Show Time (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 17)

by Claire Svendsen

  “Not really,” I replied. “But she figured out how to kind of ride him and she wants a horse that is going to win.”

  “Couldn’t your father refuse to sell him to her?” Alice asked.

  “Encore doesn’t belong to him,” I said. “And it’s part of his business.”

  “I guess so,” she said. “It still sucks though.”

  “I know,” I said. “So anyway, what classes are you guys entered in?”

  We sat on the grass and ate our breakfast, talking a million miles a minute like we hadn’t seen each other in months instead of weeks. Alice was riding in the class that Encore was entered in, which she wasn’t too thrilled about because she already knew how good he was. And they couldn’t wait to come and watch me ride in the pony jumpers, which I was kind of embarrassed about.

  I didn’t tell them about the mini Grand Prix. I couldn’t risk it. What if one of them was horrible at keeping secrets? I didn’t know them well enough to be sure that they wouldn’t blow it for me. But Andy was riding in the Grand Prix too. I’d known that he would be. He was good. After all he’d actually beaten me and Encore at the clinic and it was only by the grace of Hunter Preston that he had declared it a tie, which made us both recipients of the Talent Scout Series invitation. Beating him and his horse Mousse in the mini Grand Prix would really set us up for the summer shows.

  But looking around at all the fantastic horses and riders, I knew it was a long shot. The mini Grand Prix was an open class. There was no age limit or skill limit or any other limit. The best riders and the worst could enter alongside each other and only the course and the clock would declare the winner. Could Bluebird really win against such stiff competition? I didn’t know but I knew I’d never find out if I didn’t hand in my entry form.

  “I’ll see you guys later, okay?” I said, standing up and tossing my napkin in the trash can.

  “I’ll beat you later,” Alice said, winking at me.

  “You’ll try,” I replied with a smile.

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO

  I found the show secretary sitting surrounded by stacks of paper. She was a grumpy looking woman and I instantly felt nervous. She was probably going to be mad at me that I was submitting a last minute entry form and messing up her paperwork.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to smile and be nice. “I have this late entry.”

  She pushed her glasses halfway down her nose and looked up at me.

  “You do, do you?” she said.

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s what they all say.” She sighed.

  She took my form and looked it over.

  “That class is full,” she said.

  “What?” I shrieked.

  “You heard me.” She shoved the form back in my direction. “It’s full.”

  “But it can’t be full,” I said.

  It had never even crossed my mind that there would be a limit on the number of entries in the mini Grand Prix. Usually show organizers were happy to take your money, even if that meant the class went on for hours. But the mini Grand Prix was the last class of the day. I suppose they had to have a cutoff point. They couldn’t have people jumping all night, even though I knew that everyone would be happy to do so.

  “Please,” I tried again. “It’s really important to me. I’m begging you. Can’t you just squeeze us in? My pony is fast. He’ll be round the course in less than a minute.”

  “You want to enter a pony?” she said, sounding curious now. “Are you sure you have the right class?”

  “Yes, I do. And I need to be in it. I’ll do anything. This is like one of the most important classes of my life.”

  She took my form back and looked at it and then looked at me, obviously weighing up if I was actually serious or if this was some kind of a prank.

  I just stood there with my fingers crossed behind my back and my heart pounding a million miles a minute because if she didn’t let us enter then it had all been for nothing.

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE

  I stood there with sweaty palms looking at the woman who held my fate in her hands. Well, the fate of the Easter show anyway. I tried to convey how important this was through the sheer will power of my mind but she was looking at her papers so I had no idea if my mental powers of persuasion were having any effect on her or not. Eventually she looked up at me and sighed.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

  “Oh really?” I gushed. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  She held up her hand and for a moment I thought I’d overdone it.

  “I said I’ll do my best,” she said. “That is no guarantee. If the class doesn’t run long then I may be able to tag you on at the end but that is only a maybe. And perhaps if someone scratches before the class then I can slot you into their place.”

  “That would work,” I said, silently hoping that she would tag me on at the end because then Missy and my dad wouldn’t figure out what was going on until it was too late and they wouldn’t be able to stop me.

  “Check back with me and I’ll let you know,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said again.

  I wandered back to our stalls feeling a little deflated. I’d worked it all up so much in my mind, entering the class, cantering in there to everyone’s surprise. I’d never even imagined that I wouldn’t complete the first step, which was actually entering. I slipped into Bluebird’s stall and hung my arms around his neck.

  “We may not get a chance to show how great we really are after all,” I whispered. “So we’ll have to do our very best in the pony jumpers. No funny stuff. Okay?”

  All thoughts of messing up and getting eliminated were now gone. The pony jumpers might turn out to be the only class I was competing in and even though it didn’t have mini Grand Prix prize money, it still had some and some was better than none when your checking account was almost empty.

  “You’d better get warmed up,” Dad said as he walked past. “Your class is after Faith’s.”

  “Right,” I said.

