I couldn’t believe it. This was happening. I’d given a speech like some sort of freedom fighter and the masses had stopped waving signs and started to listen. I had misjudged them, just as they had misjudged me. Now I had their attention. A little more engagement, and maybe I could have their loyalty. These women weren’t just the lunatic fringe, after all. These were horse-people who were desperate to help horses, so desperate they were willing to pay attention to anyone who told them they could make a change. It was just a sad truth that the people most likely to stand up and lead them were the people with the least amount of true integrity.
“I can help,” I said. “I’m not a lawyer, but I’m a trainer. I’m a breeder. I’m an owner. And I’m here to do what’s right for the horses.”
Then, because I’d seen too many movies, I suppose, or because I was just so damn excited, I started clapping my hands. Slowly, then all at once, the crowd followed suit. They were dropping their signs and we were all clapping in unison outside of the gates of a training center, while the security guard peered at us from the air-conditioned comfort of his car, and the trucks drove by on the county road as if nothing was happening.
But something was happening. Something was starting. Change was starting.
Cassidy Lehigh left.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I pulled the girth tight with trembling fingers, ignoring Tiger’s tail as it slapped as close to my face as he could get it. Let him complain in the barn. If he behaves under saddle, that’s all I can ask for. It was nearly time for our spot in the jumping class, the only class we were entered in since the versatility had been cancelled due to lack of entries. We had to go into the arena, put in a short dressage-type test as a warm-up, and then trot or canter a tiny course of tiny fences—the course was rider’s choice. It would be no different than any other ride, I kept telling myself—and Tiger. The only difference was that it would be in front of an audience, in an arena we’d never been in before, and I could only hope that Tiger wouldn’t take one look and think that he was in a strange new kind of racetrack.
No pressure there.
“Be a good boy,” I told Tiger, voice cajoling, and he turned his head to look at me. His eyes were bright and his nostrils flared wide, but he wasn’t trembling or pawing or pinning his ears at me, and for now that was all I could ask for. “It’s not a race,” I reminded him. “This is just another ride, in another boarding stable arena. Your third one! You’re some globe-trotter now!”
The loudspeaker in the barn aisle crackled and hummed, preparing to make some announcement. My hands froze on the saddle’s billet, waiting. Tiger jumped as if it was the call to post he’d been waiting for, but instead of the blaring tones of a trumpet, he heard only the static-roughened voice of the show announcer. The thin skin on his shoulder shook.
“Next rider on deck, Arlene Bowen on Splashtastic.”
Only a call to the arena, for a rider well ahead of me. The breath I didn’t know I’d been holding rushed out of me, and I finished buckling the girth. Now all I needed was my hard hat and bridle. I opened the stall door a crack and reached through, grasping blindly where I thought the bridle hook ought to be. My hand closed on empty air. I shoved the stall door a bit wider, its ungreased wheels groaning in protest, and stuck my head out inquiringly.
There was nothing there. The hook was empty. The beautiful padded bridle that Kerri had brought out of retirement was nowhere to be seen.
“No,” I whispered, and threw a quick glance behind me; Tiger was standing quietly, one hind leg cocked, his ears pricked as he watched me do the hokey-pokey with his stall door. “You stand,” I commanded in a firm tone. His ears waggled in response. Good enough.
I slipped out of the stall and slid the door closed again, then looked up and down the aisle. A few other riders were bustling about in front of their own stalls, polishing tack or rolling bandages, but most of them were either already on their horses in the warm-up arena, or had finished their rides and joined the spectators in the arena bleachers, watching the final rides of the competition. The barn wasn’t quite deserted, but it would have been fairly easy for someone to just lift a bridle without being noticed. Someone who would be in and out constantly, like the organizer, maybe? Cassidy, you nightmare. I’d bested her yesterday and stolen away her acolytes. Now she wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to ruin her horse show by winning it, too.
What the hell was I going to do now? There was no point in searching for it—this wasn’t a scavenger hunt. If someone had taken my bridle, it was as good as gone forever.
