“Maybe.” Cat shrugged. “Good job we have each other.”
“Good job,” I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
We arrived at Walter’s barn a little after ten. We were late. I think Dad did it on purpose. He’d driven much slower than his usual breakneck pace and we hadn’t even been pulling a trailer. He wanted me to look bad in front of Walter. I didn’t know why.
The farm was big for one that was being rented and looked like a million bucks. I didn’t know what Walter was paying in rent but it had to cost a fortune. It was even nicer than Fox Run and that was one of the fanciest barns in the area. This one was like the farms down in south Florida that people spent millions just to rent. It was a bridle path away from the big show grounds where a lot of the winter shows were now winding down for the season. I craned my neck one way and then the other, trying to take in the pretty grass paddocks and the jump ring. It was enormous and there was a big gray powering over some fences that looked taller than I’d ever seen.
“Wow,” I said.
“Don’t be blinded by all the glamor,” Dad said. “At its heart it's just a barn and Walter is just a trainer.”
“You don’t have to ruin everything Dad,” I said grumpily.
I knew that he was trying to keep my expectations low and not to get carried away with myself but just for once couldn’t he let me be happy?
As soon as the truck pulled to a stop, I jumped out, helmet in hand. I was dressed to ride in my best breeches and a show shirt and I’d snuck my jacket into the truck as well just in case Walter wanted me to show a horse. It wasn’t the weekend but I knew that the jumper series was still going on with smaller classes during the week. I’d begged my father to let me enter but he said that traipsing up and down for two hours each way wouldn’t be fair on the horses and that we couldn’t afford to rent a stall. I’d dreamed of having my horses there for a whole week but since that would have cost more money than we probably made all year, it was out of the question.
“Is Walter around?” I asked a girl who was cleaning stalls.
She had short mousey hair and suspicious eyes. She pointed in the direction of the ring. I ran over as fast as I could, feeling out of breath and thirsty. I should have grabbed a bottle of water but then I’d only have had to pee and there didn’t seem to be time for that. There didn’t seem to be time for anything.
“You’re late,” Walter said.
He was the one who had been riding the big gray and he jumped to the ground and handed him off to a short man in jeans with a towel tucked in his belt.
“Put him on the walker,” Walter told the guy. “Then he gets a full groom. No turnout.”
The guy didn’t say a word. Just nodded and whisked the horse away.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t have my license. My father had to drive me.”
“How old are you again?” Walter said as we walked back to the barn.
“I’ll be sixteen in October,” I said, trying to make myself sound older than I was like a little kid who proudly said they were four and a half instead of five.
“That’s good,” Walter said. “You’re still young. You have time.”
Time for what? I wanted to ask.
“This is Finders Keepers,” Walter said, pointing to a bay horse that was already tacked up in his stall. “We just call him Lucky.”
“Is he?” I said.
“Most days,” Walter said. “His rider couldn’t be here today. I want you to show him in the junior jumper class at eleven thirty.”
I looked at my phone. It was ten thirty now. There would just be enough time to hack over to the show grounds and make my class. I’d be lucky if I even got to walk the course. Finders Keepers had better live up to his barn name and be really darn lucky.
“I’ll get my jacket,” I said breathlessly.
I ran to the truck where Dad was standing there with his arms crossed.
“You didn’t come with me,” I said.
“I was too busy watching you flailing around like a fish out of water making excuses and blaming me,” he said. “So what did he want?”
“He wants me to ride a horse in a class at the show,” I said, grabbing my jacket.
“When?” Dad said.
“Like, now,” I replied, feeling the rush of adrenaline that showing always brought and with it the fear that I would fall flat on my face and everyone would finally see me for the fraud I really was.
“Can you drive over to the show and meet us there. I think we have to hack over. And please can you get me some water?” I said.
Dad must have felt sorry for me because he nodded and got in the truck.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” he said.
“Absolutely.” I nodded.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
I knew that I should have been nervous but at Walter Grey’s barn there didn’t seem to be time. Finders Keepers was shoved into my hands, braided and tacked and looking like a million bucks. I ran my hand down his sleek neck and was surprised to see a speck of blood come away on my fingers.
“Did you get a bug bite?” I asked the horse.
He stood there not moving, like a statue. I rubbed his neck again and this time there was nothing except maybe a small lump on his vein. Had they injected him with something? I looked around nervously. The groom had gone. The mousey girl was furiously cleaning stalls with her head down. I convinced myself it was nothing. It had to be a mosquito. I patted the horse, checked the girth and got in the saddle. Lucky didn’t flinch.
“Ready?” Walter said.
This time he was riding a plain chestnut who didn’t have a speck of white on him.
“I’m riding this guy in a class after yours so I’ll show you the way,” he said.
“That’s good,” I replied. “I’ve never been here before. I’d get totally lost.”
“You haven’t shown here?” he asked as our horses fell into step next to each other. “Why hasn’t your father brought you up here. Those two horses you had at the last show are more than capable.”
