Lead Change (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 29)

by Claire Svendsen

  “That part,” she said. “But I’ll need your help finding a new pony.”

  “I don’t know of any ponies for sale,” I said, knowing full well that trainers like Walter had plenty that they would be willing to sell for a highly inflated price.

  “Neither do I, that’s why I need your help. Mac is going soon because that is when there is a big trailer heading north and if I don’t find a pony then I won’t have anything to ride.”

  She put her saddle on Macaroni and the pony sighed. I was about to cry just thinking about the fact that I wasn’t going to see his grumpy face in the mornings anymore and Faith was just calmly talking about getting a new pony while she tacked up her old one.

  “But aren’t you going to miss him?” I said.

  For a moment I saw it, the sadness that crossed her face. The way her eyes started to fill with tears but she blinked them back and the moment was gone.

  “Of course I am,” she said. “But I just know that it is going to be the best thing for him. Things change Emily, that’s life.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. Faith was more of an adult than I’d ever be.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Faith tried to get me to ride with her, something I was sure my father had told her to do but I refused. Instead I told her that I’d give her a lesson if she liked and she readily agreed. I hadn’t done enough to help her since she’d been at our farm and now I felt guilty about it. I’d been so focused on myself that I’d neglected the kid who looked up to me and now I was going to make things right. After all, if I wasn’t going to ride, then the least I could do was to teach Faith and make sure that she didn’t fall into the same traps that I had.

  As she cantered her pony around the ring, I could see that she was right about outgrowing him. Her legs hung below his belly and even though Faith was thin and not too heavy for the pony, she did look rather silly on him. And while Macaroni was talented, Faith had tapped out his maximum jumping height. They popped over the fences in the ring, Faith tight in the tack as Macaroni flailed over the fences in his own unique way, legs going in all directions but still managing to keep the poles in the cups. I knew that she was ready to move up. In fact, I think she’d been ready for a while. Her love for the pony was what had been holding her back and now she’d start on the next chapter of her riding career. I just hoped that I could help her find a pony that would do her justice.

  “How about a round without your stirrups?” I said as Faith finished the course of jumps clear.

  “How about bareback?” She grinned.

  “Wait, Faith, I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

  But before I could stop her, Faith was off her pony, unbuckling the girth and pulling the saddle off his back. She put it on the fence and slithered easily onto his back.

  “You won’t be able to do that with a bigger pony,” I told her.

  “I’ll figure it out,” she said like a know it all.

  “Fine then how about you do the course in reverse?” I said.

  “I will,” she replied. “Would you like me to do it sitting backwards as well.”

  We grinned at each other. Faith and I were about as smart mouthed as each other sometimes. A fact I was sure her mother didn’t approve of or appreciate.

  “Just don’t fall off,” I said.

  “I never fall off,” Faith said.

  I didn’t like to remind her that she was the one who broke her wrist not that long ago. I watched her jump the pony bareback and gave her a few pointers but she didn’t really need them. She didn’t need me. She didn’t need anybody. Faith was going to make it in the horse world because she had her head on straight and she didn’t let her emotions get the better of her. Most of the time, anyway.

  Later I was putting a bucket back in the barn when I heard gentle sobbing coming from Macaroni’s stall. I looked in to find Faith with her face buried in the pony’s mane. She may have acted strong in front of everyone but I knew that sending her beloved pony away was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever had to do and I was going to have to find her the best pony ever to replace him so that she wouldn’t have to think about the fact that Macaroni had gone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “She made it,” Judy said later that night.

  She’d finally called me back to tell me the good news. They’d been able to pin Grace’s leg back together and she was up in the sling and grumpy as hell.

  “The next few days will be the worst but if she doesn’t do anything to mess it up and it starts to heal then she’ll be okay,” Judy said. “They think she might even be sound at the end of it.”

  “Not jumping sound though,” I said.

  “Of course not,” Judy said. “But if she’s not lame in the end then they’re thinking about breeding her so she’ll get to have a cute foal. Won’t that be great?”

  “Great,” I said, echoing Judy’s voice.

  I didn’t really think that it was great at all. Grace loved to jump. When I’d ridden her I knew that it was all she cared about. When she was approaching a jump, when she was soaring through the air and when she landed, eagerly looking for the next fence, that was what had given her life meaning. Maybe having a foal would give her purpose too. But like Judy said, she had to make it through the next few weeks first.

  “Thanks for letting me know,” I said.

  “You really should come up here,” Judy said. “I bet Walter would let you ride Lucky again or any of the other horses really. He says that you did a good job at the show, up until, you know…” her voice trailed off.

  “I’m kind of busy here,” I said. “I have to help one of our students find a new pony.”

  “Really?” she said. “I have a friend who is selling a pony. I’ll send you the info.”

  “Okay, thanks,” I replied.

  I gave Judy my e-mail address and said goodbye. It was highly doubtful that any friend of Judy’s would have a pony for sale that Faith’s parents could afford. They had money but they weren’t super rich or anything and they were currently paying board for two horses. Macaroni was at our farm and Wendell, Faith’s brother’s horse, was at Fox Run. And since they weren’t even selling Macaroni, just lending him to Faith’s cousin, I didn’t know where they were going to get the money for a new pony from or even what their budget was going to be.

