Lead Change (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 29)

by Claire Svendsen

  I picked up the reins and trotted Bluebird towards the grid of fences, adding enough leg that he was really cantering as we jumped the first fence. My leg was on him the whole time, encouraging him to stretch as much as he could. We cleared all the fences just like I knew we would. By the time I came back to the group, Jess was livid.

  “This is ridiculous,” she snapped.

  “Your turn,” I said sweetly.

  She trotted her mare towards the first jump. I knew she didn’t have enough impulsion. So did Duncan. He yelled at her to kick on but it was too late. The mare jumped in, didn’t know what to do about the second fence and ran out, causing Jess to slip precariously to the side. It was only by some miracle that she didn’t fall off.

  “Now they are too far apart,” she whined.

  “Emily did it,” Duncan said.

  “Yes, we all know, she’s special,” Jess said.

  And I didn’t bother and reply but I had to admit that I did feel a little bit special again after all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  By the time Dad came back to pick me up, I was all smiles. Bluebird and I had done well in the afternoon jumping session. He’d blown away the other horses. In fact, I think his time off had been good for him. He was fresher than ever and fit just in time for next month's show. It was going to be a big deal. This would determine if our team would move on to the semi-final.

  So far we’d sucked so we really needed a clean sweep if we were going to make that happen. I was confident that we would. We were getting better about encouraging each other and helping one another out. Everyone except Jess. She still resented us all. I think the only reason she was on the team was because her father made her and being on a team with people you hated had to suck, even if she did hate us on principal alone and not because we’d done anything wrong.

  “I’m guessing you figured yourself out?” Dad said as he walked into the barn to find me laughing at something that Andy had said. “Otherwise you’d be in the bathroom, bawling your eyes out.”

  “Dad,” I said, my face flushing red. That was the problem when your father was also your trainer. He knew just how to embarrass you.

  “I’m glad you’re jumping again,” he said, putting his arm around me.

  “How sweet,” Andy said, making a sarcastic face.

  “I’ll give you all hugs if you like,” Dad said, releasing me and chasing after Andy with open arms. The boy flew away from him and they chased each other around for a while before my father finally managed to wrestle him to the ground. Andy laughed as my father ruffled his hair. It wasn’t the first time I realized that my father probably missed having a son.

  After the high jinx were over, Dad went over to talk to Duncan. He shook my other trainer’s hand and nodded. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but they were obviously talking about me. I didn’t mind. I thought I’d ridden well today and getting my nerve back was a big deal.

  I’d thought that Walter was the bright shining star who would change my future because he moved in all the right circles with rich clients and fancy horses but now I saw the truth, Duncan was a better trainer than Walter would ever be and maybe he hadn’t competed at as many rated shows but he probably hadn’t drugged his horses either and that meant more to me than anything else.

  I walked over to him after my father had left to load up the trailer. He was standing there petting a big gray horse with a dark mane who reminded me of Arion. It made me feel guilty that I’d neglected my horses so.

  “Thank you for today,” I said. “I don’t think I would have ever jumped again if you hadn’t made me.”

  “You would have,” Duncan said. “It's in your blood. But it might have taken a while. Longer than necessary and I need you on this team and beyond.”

  “Beyond?” I said. “Beyond what?”

  “Walter Grey isn’t the only one who can prep kids for the Olympics you know. I’ve had my eye on you for a while. I want to help make your dreams come true and I know that you have the talent to do it.”

  My face flushed red as Duncan talked about how good I was. It made me embarrassed when other people complimented me. It always had. And Duncan wasn’t the first person to tell me that. People didn’t always follow through on what they said. I’d learned that lesson already.

  “I’ve got big plans for you this summer,” he said.

  “What are they?” I asked dubiously.

  I had a whole farm full of horses at home that needed me and I was supposed to go to Europe at some point to train. I didn’t know what Duncan had in mind but I was pretty sure that it was something that involved a lot of hard work and very little sleep.

  “We’ll talk about it another time,” he said as Jess stopped what she was doing to listen to us talking. “Now don’t forget, I want you jumping every day. I know you have horses that need the work.”

  “I will,” I told him. “Next time you see me ride, you’ll be so proud of me.”

  “I already am,” he said, patting me on the back before walking off.

  I hadn’t realized it before but I really liked Duncan a lot.

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  Dad talked the whole way home, going on about how great it was that I found my nerve and how now things could get back to normal. I didn’t want to rain on his parade and tell him that while things were better, there was now a fear deep inside me that hadn’t been there before. One that told me that accidents could happen at any time and that there was really nothing we could do about it. After all, that was why they were called accidents.

  Instead I just listened and smiled and told him that I’d like to ride Falcon and help Faith figure him out and that maybe if there was a schooling show next weekend then we could all pile in the trailer and take our horses and have some fun. I was already sick of the shows where the stakes were too high and the people were fake. I just wanted to forget about all that for a little while.

  Dad agreed that it would be a good idea to do so and that it would be good for all of us. I didn’t mention my idea about taking Cat to the show with Sunny because that seemed like it would be a very bad idea. Dad was already mad at Cat and deep down I knew that she wasn’t ready for a show but I just wanted her to have some fun too. I wanted her to experience what we did. The good parts anyway, not the bad.

