynne, who again whirled down giving squeaks of excitement, got an angry roar of, “You’re not trying.”
“James, you take Harry’s pony, and Lizzie, let’s see you on Berry. And, while they’re sorting themselves out, the rest of you can go round again. Alice, you lead.”
The ponies were settling down. They were no longer excited by the feeling of space. They set off soberly, and soon the hillside was covered in ponies all moving at the same steady trot and not attempting to overtake each other.
“Good,” David was shouting. “Well done. That was much better,” as rider after rider came down the hill and halted at the flag.
James and Lizzie had had a ride along the valley trying out their strange mounts.
“He’s strong and very gassy,” James told David.
“Berry’s got terribly rough paces,” complained Lizzie.
“Yes, she’s a real old-fashioned harness pony,” agreed David. “She really picks her feet up and you see an awful lot of her knees. It’s not the right action for a riding pony, but that doesn’t mean she has to run away downhill. Are you two ready? Off you go then and all the others can follow.”
Hanif watched James carefully. He was older, stronger and more experienced, so he didn’t mind learning from him, and he felt pleased to see how well Jupiter was going. David was roaring “Legs!” and “Half-halt!” at intervals. When they turned downhill, Jupiter made a determined effort to take control but when he did begin to canter James turned him uphill again and took him back to the flag. Suddenly Jupiter gave in and decided to behave. He trotted down smoothly and made a very elegant halt.
“Terrific,” said David.
“He’s not easy.” James rode over, patting Jupiter. “Shall I take him round again? Would Harry like to try Ferdie? He’s much easier.”
“He’s a bit big for Harry,” said David, watching Berry. “Well done, Lizzie, but do remember to look up when you halt. I know, we’ll try Harry on Stardust. I’d like to see her with another rider. The rest of you keep going round.”
They were nearly all delighted to go round again. They decided that they enjoyed riding downhill. Only Hanif, using his legs frantically to keep Stardust going, almost wished himself back on Jupiter. But he managed to keep trotting down the hill and to halt at the flag, while Jupiter, who had stopped rolling his eyes and arguing, was pretending to be an obedient and well-schooled pony.
“Back on your own nags,” said David, “and everyone but Lynne and Harry can ride the course the other way round. You will halt at the far flag and then walk back here. Anyone who comes charging back out of control will be expelled from the course.”
“But that hill’s steeper.”
“Much steeper,” they began to complain, looking at the slope suspiciously.
“Yes, it is a bit, but now you’ve learned to ride downhill you can ride down any hill. You don’t have to start measuring gradients. Plenty of leg, look where you’re going and halt at the flag. Lead on, James.”
Some people crept down the distant hill, some went too fast, but they all managed it, and the second time round it began to seem easy. Alice had discovered that if she began by walking she could then push Saffron forward into a trot when she had him going well and this worked much better than beginning fast and losing control.
Then it was Hanif’s and Lynne’s turn. They both set off with very determined expressions on their faces. Hanif was in the lead and he felt much more confident than before. He knew now that he could do the hill and Jupiter could do it too. It’s just a matter of legs, he told himself, gritting his teeth as he fought to keep Jupiter balanced. It worked. He didn’t halt absolutely at the flag, but he halted.
“Well done,” shouted David. “Go round once more.”
Lynne, rather indignant that Lizzie had controlled her pony so easily, concentrated this time and found that she could make Berry behave if she tried. She felt quite pleased with herself as she followed Hanif round for another try.
When they came back they found the other pony members all dismounted and gossiping.
“That’s all for today,” said David. “Tomorrow morning here at the same time.”
“Thank you very much,” they said.
“Yes, it was terrific.”
“Great.”
“The best rally ever.”
“Except for the inconvenience of damaged legs,” said Rupert. “Mine have never ached so much in my life.”
“It’s the first time i
n your life that you’ve used them,” retorted David, twisting himself into the Land Rover.
“Would you like Banjo, Tina?” asked Paul. “I’ll go with David and do the slip rails.”
The ponies were weary and were quite happy to walk back to the farm on a loose rein while their riders discussed the morning.
“It was far more fun than an ordinary rally,” said James, “and we actually learned something new.”
“The ponies enjoyed it, which was nice,” remarked Lizzie. “At least I’m sure Ra prefers cross-country to ordinary schooling. David says he’s to have a worm dose and then I’m to increase his oats and nuts. Do you think Mummy’ll have a fit at the expense?”