  “She made it,” I told Dad later as we sat down to eat in the kitchen.

  Cat had cooked a frozen pizza and Mom had chopped up a salad. It was like they were all making an effort to be normal because they knew that I was only holding it together by a thin thread.

  “I’m glad,” Dad said. “Now maybe everything can get back to normal.”

  I didn’t like to tell him that it didn’t feel like things would be normal for a long time.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  In order to avoid riding, I threw myself into the work around the farm that I usually ignored. I scrubbed buckets until my hands bled. I cleaned all the algae out of the water troughs. I went around the pastures and picked out all the suspicious weeds, checked the fences and put bright orange tape on any places where there were loose boards or wonky nails so that Jordan could come behind me and fix them.

  Unlike when I’d been sick, this time he seemed to know that talking wasn’t going to help and so he left me alone, probably fueled by the fact that every time I caught him looking at me I sent him my best stare. It wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t done anything wrong but talking was only going to make me cry again and I’d cried enough already. In fact, I didn’t think that I had any tears left. My eyes were red but dry. Maybe I’d broken them and I’d never cry again.

  Judy sent me the information about the pony that her friend had for sale, a really adorable Welsh cross with long eyelashes and a pretty face. The sort of pony that girls would crawl over each other to own. Of course this one came with a long record of winning in the hunter show ring and a price tag to match. It was well into the six figures. Faith didn’t need a pretty pony and I do
ubted her parents had that sort of cash to burn. She needed something scrappy like Macaroni and Bluebird. A pony who would do well in the jumpers. Faith cared as much about the hunters as I did, which was to say not at all. We’d had our share of unfair judging and popularity contests. At least in the jumpers, you were judged on your merit and the talent of your horse. At least I thought that you were, until I met Walter and realized that the jumper trainers were bending the rules too.

  I was sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop open looking at ponies for sale when Cat came home from school.

  “New lesson pony?” she asked, looking over my shoulder.

  “No, for Faith,” I replied. “Macaroni is going up north to live with her cousin because of his anhidrosis.”

  “His what?” she said, tossing her book bag into the corner and grabbing a soda from the refrigerator.

  “He doesn't sweat well and in the summer he stops sweating altogether,” I said.

  “That sounds bad,” Cat said, sitting down next to me.

  “Yeah,” I told her. “Faith pretty much has to stop riding him when it's hot or else he could overheat and die.”

  “What about medication?” Cat said, showing more interest than I’d thought that she would.

  “We tried it and it's helped but not enough.”

  “So she has to send him away? That’s so sad,” Cat said with a frown.

  “I know, right? And she was all like, it’s okay, it’s the best thing for him. He’ll be happier,” I said.

  “Maybe she just doesn’t like to show her emotions in front of other people,” Cat said, squinting at me.

  “Very funny,” I replied. “I get the hint. I’ve stopped crying now.”

  “I know you have,” Cat said. “Oh, what about that one?” She pointed to a flashy chestnut pony on the computer screen. “Athletic mover, must sell due to daughter’s commitment with other horses.” She read the ad out loud.

  “That means that he looks cute but is probably too dangerous to ride,” I said, looking at the chestnut who was prancing around his field with a wild look in his eyes like someone was chasing him with a plastic bag.

  “Quiet pony for novice?” Cat pointed to a dull looking bay.

  “That one needs spurs, a whip and a diet,” I said.

  “Impresses the judges?” Cat said pointing at the next, a gray with a wall eye.

  “Probably by the fact that he manages to stay in the ring at all.” I laughed.

  Cat and I pulled apart all the sale ponies, imagining their problems and the reasons why they were being sold. Good ponies were worth their weight in gold. They weren’t sold online or posted for sale in the paper. They had a waiting list of little girls at the barn ready to snap them up when their current rider outgrew them. Looking for a good pony for Faith was going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

  “So do you think you might be able to give me another lesson?” Cat said. “I know you’re all traumatized and stuff but that doesn’t mean I can’t ride, does it?”

  “Of course you can ride,” I said. “And Sunny needs the work. She’s stuck in the panel pen all day getting bored out of her mind.”

  “When is Jordan going to finish her paddock?” Cat said.

  “I don’t know,” I said, closing the laptop with a sigh. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “Why? Aren’t you guys talking again?” she said.

  “We’re talking,” I replied. “We just don’t have anything to talk about.”

  “I would have thought you guys would have had lots to talk about.” Cat tossed her empty soda can in the trash and missed.

  It skittered across the floor and Meatball pounced on it. Patrick barked at him and the cat’s tail went all bushy. He hissed back. The cat and dog were still getting to know each other and any day now I expected world war three but other than the hissing and barking, it was going okay.

  “We do have lots to talk about,” I said. “But neither of us want to talk about those things.”

  “You guys.” Cat shook her head and sighed.