  Only I already knew that I wasn’t going to wear Bluebird out by putting him over a warm up jump a million times. We’d warm up on the flat. That was it. I couldn’t waste his energy on anything else just in case we got in the big class after all. There wasn’t much point leaving our best jumps in the warm up ring. That would just be stupid.

  But instead of stressing about all that, I found myself helping Faith, who was having a mini meltdown in Macaroni’s stall.

  “What is the matter?” I said as I heard her let out a shriek.

  “It’s all going wrong,” she cried, turning to me with a tear stained face. “Look, his girth has broken. What am I going to do?”

  She was holding up the leather and I could see the stitching unravelling almost before my eyes. I wasn’t sure how it had suddenly become a safety hazard but it clearly was.

  “Didn’t you notice it was loose when you cleaned your tack?” I asked her.

  “No,” she said, blinking her wide eyes and trying to force the tears back inside. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “It’s horse show luck, that’s what happened.”

  “Well it doesn’t seem very lucky,” she said.

  “That’s because horse show luck is the bad kind, like the sort you get after breaking a mirror or walking under a ladder. Are you even wearing your lucky socks?”

  “I don’t have any lucky socks,” she wailed.

  “It’s okay,” I said, laughing. “Give me this. I’m sure we have a spare one in the trailer that will fit Macaroni. My father is always prepared.

  I left Faith, who promised not to cry and went out to the horse trailer where I secured a Macaroni sized girth and a chocolate bar for Faith.

  “Here,” I said when I got back to the stalls. “Something for your pony and something for you.”

  “I can’t eat right now,” she said, taking the girth and looking at it. “And this doesn’t match my saddle.”

  “Well you’ll ju
st have to make do,” I replied. “And did you even eat breakfast this morning?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I was too nervous.”

  “And that is why you’ll eat this now,” I said. “Missy won’t be very happy with you if you faint off your pony in the class now, will she?”

  “No,” Faith said, taking the chocolate and ripping into it. “But I don’t know what I’m doing here. All those other kids are better than I am and their ponies are better. I should have just stayed home.”

  “Why would you say that?” I asked her.

  “Because look at them.”

  She pointed to a young girl about her age leading what looked to be a pint sized Warmblood past us and out to the ring. I looked at her and then at Macaroni, the puzzle piece pony.

  “Listen,” I told her. “You know that it’s not what is on the outside that counts. It’s what’s in here.” I patted my chest. “Heart. And your pony has that in spades. He is like Bluebird. He jumps because he loves it and not only that but because he wants to please you. He’d jump the moon for you if you asked him to.”

  “Do you really think he is like Bluebird?” she asked, blinking back tears.

  “Yes, I do. And I think if we were in your class then you’d give us a run for our money.”

  “We would not.”

  She laughed but I saw her statue change from that of a hunched over, defeated girl to one who was suddenly standing proud.

  “Now get your butt out there before I decide to ride your pony instead,” I said.

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  Faith won her class just like I knew she would. I stood on the sidelines cheering loudly as she finished the first round clear, patting Macaroni’s neck with a big grin on her face. When the bell rung for her to go on and complete the jump off course she picked up her reins with the most determined look I’d ever seen on a girl before. Except, I imagine, for the one I got on mine when I was about to do a jump off.

  The jumps were small but the course was technical for the age of the kids who were riding and Faith knew that in order to stand a chance, she’d have to be quick. There were already a couple of kids who’d made it to the jump off and one of them was really fast. So fast in fact that I was almost a little scared for the safety of the kid and the pony. Just because your pony was a speed demon, didn’t mean that you should throw all caution to the wind and despite the shank bit that was in the pony’s mouth, it didn’t look like she’d had any brakes at all. But they had been clean and Faith knew the time she had to beat and I had to hand it to her. She didn’t gallop dangerously around the course. She was the fastest by cutting corners and making tight turns, which for a kid her age, was pretty impressive.

  “That was an amazing ride,” I told her as she came out of the ring with a big smile on her face. “Really great horsemanship.”

  “I learned from watching you and Bluebird,” she said knowingly, patting Macaroni on the neck, which made me feel kind of proud, even if it probably wasn’t true.

  By the time she was called in to collect her first place ribbon, I already had Bluebird in the warm up ring. No one else had gone clean so the big blue sash was hung around Macaroni’s neck, which he tried to eat while they pinned the smaller ribbons on the other ponies. When they took the winning picture he bowed amid cheers from the small crowd and I wasn’t sure if Faith had asked him to do it or if somehow he’d just known that everyone was looking at him for a change.

  They took their victory gallop and I was so proud of Faith and a little afraid. One day she was going to grow up and kick my butt in the show ring.

  “You all set?” Dad called out to me.

  “Yes,” I said. “I think so.”

  “But you haven’t taken a warm up jump yet,” he said, looking rather unamused as I rode over to him. “I know you’re not riding in the mini Grand Prix but you still have to take this class seriously. The pony jumper championship is nothing to stick your nose up at.”