  Back home Faith was out in the ring with Falcon. She wasn’t riding him, she was just leading him around, showing him the jumps, the flowers and the weeds that I already grown back since I pulled them out.

  “I told her she couldn’t ride until we got back,” Dad said.

  “Just as well,” I replied. “We don’t need her breaking her other arm.”

  Cat was sitting on the fence, watching. Her long tanned legs dangling down, her shorts so short that you could barely see them. She was laughing at something that Faith had said. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of them hanging out together. Cat could be a bad influence and Faith was already enough of a rebel as it was. I felt like a mother hen whenever I was around them.

  Faith waved when she saw me unloading Bluebird. I put my pony back in his field and walked over to the ring, helmet in hand. This time I wasn’t going to shy away from a difficult situation. I’d faced my fears today and overcome them and now I was on a roll and I wasn’t about to lose any momentum.

  “Want me to school him for you?” I asked Faith.

  “Really?” she said.

  “Really.” I nodded.

  “That would be awesome.” She grinned and handed me the reins.

  I adjusted the stirrups and patted the naughty pony on the neck. Before he’d seemed like a dangerous beast but that was just my fear clouding everything that I looked at. Now I could see that he was just out of shape and unruly. That no one had ever told him what to do. He’d made up his own rules as he went along but now he had to learn to follow mine.

  “Don’t hurt him though,” Faith added.

  “You know me better than that,” I said. “Let's see what this p
ony can do.”

  Under saddle Falcon felt like a bundle of nervous energy. He was wiggly and hot, eager to go and not so keen on stopping. Several times I had to haul on his face.

  “Go into the barn and get that narrow snaffle with the slow twist,” I told her. “This pony has no brakes at all.”

  Faith ran off and came back with the bit I’d told her to and we switched out the fat eggbutt snaffle that had not been doing any good at all.

  “Ponies need brakes,” I told her. “And they need to listen.”

  Falcon tossed his head like a pony in a shampoo commercial, his flaxen mane floating in the breeze.

  “At least he’s pretty,” Cat called out from the fence.

  “He’s not pretty,” Faith replied seriously. “He’s handsome.”

  Eventually Cat got bored and went back up to the house. I had to admit that making the pony go round in circles was kind of boring but it was work that he needed and work that Faith wasn’t quite yet strong enough to make him do. Falcon fought against his rider every step of the way and you had to find just the right balance to keep him in line.

  “Are you going to jump him now?” Faith asked after I’d been going round in circles for what seemed like forever.

  “Set them up,” I told her.

  She scurried off to put the poles in the cups as I let the pony walk and patted his neck. He was not an easy ride. Bluebird was a walk in the park compared to Falcon. I wasn’t sure that Faith was prepared for what she had got herself into. Falcon may have been talented but he was no Macaroni.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Falcon was fun to ride. So much fun that I almost forgot my fear altogether. I also really almost wished that he was mine. He flew over the fences like a little rocket and I was sad to give him back to Faith when I was done but glad that she’d found such a fun pony to replace Macaroni. Not that he was really replaceable, he’d taught Faith so much but now he’d hopefully go on to teach another little kid to ride. That was the cycle of a pony’s life. A good pony anyway, and I was convinced that Falcon was one too, he just needed a little polishing up.

  “Can I jump him now?” she said. “Please?”

  “Okay,” I told her. “But let's lower these fences first.”

  “Why?” she said, looking crestfallen. “Why can’t I jump them?”

  “Because he’s not an easy pony to ride,” I told her. “And you have to learn how to control him first.”

  “Okay,” she said with a sigh.

  I gave her a lesson where she mostly managed to stay in the saddle. There was one moment where Falcon decided that Faith didn’t have enough leg on him and he just ducked out at the last minute but she hung on like a champ, circling him around and kicking him on so that he didn’t refuse a second time.

  “Good job,” I called out. “Let’s finish there.”

  “But why?” she whined.

  “Because I want you to end on a good note and because your pony is tired. He’s unfit and out of shape. Can’t you see how he’s puffing?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said, looking down at her pony’s sides. “Sorry Falcon.”

  She walked her pony around the ring until he was cool and when she was done, I followed her back to the barn.

  “We were thinking about going to a schooling show this weekend, if we can find one. Are you in?”

  “Of course,” she said, beaming.

  I knew that it would take her mind off the fact that Macaroni was now being ridden by some other little girl because even though that girl was her cousin, I knew it still had to sting. I couldn’t imagine anyone else riding Bluebird and I knew that was selfish but I couldn’t help it.

  “We’ll have to see how he does though,” I warned her. “We don’t know if he’s ever even been to a show before. If he gets all upset then you may have to scratch your classes and just ride him in the warm up, get him used to being there with all the excitement and stuff.”

  “That’s okay,” she said, patting her pony on the neck. “I don’t want to upset him. I just want him to be happy.”

  And as I watched her untack the bay pony, I thought how that was what we all wanted, for our horses to be happy. But also for them to be happy doing the things that we wanted them to do, which was maybe kind of selfish.