I thought about telling Walter that it was too expensive but that didn’t seem like the sort of thing you just blurted out to a trainer you hardly knew and I didn’t want to make my dad look bad.
“We just moved recently,” I said. “And we’ve been busy fixing up our new farm.”
I didn’t tell him that we got kicked out of Fox Run, a storm blew down most of our fences and we lost a horse. It was easier to lie and pretend that everything was fine. And I got the feeling that was what everyone else did anyway. Everyone lying all the time and no one telling the truth. Not in this business anyway.
“Well, good luck with your new farm,” Walter said.
I wasn’t sure if he meant it or not.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Hacking a horse over to the showgrounds felt like something the rich and famous did. I wasn’t rich or famous. I was a girl from the wrong side of the tracks with no money and horses of questionable breeding. I rode a pony on the Junior Olympic team. I was someone who went against the establishment and its rules that said you had to come from breeding or money.
Most of the top juniors had parents who rode and had stables of expensive horses to choose from. Others had rock star or business mogul parents with more money than they knew what to do with so they spent large sums of it on their kids and their passions, buying horses and letting their children compete all over the world. I was just a girl who once lived next to the alley where they kept the dumpster for the Chinese restaurant. Who once had a sister who maybe might have been a champion if she hadn’t died. Who might have been a child riding prodigy myself if my trainer father hadn’t run off and left us. Or if my mother hadn’t suffered what was so clearly a nervous breakdown. I came from places the others ignored. Only Walter wasn’t ignoring me. He was looking at me curiously.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked me.
“Nothing,” I said. “The show I guess.�
��
I was getting good at lying. Apparently not good enough for Walter though.
“Don’t lie to me,” he said.
“Fine.” I felt my face flush red. “I was thinking about how I don’t belong here.”
“No one knows that,” Walter said. “You are just another nameless, faceless girl on the back of a horse. To them you could be anybody.”
“But I’m not anybody,” I said. “I’m nobody.”
“Well let’s see if we can change that,” Walter said.
He smiled at me and I smiled back but it felt like we were both doing this dance, skirting around the real issue, the fact that no matter how many horses he let me ride, I’d never fit in with the trust fund babies that rode with him. But as our horses stepped through the gate and out onto the lush grass bridle path I thought that today maybe it didn’t matter. Today maybe I could pretend that I was one of those girls.
Lucky was easy to ride. He walked along like he’d gone to the show grounds a hundred times before. He probably had.
“Can you tell me about him?” I asked Walter. “Lucky I mean. Has he been showing all winter?”
Walter nodded and proceeded to list off all the classes that Lucky had won and the money he had brought in for his rider. No wonder the horse was tired. I could feel it now in his bones and the way he moved. He wasn’t relaxed, he was something else. He felt like I did at the end of a long day when I barely had the strength to take off my clothes and shower. I just didn’t know if that tiredness was due to his grueling show schedule or the fact that he’d been injected with something before I got on him. And if he was tested. If they found illegal drugs in his system, I’d be the one in trouble. I wanted to say something but Walter was a big deal. If I accused him of drugging his horses, then I’d never be asked to ride for him again. In fact, I was pretty sure he’d make sure I never rode for anyone ever again. So I kept my mouth shut even though it was probably a big mistake.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
The bridle path to the show grounds was flanked on both sides by neatly trimmed green hedges. Beyond them were other farms like Walter’s, rented for the season by big name trainers and their owners. Some of them had small green paddocks with horses grazing in them, booted up with fly sheets on. The fences were four board wood or white PVC. There was nothing for those million dollar champions to hurt themselves on. I thought of our tumbledown fences and how any day one of our horses could hang a leg in a wonky board or snag a foot in a sagging piece of wire and come away with a nasty heel bulb cut. We wanted to protect our horses all the time from everything, it was just sometimes it was hard to have the money and resources to do so.
We passed a girl who was walking her horse back to her farm, a pretty gray all braided. There was a navy fly sheet draped over the horse’s hind quarters and she had a blue ribbon pinned to her saddle.
“Congratulations,” I said with a smile.
She just looked at me and nodded before passing by.
“She didn’t seem very happy with her win,” I said.
“It wasn’t a championship ribbon,” Walter said. “Those are bigger.”
So now it wasn’t just the color but the size of the ribbon that was important? I was about to enter a show where all that mattered was winning. It wasn’t going to be like the other shows. This one was different. I could feel it in the air, a charged tension like electricity. There was big money at stake. Lots had been spent in the pursuit of those championship ribbons and owners expected to recoup their losses as did the owners of the horse I was riding now. I wanted to ask about the girl who usually rode him but I figured that if Walter had wanted to tell me then he would have by now and besides, knowing about her wouldn’t help me. Not that I needed any help. Lucky was as docile and quiet as a lamb.
As we got closer to the show, you could hear the noise that I loved so well. The thunder of galloping hooves, the shouts of trainers as they called out last minute instructions to their students over the sound of other trainers. Poles rattling to the ground as horses knocked them down. Nickering and snorting and their hooves on the tarmac as they made their way from the show barns to the show rings. Golf carts filled with giggling kids and barking dogs and one girl walking a miniature goat on a leash.