  “Wait? What?” I said. “It’s a championship class?”

  Dad looked at me and rolled his eyes like I was the dumbest rider he’d ever met but I’d been so busy planning for the big class that I hadn’t really paid much attention to what I thought was going to be a walk in the park. But a championship class brought out all the best ponies just like the mini Grand Prix brought out all the best horses. And these were ponies and riders who had the potential to beat us if we weren’t careful.

  “So much for this class being a warm up for later,” I whispered to my pony as I handed him off to Henry so that I could go and walk the course.

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  I listened to my father and counted strides as I walked, wishing this was just another course. And really, I suppose, it was in a way. If you took away the competition and the points that would count towards the year end awards and the fancy ribbons, it really was just you and your pony against the jumps. At least this course was a lot easier than the one that Bluebird would face later in the day if the show secretary was able to squeeze us in.

  “You got it?” Dad asked.

  “Yes, I think so,” I replied, still distracted.

  “You think so or you know so?” he said, sounding a little mad.

  “I got it,” I said again and slipped away to retrieve my pony before he started questioning me on what was wrong and why I wasn’t focused on my class.

  Our competition was mostly ponies that we’d already beaten at other shows but that didn’t mean we were guaranteed to win. Winning classes was half preparation and half luck and the luck part, well you never really knew until you got in there if it was going to be on your side or not.

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX

  I sat on my pony at the in gate, watching the girl ahead of me go around. At my father’s insistence that I couldn’t go in the ring without jumping anything, I went off in search of the smallest jump I could find and finally found a couple of tiny cross rails over by the ring where the little kids classes were taking place.

  Tiny girls with big eyes and ribbons on the ends of their braids watched as I cleared a path and cantered my pony over a couple of cross rails. Bluebird practically stepped over them but at least now my father would be happy and he couldn’t say I hadn’t done a proper warm up.

  Bluebird didn’t really need one anyway. As long as I’d loosened up his muscles on the flat, which I had, then he didn’t need to jump anything to know what he needed to do in the class. He already knew that.

  The girl on the bay pony had the last fence down. I heard the purple rail thud as it hit the ground and the crowd let out a collective groan. She looked disappointed but patted her pony anyway as she came out of the ring.

  “Good luck,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I replied.

  And I wasn’t sure if luck was going to be on our side or not but somehow I had a good feeling about it.

  CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

  You know how sometimes you go in the ring and you just have a good feeling? Like the crowd and the people melt away and it’s just you and your pony and nothing else matters? Well that was how I felt. I knew right away that we were going to nail it.

  Bluebird pricked his ears and cantered towards the first jump with a spring in his step and we were away. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t schooled him to death in the warm up ring. He didn’t need it. He was loose and supple from the dressage movements I’d had him work on while everyone else was fighting for a turn to jump. This was his warm up round and he completely nailed it.

  As we cleared the last purple vertical it was almost as if the round had been a dream and I couldn’t really remember what I’d done or how many strides I’d fitted in where. I’d just pointed my pony at the next jump and he’d jumped it. That was all.

  I patted his neck and praised him while I waited for the bell to ring and when it did we galloped off towards the first fence of the jump off round, a small white vertical. After that we blazed away to a blue oxer and then back to a black and white d
ouble combination, followed by a skinny yellow vertical. Bluebird had his ears pricked as he raced around the ring and when we crossed the finish line the crowd cheered and I allowed myself to look up at the clock to see that we were the fastest.

  I got off Bluebird as soon as I came out of the ring, loosening his girth and patting his neck. He’d done great and I wasn’t going to sit on his back a second longer than was necessary. He needed to save his strength for later but the truth was that he’d barely even broken a sweat. All the galloping about we did in the woods and on the trail had prepared him for what was going to be a grueling show day and there was absolutely no reason that he couldn’t jump again later if the powers that be agreed to it.

  “Well done,” Dad said curtly but that was high praise from him.

  “Thanks,” I replied.

  There were only three more riders left to go in the class so I just walked Bluebird around on a patch of grass and let him graze a little, even though he had his bridle on. He’d earned it. When the class was finally over, it turned out that Bluebird and I had won.

  Dad beckoned me over and shoved me up into the saddle where I trotted into the ring to receive a pony sized neck ribbon that was hung around Bluebird’s neck and a small silver cup. Bluebird tossed his head as they asked us to give a victory gallop but I only asked him to canter because I was saving his galloping for later.

  As I held the cup high and cantered my pony around, followed by five other ponies that were all chomping at the bit and showing the whites of their eyes, I thought of how proud I was that my pony could win and not be all crazy at the same time. Faith was standing there in the crowd cheering wildly and I was glad that I was setting a good example, showing her that you could win in the pony jumpers without throwing safety and caution to the wind. I just hoped that maybe she wouldn’t be around later to see me disobey my father’s wishes or even worse, spectacularly fail in a class that was quite possibly out of my pony’s depth.