I was just going to have to find another bridle.
There was a bang from within the stall. I whirled around and peered through the bars. Tiger rolled his eye at me and flung his head up and down, then casually lifted a long foreleg and rapped his hoof against the wall board again. Bang!
“You knock that off,” I snapped. “Shame on you!”
Bang, bang, bang!
“Son of a…” I stopped myself from saying another word, lest disapproving ears catch me calling my horse names and call the local papers. I started off down the barn aisle, heading in the direction of the nearest human. Maybe someone would lend me a bridle. Fighting back a bright red blush, I made the rounds, begging for tack.
“I only have one with me, sorry.”
“Oh no! I didn’t bring a spare bridle. I really should have.”
“Wait, you said yours went missing?”
“Who would take your bridle?”
I had tried to be discreet, making inquiries quietly and with a great deal of humility, rather than drama and urgency, but it only takes one loud voice, and suddenly half-a-dozen other women were grouping around me, brushes and bandages in their hands. “Nora, someone took this lady’s bridle!” one of them shouted, and a head popped out of a stall door.
“You’re kidding!”
I bit my lip. “Look, I don’t want to start a big fuss over nothing. I’m sure someone just took my bridle by mistake. And we all have to compete today, so I don’t want to distract any of you from getting your horses ready—”
“Are you kidding?” the one named Nora shouted, sliding her horse’s stall door shut and marching down the aisle. She was tall and thin and had a jutting chin that gave her a commanding appearance, and everyone seemed perfectly willing to stop chattering and let Nora take charge. “This is clearly an attack by another competitor. Someone doesn’t want you to win. Is there anyone here that you’ve had a disagreement with? Bad business deal? Come on, we’ve all been there. We all have our enemies.”
There was a lot of solemn nodding at this. As horse trainers, every one of them knew that using the word “enemy” was not an exaggeration. This business was not for the faint of heart.
I choked back a rueful laugh. “I wouldn’t know where to start,” I admitted. “I’m Alex Whitehall.”
The solemn nods turned to dropped jaws. Not the greatest reaction, but at least no one turned on their heel and walked away from me.
“I can see that my reputation precedes me,” I said, and attempted a smile.
A rider who didn’t look much older than sixteen gave me a careful boots-to-baseball cap assessment before she spoke. “They say you dumped that horse in the Everglades because he was always coming up lame and you didn’t think he’d be more than a pasture pet if you retired him.”
“Define ‘they,’ because that’s the first I’ve heard of that particular twist on the story.” Behind me, I heard Tiger kick the wall again, and I wished they’d hurry up and decide whether they were going to help me or run me out of the barn with a pitchfork. None of this mattered if Tiger lamed himself. I set out to explain myself yet again. I should have this story printed up on business cards. I could just walk around distributing them. Before you say anything… just read this. “The thing is, I never owned that horse. And the guy that did own him left the country. There’s no one here to take the blame, but a lot of people think I should do it.” I shrugged. What
did it matter anymore? “I’m just trying to do the right thing, one horse at a time. They’re going to say whatever they want. Talk is cheap. Training, making change happen—that takes a little more effort.”
There were a few nods of approval. I bit back a hopeful smile. If I could win over these ladies, these retired racehorse devotees, I’d be amongst friends at last.
“It was CASH, wasn’t it?” another rider asked. This woman was older, stouter, and more skeptical looking. The voice of reason, I hoped. “Those bastards at CASH are a pack of liars. And the groups they work with are worse. Some of those people think all horses ought to be set free on the plains to run wild, didja know that? They’re against all of us, not just horse racing.”
“That’s true,” another woman said. “Those animal rights activists are all tarred with the same brush. They say it’s about drugs and racing two-year-olds, and it’s really about anyone who shows horses. They hate us all the same. It’s a slippery slope. I won’t let my students have anything to do with them.”
I wondered what would happen if I announced that the show’s organizer was also behind CASH. I wondered if anyone actually knew. I bit my lip.