“Two, probably,” said Rupert.
“No, she won’t,” argued Netti. “She oughtn’t to anyway. Parents are always wanting you to take things seriously, so now we’re doing it they ought to be pleased and take notice of what David says.”
“I’’ve been giving Stardust huge feeds since last Wednesday,” Lesley told Lizzie. “I think it’s beginning to have an effect. She wouldn’t have trotted up that hill in the Christmas holidays.”
When James saw all the other pony club members watering their ponies and tying them up with feeds, before settling down to eat their own lunches in one of the empty barns, he felt rather sad that he couldn’t stay.
“I’ll bring mine tomorrow,” he said, waving goodbye as he rode away down the lane.
“Tina, will you come home with us and try Hobbit?” asked Lizzie. “We’ve decided to tell Ollie that it’ll be a huge advantage to have a ready-schooled cross-country pony next year, when he’s old enough to go on the course.”
“I’d love to try him,” answered Tina, “but I have a feeling David will take one look at me and say I’m not good enough.”
“You know, it’s very odd,” said Hanif, sitting down on Alice’s straw bale. “If you have bikes or cars you can give one set of instructions to all the owners, but with ponies that wouldn’t work at all. David looks round and says that this one mustn’t wear a pelham, but that one can. Some need dropped nosebands and others don’t. Jupe mustn’t have oats, Rajah and Stardust must have more. Even the riding instructions are different for different people.”
“Except for legs,” said Alice ruefully. “We all get yelled at to use them.”
“It does seem to work though,” observed Tina. “I’ve watched Mr Foster and all the working pupils teaching at the riding school. They don’t get as excited as David. They go on and on about heels down and straight backs and hands low, but nothing ever seems to change. I learned a lot watching today because when the riders did the right thing the ponies did change. It was quite exciting.”
“You wait till you’re at the receiving end of David’s roars,” Rupert told her, “you won’t find it so exciting then. Does anyone know what happens to overworked legs? Do they wither away?”
“No, of course not.” Lesley sounded cross at such absurdity. “If you use muscles, they develop. They wither when you don’t use them.”
“You mean we’re all going to end up with huge thick legs, really brawny ones, like blacksmiths’ arms?”
“No, she doesn’t. Don’t tease,” Lizzie told her brother.
“The Cranford Vale people all have quite nice legs,” said Sarah, inspecting her own, “and they must use them or they wouldn’t win everything.”
The Robertses came into the barn to ask if Tina had put Banjo away in the cattle yard and found his water and feed.
“Yes, everything was fine,” answered Tina, “and he drank two buckets of water.”
“I asked David if he’d like us to start building the cross-country course this afternoon,” Paul went on, his face serious, “but he said he was too whacked to think about tomorrow. I don’t know how we’re ever going to get the jumps built.”
“I hope we haven’t tired him out too much,” said Lizzie, looking anxious.
“Mum says it’s good for him to have an interest, and won’t do him any harm so long as we don’t ride over him,” Lynne told her in comfortable tones.
5
We'll Never Do It
Except for Tina, all the pony club members were much confident and light-hearted when they rode to Garland Farm on the second morning of the course. Tina had tried Hobbit out on Monday afternoon and liked him very much. He was a little, dark-brown Dartmoor, handy and willing, who raced round the Wheelers’ messy jumps with ease.
“He’s lovely,” Tina had said, patting him afterwards with a smile on her thin freckled face. “It’s very kind of Ollie to lend him to me, and of you to arrange everything.”
“He only has two faults,” Lizzie answered. “One is that he hates cantering on the near fore—Ollie can never get him on it—and the other is that he didn’t grow when we did. It was so lovely when Rupert had Tristram and Hobbit was mine. We felt that we were quite good riders, and we did fairly well at the pony club, but now, with Rosie and Ra, we feel right out of everything. We used to be the equals of James and Jennifer when they had their little ponies, but now we’re not in the same class at all.”
“Of course, if you’ve never had a pony of your own, you long to have one so much you don’t really care how hopeless it is,” Tina had said, as she unbuckled Hobbit’s cardboard-stiff bridle and threw his green encrusted bit in the bucket of water, “but I suppose once you’ve had a good one you feel differently.”