  Out in the field Hashtag was grazing off by himself. I knew that I couldn’t keep him much longer and I wasn’t about to just give him to Jess when she was holding Harlow hostage. I was going to have to come up with another solution. One that would work out for everybody. So later that evening I called Miss. Fontain, Mickey’s dressage instructor. She was as surprised to hear my voice as I was that I was actually calling her in the first place. I used to think of her as kind of scary but now I realized she was just really disciplined and strict but also good at getting the best out of her students. Mickey had become a different rider when she started taking lessons with Miss. Fontain. A much better rider than I think she’d ever have become if she’d carried on riding in hunter land.

  “How are you my dear?” she said when she realized it was me. “I heard you had a nasty fall. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, thanks, I’m fine,” I said, thinking that Missy should have been the one wondering if I was okay.

  Now my dad and her had split up, I guess she didn’t have any reason to care about me anymore but it still stung. I tried not to think about it and instead concentrated on the reason I was calling.

  “So what can I do for you?” she said. “Need a dressage lesson?”

  “Probably.” I laughed. “But no. I need a rider for Hashtag, one who isn’t interested in jumping. Maybe one of your dressage students? He’s really good on the flat and I know he’d be great at the lower levels. He’s bored here not working and to be honest we kind of need the room.”

  “I do have a student who might want to do a lease on him,” she said. “Can I bring her over to try him out?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  We set up the date for after the show. I had enough to think about getting all our horses ready and with Faith eagerly pestering me every five seconds about what classes I thought she could enter. I knew that it was going to be a long weekend.

  “I’ll be in touch then,” Miss. Fontain said.

  “Thank you,” I told her.

  “Don’t mention it,” she said. “And Emily, I’m glad you are doing well. We miss you around here.”

  At least someone did.

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  The week leading up to the schooling show was a whirlwind of getting horses ready and dealing with an overly excited Faith. It was only the fact that I was now schooling Falcon every day that had made Dad agree to take the pony in the first place because we didn’t have any idea what he was going to be like at the show. But Faith didn’t care. She was over the moon just to be going and she didn’t care if her new pony was good or bad. She just wanted to go.

  I kept my promise to Duncan and jumped every day. First Arion and then Socks and finally Bluebird. All my horses were happy to be working again and so was I. It was like this giant cloud had been lifted and the darkness that had been following me around had finally cleared, until I got stung by a wasp.

  I was in our makeshift tack room, rummaging around in one of the big, wooden trunks for a new flash noseband for Arion. I knew that we had a spare in there somewhere and I’d noticed that his was looking rather worn. The leather was a little dry rotted and the last thing I needed was anything on his bridle breaking while he was on course.

  Once, this girl that I knew, had her entire bridle snap while she was jumping an oxer and it just fell off her horse's face. He galloped around out of control, the bridle dangling from his martingale until he finally snagged a leg in it and decided to stop. He was lucky that he didn’t break his leg. It made me think of Grace. I’d heard that she was doing well and that was all I needed to know. I wasn’t going to call again before the show because if she’d taken a turn for the worse then it was only going to put me off ri
ding altogether again.

  I’d just finished looking in one trunk with no luck and had moved on to the one in the back that we didn’t use very often when I opened the lid and a swarm of wasps came at me like I was their worst enemy. I screamed and slammed the lid shut but it was too late. They were buzzing and mad that I’d found their little nest and disturbed their peace and they were going to make me pay for it. They dived at me and I waved my arms around to shoo them away and protect my face, which only made them madder. Then I ran. They followed.

  I remembered how traumatized I’d been after watching the movie My Girl when I was a little kid. How the boy had died from so many wasp stings. How they’d jumped in the lake to get away from the wasps when they first found them. But we didn’t have a lake or even a pond. I could always jump in one of the water troughs but it wasn’t big enough to cover all of me in water. All I could do was run as fast as I could but that didn’t stop one from stinging my wrist before I finally made it into the kitchen and slammed the door.

  Cat looked up at me from the kitchen table.

  “Wasps,” I gasped. “In the tack trunk.”

  “You’re not allergic, are you?” she said, frowning. “You’re not going to go into anaphylactic shock and have your tongue swell up and make me call an ambulance, right?”

  I was pretty sure I’d never been stung by a wasp before, which was lucky considering they seemed to be hiding everywhere all summer long. Once, when I was five, I was stung by a big bee. I remembered climbing on the jungle gym outside at school and feeling a tickling sensation on my leg. I’d lifted my skirt and seen the big fat yellow and black fuzzy bee slowly climbing up my leg and panicked. I’d swatted at it and of course it stung me. Then it fell off and died. I remember being sad about that but not as sad as when the sting turned into a giant red welt that really hurt.

  Dad picked me up from school, finding me in the nurses’ station where a motherly woman had sprayed some kind of freezing ointment on the sting and told me I was brave. I had no idea where my own mother had been but Dad took me to get ice cream and I forgot about the sting and the question of why my mother hadn’t been the one to pick me up. Anyway, I was pretty sure I’d hadn’t gone into anaphylactic shock then so I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to now.