“That isn’t really a goat, is it?” I said as we passed the girl and her goat, it’s pink collar sparkling in the sunlight.
“At least it's not a pig,” Walter said, shaking his head. “That was all the rage last year. Some people swore their horse wouldn’t come if they couldn’t bring their pet pig.”
“Like a pig security blanket?” I said.
“These horses are spoiled children,” Walter said. He didn’t add that their owners were too.
I felt like I’d entered the twilight zone. These people thought their horses needed goats and pigs as companions and they were allowed to bring them to the show? It really was a different world.
Everywhere I looked there was money. It was tied up in the horses the girls rode by on, the expensive tack and fancy show clothes. On the women who walked behind their children wearing diamond encrusted watches, carrying little dogs with collars that had just as many jewels on them. I felt like my head was swiveling around so much that it was going to fall off my neck. I was so distracted that when Lucky spooked at a puddle, I almost lost my seat. I hadn’t been expecting the horse to spook at anything.
“He doesn’t care for water,” Walter said. “So watch it.”
“That would have been nice to know,” I grumbled under my breath as several small girls with braids and ribbons looked up at me and laughed.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
There was an art to navigating the show grounds. I’m sure it was supposed to make sense but all it seemed like to me was an endless maze of rings and barns and large tents set up where people were drinking champagne out of real glasses, not the plastic kind. I didn’t think I’d be able to find my way back if I tried and I was just about to ask Walter what ring the class was in when he finally stopped.
“Here we go,” he said. “Ring thirteen.”
I really hoped that ring thirteen was going to be lucky for Lucky because so far I didn’t feel that lucky. I felt like a fish out of water. I knew that this was where I’d always wanted to be, competing with the best. It was what I’d been striving for my whole life so why did I suddenly feel like the awkward country cousin who just loped in on her roping horse?
“Here is your course,” Walter said, pulling a sheet of paper off a stack that was pinned to a cork board, fluttering in the breeze like a bunch of leaves that had been pinned down. “Memorize it. You can walk the course now. Martin will hold the horse.”
Martin, the groom from the barn had miraculously appeared with a grooming bucket, his towel tucked into his belt and a bottle of water. He handed it to me and I took a big gulp, my parched throat burning before giving it back to him. I hadn’t seen any rest rooms and even though the show grounds were fancy, I was pretty sure that the riders were meant to use the dreaded portable toilets. I tried to avoid those at all costs. They were usually hot, cramped and smelled of unmentionables. Plus, one time a girl found a snake curled up in the bowl. Not exactly how I wanted to spend the few moments I’d have left before my class.
I got off Lucky and handed his reins to Martin.
“Thanks,” I said, trying to smile encouragingly at the groom. Martin just shrugged.
“Off you go then,” Walter said.
“You’re not going to walk it with me?” I asked.
“I have my own course to walk, remember?” he said.
Right. I was here on a horse I’d never ridden before at a show that felt like it was way above my skill level and now I’d pretty much been thrown to the wolves. The only saving grace was that there probably wouldn’t be anyone here that I knew. No Jess to taunt me and the other girls didn’t have to know that I wasn’t meant to be there. That I didn’t belong. That was until someone shrieked out my name from across the rin
g.
“Emily!”
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Emily!” A girl called out again.
I looked around, hoping that she wasn’t talking to me. There had to be other girls there with the same name but she was waving at me. I looked over my shoulder just to be sure before waving back. I didn’t want to. Every fiber in my being told me that I should ignore the girl because she could turn out to be any of the spoiled girls that I’d met along the way, Tara or even Becka, the girl I’d once thought was my friend but then stabbed me in the back. But the girl ran over to me and hugged me tight before I could do anything about it.
“It is you!” she said.
“Chloe?” I replied.
“Of course,” she said. “Who else would it be. How is Esther? How is Sand Hill? I miss that cute little farm.”
The old Chloe had been young and sweet with long blonde hair and a shy smile. She’d come to Sand Hill that one summer with Frank Coppell and turned our lives upside down. I’d been kind of glad when they left. But this Chloe was older, more mature. A touch of blush on her cheeks and mascara on her long lashes but she didn’t look cheap. She looked beautiful, like she’d just stepped out of a magazine.
“Esther went back to Sweden,” I said. “It’s a long story. I’ll catch you up later.”
“Okay.” She shrugged. “Want to walk the course with me?”
“Sure,” I said, glad that I’d finally found a familiar face in a crowd of girls I didn’t think I could relate to.
We walked the course of rather intimidating fences. This was no schooling show. These were big, professional jumps with real flowers as fillers and fancy wings made out to be towering skyscrapers or colorful butterflies. Some of them had names of sponsors on them, tack stores and insurance companies and others that I’d never even heard of. We walked the course twice just to be sure but despite the jumps it didn’t seem overly complicated.
Catch Rider (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 28) Page 6