“So what happened to the horse, then?” The young girl looked annoyed, as if she’d rather not be proved wrong quite so publicly. Well, it was hard being the youngest one in the group. I understood that.
“He’s at a farm somewhere, Indiantown, maybe? Getting better. We sent money for his vet bills, because it was the right thing to do. But of course then people said it was an admission of guilt. I can’t help that. I can’t help what people say, or what they think. Fact is, I was just an exercise rider when he was at the farm, and he was a boarder. That’s the only connection I have with the horse.”
His winsome face, with that thick black forelock blowing across his tiny white star; his pricked ears watching me as I entered his stall to get him saddled for the day. The spring in his step every time he saw a beloved mud puddle in his path… There was that connection, too. That had been a real connection, even if it wasn’t on paper, wasn’t legally binding, and could never truly be explained to anyone. I took a deep breath, let it out, steadied myself. “He was a good boy,” I told them. “I won’t say I didn’t care about him. He was special.” I took another shaky breath, thinking of the two-year-olds we’d had this spring. The ones who had gone on to sales, the ones who had been mine, the ones who had never been mine, the ones who I had complained about and the ones who had made me thrill and the ones who had never, really, done much for me at all—but I remembered all of them. “They all have something that makes them special,” I realized aloud. “And they’re all perfect for someone.”
There was quiet for a moment.
Nora crossed her arms across her chest, looking like a large judgmental grasshopper, and pointed her chin at me for a long, weighty moment. I met her gaze and waited. Then she gave me a half-smile and turned to the others, fixing her eyes on them one at a time. “We’ve all heard the stories. But I gotta be honest with you, Citizens Against Slave Horses doesn’t seem like the most reputable source. I almost didn’t come to this whole show because I know Cassidy’s got mixed up with them. But I think she only did it to go after Alex here.”
The stout woman nodded emphatically. “You know I agree, Nora. But she was wrong to do it. You can’t wipe out years of responsible behavior with the accusation of one fringe group. That’s what I say, anyway. I read that interview you did in the fall,” she added, turning towards me. “I agreed with every word you said. And that’s why I’m here. The Thoroughbred is the single greatest resource we have as sport horse trainers. Strong, versatile, and smart. And there are thousands of them just waiting for a new career. We have to stick together if we’re going to bring this breed back to the top.”
I could have kissed her. Those were my words, right off the pages of New Equestrian. The ones that had been overshadowed these past four months by the words of Mary Archer, as translated by CASH and their press releases and their mass e-mails. It was all I could do to remember the girl I’d been when I’d said them, so confident in their simple truth. I had never expected them to get me into trouble.
Nora spoke up again. “I’m with Marla on this one. I read that interview too, and I remember thinking, ‘Hey, this girl is one of us.’ I still think she is. And if we let these radical animal rights activists get their way, it won’t be long before they’ll be coming after our show horses. I think we have to give Alex a fair shot in competition. And that means finding a bridle for her. Does anyone have anything, anywhere? In your trailer maybe? In your tack trunk? Let’s do some scouting. We can put together some spare parts if we have to.”
The crowd scattered, half a dozen women of every age and size and shape, all wearing breeches and boots, united in the common cause of finding me a bridle. I was so grateful, I nearly burst into tears. Maybe I would have, too, but Tiger started kicking again, and I excused myself to go tell that wretch that he was just going to have to wait like a gentleman, or he’d have to answer to me in a round pen.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Alex Whitehall, riding The Tiger Prince.”
My name was still echoing around the lofty rafters when I trotted Tiger into the arena. I couldn’t help but glance at the crowds in the bleachers as we made our first round of the arena, and I could see the round eyes, the turned heads as people whispered.
Alex Whitehall, Horse Murderer, I thought glumly. My name precedes me. Tiger stuck his head out, neck stiff, and that’s when I realized that I had to ignore them and ride as we had done back at the farm, or all of my discomfort would show in the gaits of my horse.