  Jordan had his mother and I couldn’t talk to him about that because I was pretty convinced that she was the one who had organized for her own son’s horse to be stolen. I had my traumatic accident and the fact that a horse’s life still hung in the balance because I didn’t step up and do the right thing. I didn’t stand up to Walter and accuse him of drugging his horses like I should have done. So instead we said nothing but I knew we couldn’t keep up the silence forever.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I already had Sunny tacked up and out in the ring by the time Cat showed up. She said she had to change, I wondered into what. She didn’t have any riding clothes. So far she’d been happy to wear her jeans, a pair of half chaps and some boots that belonged to Missy and yet had somehow managed to make the move with us. They fit her okay and she hadn’t complained. It wasn’t exactly like she needed a whole show outfit for plodding around our ring in the middle of nowhere.

  “I don’t know what is taking her so long,” I told the mare as Sunny nudged me with her big head.

  Then I caught sight of Cat, walking over to the ring in pale tan breeches and a navy polo shirt. She had on tall boots and was holding a helmet that had sparkles running tastefully down the front in one stripe. She looked like she was ready to train with a professional, not take a lazy afternoon lesson with me.

  “What do you think?” she asked, twirling around.

  “Where did you get all that stuff?” I asked her.

  “I bought it,” she said. “Don’t you like it? Now I look the part.”

  She certainly did. In fact, she looked better than I did. My riding clothes were getting positively shabby and we didn’t have the money for new ones. Cat didn’t either.

  “But how did you get the money?” I said again, thinking about all the things I’d seen in her bedroom, things she couldn’t possibly afford. “Did you get a job that I don’t know about?”

  I hadn’t wanted to question her before. It seemed rude and none of my business but now she was buying horse stuff and better stuff than I had? That felt like it was definitely my business.

  “Does it matter where I got the money?” she said with a sigh, a shadow of the old Cat showing through for a moment.

  “It does if you stole it,” I said, my voice low so that no one else would hear even though Jordan was off in the back field and my father was somewhere in the barn.

  “Thanks a lot,” she said. “Don’t you trust me at all?”

  “Of course I do,” I said. “It’s just, horse stuff isn’t cheap.”

  “I know,” she said. “It’s kind of a rip off but I have to admit, I feel a lot more confident now that I look the part.”

  “Well get up there then fancy pants,” I told her. “And let's see if you can still remember how to post.”

  I didn’t tell her that the right clothes didn’t make you a better rider and I didn’t tell her that I didn’t believe for one second that she hadn’t got those clothes and all the other stuff through possibly illegal means. The last thing we needed was the cops showing up at our door to arrest Cat for credit card fraud or robbing an ATM machine. I had no idea where the money had come from but money didn’t grow on trees and wherever Cat was getting it from couldn’t be good.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Just as I predicted, the clothes didn’t make Cat a better rider at all. For the first ten minutes, she couldn’t even remember how to post. She bounced around in the saddle looking completely miserable until I finally told her to close her eyes, sit the trot and to forget about the fact that her toes probably hurt in her new boots and that her helmet felt funny.

  She looked at me like she was surprised that I knew but riding clothes were just like everything else, they had to be broken in, that was unless you had the money for custom made boots that cushioned your feet because they felt like soft leather clouds and had cost as much as a cheap horse.

  “Come on now,” I said as I encou
raged the mare to trot on at the other end of the lunge line with a cluck of my tongue. “You can do this. Find the rhythm.”

  “You find the rhythm,” Cat grumbled as she bounced around but then all of a sudden she was posting.

  “I’ve got it,” she cried, a big smile on her face.

  “Good,” I told her. “Now look down at Sunny’s outside shoulder. You need to rise when that leg is forward and sit when it's not. Okay?”

  “You what now?” Cat said, flailing about and almost falling off.

  I just laughed and asked the mare to walk.

  “Posting is great,” I told her. “But you also have to post on the correct diagonal.”

  “Why do you horse people have to make everything so complicated?” she said. “I’m starting to think that I should have just taken up western riding instead. They have cute belt buckles and a lot more bling then you boring English riders ever get to wear.”

  “But they have their own silly rules too,” I said.

  “My butt hurts,” she said, rubbing it. “Can I just walk for a while?”

  “Sure,” I said, unclipping the lunge line. “You can work on your steering.”

  I sat on the fence and watched my step sister ride the mare we rescued from animal control around our ring, calling out for her to shorten her reins, look up and all the other things that one usually told a beginner. It was frustrating. I wanted to hop up in the saddle and show her how to do things and for a moment, I’d almost said so. But then bile had risen up in the back of my throat and before I could even get the words out, I felt dizzy and sick. Dad was right. I’d lost my nerve and I didn’t know how I was ever going to get it back.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  After several days of moping around the farm, Dad announced that he’d found a pony for Faith. I wasn’t sure I believed him, considering that everything was either too expensive or just not good enough. Faith didn’t need a show ready pony but she did need one that was talented and that was like looking for a needle in a haystack. We were searching for something that everyone else was, a cheap pony that could be trained up and do well. That would be safe enough without being half dead and also had that one special thing, a pony that actually wanted to jump and not only wanted to jump but also wanted to win.