“Yes, I do love Ra, but I can’t help feeling envious when I see everyone else whirling over jumps so easily, and Rupert minds even more,” Lizzie had agreed sadly.
When Tina arrived back at Kidlake at nine the next morning, Oliver was grooming Hobbit unwillingly.
“Thank goodness,” he said, handing her his dandy brush, “I thought you were never coming. I’ve picked out his hoofs and groomed a quarter of him.”
“Which quarter?” asked Tina, looking from Oliver’s round, cheeky face to the mud-caked pony.
“Near fore,” answered Oliver. “The front is much nicer to groom than the back, except for the head. I hate grooming heads, they’re all corners.”
“He’s the laziest boy on earth,” said Lizzie, who was dodging Rajah’s angry nips as she groomed his stomach.
Tina had taken off her anorak and was brushing energetically. She was used to grooming dozens of ponies to earn one ride at Mr Foster’s. It was a real treat to be getting one ready for herself, she thought.
“Well, you must help David with the jumps and flags and things,” Netti told Oliver in an elder-sisterly voice. “If you start being silly or showing off we won’t take you again.”
“I might not want to go again,” countered Oliver. “And I might come home if it’s boring.”
“Has anyone seen my bridle?” demanded Rupert, appearing dramatically at the back door. “It’s completely vanished. I’ve looked everywhere, and now I’m going to be late again and this time David will be furious.”
“It’s probably hanging up in the tackroom. You know how hopeless you are at looking,” Netti told him.
Lizzie stopped grooming and stood with an anxious expression on her face, trying to cast her mind back to the evening before.
“You cleaned it while you were watching television, don’t you remember? Mummy was cross when you spilled metal polish on the rug.”
“Yes, but where is it now?”
“Rupert and Rosie are both a bit dozy, Ra and Liz both in a tiz,” chanted Oliver.
The Rookes’ separate arrangements didn’t go according to plan. Lesley had made her way to the field early, cleaned her tack as Stardust munched her way contentedly through her extra-large feed, and then started grooming. But Sarah, who had cleaned her tack at home the night before, persuaded her mother to drive her to the field and, grooming briskly, found herself ready to start at the same moment as her sister.
“Aren’t you waiting for Tina?” asked Lesley as they approached the gate together.
“Of course not. You know she’s bor
rowing Hobbit from the Wheelers. She’s gone over to Kidlake to groom him.”
“I can’t remember every little detail about what your friends are doing,” snapped Lesley.
“Who cares,” said Sarah, fastening the gate. “By the way, Mum’s coming to watch tomorrow. She’s going to leave Janet and Mrs Cox in charge of the Ds and come to Coppice Hill.”
“That’ll ruin everything.” Lesley’s voice was bitter with anger. “She’ll interfere. She’ll keep telling David what a wonderful little rider the Great Sarah is and how he should put her on all the sticky ponies.”
“She won’t. Why are you always so horrible, so cross and jealous?”
“Because I’m sick and tired of hearing your praises all day. Because you’re Mummy’s nasty, slimy little pet,” shouted Lesley, her anger getting the better of her.
“It’s not my fault. I can’t help it. I didn’t ask to be Mum’s favourite,” Sarah shouted back.
They rode on in angry silence. Sarah took a sideways glance at her sister’s face and thought, it’s no wonder Mum likes me best when she’s so ugly and cross and boring; it’s her own fault.
Lesley escaped from her seething indignation into a dream world. She began to imagine a great triumph. Sarah had made a complete mess of the cross-country jumps, and then it was her turn. She rode brilliantly, whirling downhill, clearing everything. “Well done,” shouted David through the loudhailer, then he turned to her mother and added, “That’s the horsewoman of your family, Mrs Rooke.”
Sarah took another look at her sister. Oh let her sulk, she thought. I don’t care. Soon I’ll be with Lynne and Netti and Tina and I like them a million times better than Lesley.
Alice and Hanif had ridden over to Garland Farm with short stirrups and their cross-country seats. They arrived with aching legs, but a feeling of accomplishment for there was no doubt that their ponies went better when ridden in this manner. Saffron hadn’t stargazed, Jupiter hadn’t pulled and they had both gone with pricked ears and contented expressions.
Pony Club Cup (Woodbury Pony Club Book 1) Page 8