One more glance, and there they were—Elsie, and Jean, and Kelly, and a few other ladies from Roundtree—they had all driven all the way down here from Ocala to be our cheering section! Elsie was smiling at me, looking encouraging; Jean looked grim, as if she was certain that Tiger was going to go on a rampage worthy of his name—perhaps he would kill me, kill the judge, and then kill everyone in the bleachers.
I had to convince her that she was wrong.
Breed advocates, that was what we all were today. We had to be breed advocates, taking every opportunity to show off the gorgeous moves and incomparable nature of the Thoroughbred horse. Tiger’s flashing good looks were one thing; now I needed him to show that he was a competitive, but tractable, partner in the show-ring. With that attitude, maybe Jean would be one step closer to giving Thoroughbreds another shot. And hey, maybe we’d win the class while we were at it.
After all, we were here to win. Would I have left Personal Best for anything less than first place?
Resolved, I fixed my gaze between Tiger’s two pricked ears, softened my hands, and relaxed my shoulders. I let my legs hang as long as they could reach, and I felt him come back to me; his mouth elastic on the bit, his back rising to meet my seat, his gait springing forward with the cat-like grace I knew so well. As we trotted in a big figure-eight with panache, I thought that the arena grew quiet, the whispers silenced. Perhaps I was just so caught up in the ride, the distractions around us disappeared.
We cantered twice, one time around on each lead, with lovely round twenty-meter circles to show that he was beginning to grow aware of bending on the turn. Tiger stuck his nose out and grew stiff on the right lead, and still couldn’t quite bend in that direction, but at least he picked up the lead correctly at the first asking. I rode him down the center line and asked for a little leg-yield to soften his jaw and relax his top line again, and Tiger complied, the foam dripping from his mouth and sweat darkening his poll as he thought hard about each request.
Then, it was time for the fences.
He’d already seen them, five little jumps at the far end of the arena. Two cross-rails, two verticals, a nicely stepped oxer. Nothing higher than two-foot-three, as advertised. They were baby novice jumps, designed for the advanced beginner, but they were still thrilling to a young horse who had just found out about jumping.
Earlier in the competition, I’d overheard, the jumps had caused some excitement. There had been a lot of rushing, a little bolting, a few subsequent crashes. No one had gotten hurt, and nothing had really been out of the norm for a new jumper, but still—if I wanted to win this, I had to keep Tiger calm, calm, calm. There could be no repeats of the mistakes we had made back at the farm.
I breathed deep and tried to release the tension I could feel creeping back through my back and shoulders. Tiger shook his head and blew hard through his nostrils, and I loosened my fingers in response, giving him the space he needed to stretch his neck without catching him in the mouth. He moved forward lightly and tucked his nose in a gentlemanly approximation of a horse on the bit, and I gave him a little leg, just the slightest bit, for more impulsion. We wound through the jumps, his ears following the standards of each one as we circled them, and his steps picked up a bit. I closed my fingers in response and felt his mouth harden a bit. “Easy, son,” I muttered. “One step at a time.”
When he seemed more settled and relaxed, I took him in a big loop around the fences, and then turned him towards a cross-rail. We were still about ten strides away, plenty of time for him to judge the fence and decide what pace he needed for his approach. Tiger judged the fence and decided that it was going to require maximum velocity. He stuck out his nose and proceeded to charge at a huge sloppy trot, his entire body sloping forward onto his forehand. I felt like he was going to trip on his own toes and tumble head-over-heels, taking me with him. If he thought he was going to gain a canter with this sort of gait, he was sadly mistaken. This isn’t it, Tiger.
I dropped my hands to either side of his withers and stretched them far apart, wiggling the bit just a little with my ring fingers to remind him—soft, calm, relaxed. He flicked an ear back towards me, as if to acknowledge that yes, yes, he knew I was there, but there was this jump thing ahead, and it needed to be dealt with before he could give me what I wanted. Which of us was more determined? I set my jaw and sat down in the saddle, letting my legs slip ahead of me in a chair seat well removed from his sides, and pushed my seat bones into his spine with everything I had.
Turning For Home (Alex and Alexander Book 4) Page 29