“Bye Ruby,” Esther called out. “No idea what time we’ll be back.”
“Don’t worry,” she called back. “I’ve got it covered.”
And we all knew that she and Stark did.
“Is my class going to be first?” Faith asked, bouncing up and down on her seat in the truck. “Because if it is then I’ll be the first out of all of us to get a blue ribbon.”
I had to hand it to her. The kid was cocky.
“You will be the first one to ride and you will be gracious about it whether you win a blue ribbon or not,” Esther said.
“But I gave Princess a carrot,” she said. “We have an understanding now. Right Emily?”
“That’s between you and Princess,” I said.
I settled back in the seat and watched the world go by. Every now and then I could feel one of the horses shift in the trailer behind us. It was weird, going to a show with Hampton but without Mickey. Like missing an arm or a leg or something important. Becka hadn’t been able to find out the name of the girl who was interested in Hampton but she was going to be at the show. She had already said that the girls who rode at her barn were rich. What if they decided to buy him on the spot?
“We’re bringing Hampton home, right?” I leant forward and asked Esther.
“Of course,” she said. “Even if they like him there are things like pre-purchase exams to deal with. Nothing is going to happen today except all my students are going to ride well and make me proud.”
Ethan looked at me and rolled his eyes. While Bluebird had been on a winning streak, Wendell had been a bit hit and miss, although it wasn’t exactly his fault. Up until the weather turned cold, Ethan had been spending just as much time at the beach surfing as he had at the barn riding.
But while trying to win was a given. The only thing I could think about was seeing Becka and hopefully putting off the girl who wanted to buy Hampton. And when we finally pulled up at the show, the butterflies in my stomach disappeared. This was what I was meant to do. It was where I belonged. Home.
The trucks and trailers were lined up in neat rows, the horses being unloaded into the misty morning with heads high as they took in their surroundings, calling to stable mates who weren’t even there. Girls with cream colored breeches and bright polo shirts, helmets in one hand and lunge lines in the other. Every single one as excited as I was to be there. There was no feeling like it in the whole world.
“Isn’t it great?” I sighed.
“Yeah,” Faith sighed too while Ethan looked at us like we were crazy. Sometimes boys just didn’t get it at all.
“Guess you’re covered if Bluebird breaks his reins today.”
Esther pointed out the window to where a mobile tack trailer had set up shop next to a hot dog stand that was handing out giant cups of coffee to an eager looking group of horse show moms.
Then I saw it. The sign that I had to actually rub my eyes before I could believe it. Horse empath and massage. The show day had just taken a horrible turn for the worse.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Esther parked the truck and trailer and we set about unloading. She took Hampton since I had my hands full with Bluebird. He knew that he was at a show and his head was high and ears pricked as he came barreling down the ramp of the trailer.
“Steady boy,” I told him.
He let out a whinny and somewhere in the ring a horse answered.
“Let’s go find our stalls,” Esther said. “Can I trust you to lead Princess without letting her go?”
She looked at Faith who was practically bouncing up and down on her heels, she was so excited.
“Yes, I won’t let go. I promise,” she said solemnly.
Of course I had visions of her hanging onto the lead rope as Princess galloped across the show grounds, Faith face down and covered in muck. But Princess was far too much a pro for that and besides, it would have required her to extend much more energy than she was happy doing. Princess operated on the bare minimum and that meant that as soon as Esther unloaded her and handed the rope to Faith, she completely ignored the fact that she was at a show and immediately stuck her nose in the nearest patch of grass.
“I love that pony,” Ethan said as he walked Wendell past.
“Too bad your sister doesn’t,” I sighed.
Faith was already staring at Bluebird with that dreamy look in her eyes. I quickly whisked him up to the barn before Faith got any ideas.
Our stalls were at the end of the barn, which suited me fine because it was quieter and there was less chance of people hanging around your stalls like they tended to do in the middle. I was keeping an eye out for Becka but so far I hadn’t seen her or the flash of a palomino rump anywhere. I needed to text her to find out if they had arrived yet and where their stalls were but there were two horses now counting on me to settle them in. Bluebird, who was bouncing off the walls and Hampton, who seemed a little more depressed than usual. So I spent the next fifteen minutes trying to calm one down and reassure the other that this was going to be fun.
“Princess keeps pooping,” Faith wailed from the third stall down.
“You know what that means,” I called out. “Here’s the pitchfork.”
“I know,” she said, coming to take it from me.
I’d just finished spreading some more shavings around in both stalls. Esther always brought some extra bags because a lot of the barns were stingy with the amount of shavings that they put in the show stalls and our horses were used to standing on lots of cushy bedding. Hampton also sometimes felt that it was well within his rights to take a nap after his classes so I made double sure to bank up the sides and give him a nice deep bed.
“I know you wish Mickey was here,” I scratched him behind the ear where he liked it. “I do too.”
He sighed and turned away from me. I hoped that he wasn’t going to give me a hard time in the ring today. His classes were first. Jumpers were always lumped at the end of the day like second class citizens so Bluebird was going to have a lot of waiting around to do before we finally got to ride.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I’d forgotten to text Becka but she hadn’t forgotten about me. Her text said that they were stabled at the other end of the barn.
“Can you keep an eye on things for a minute?” I asked Ethan.
Esther had disappeared and I didn’t really trust Faith enough to leave her alone and in charge. She was like a blackbird, flitting about all over the place and easily distracted by shiny things.
“Yup,” he said. “I’ve got to clean my tack again anyway. I only ran a wet rag over it before and all that did was smear the dirt about.”
“Saddle soap is in that trunk,” I pointed. “And please make sure your sister doesn’t do anything to my pony.”
“I can’t make any promises,” he grinned but I knew that he wouldn’t let Faith run off with Bluebird again.
The barn was full of kids, horses and ponies. I recognized some of them from other shows but I didn’t know their names. Some smiled. Others didn’t. Everyone was wrapped up in their own world, getting their own mounts ready. I wondered if some of the other kids from the jumping clinic would be here. At least it was safe to say that Jess wouldn’t be around to spoil things. There was no way she could have got another horse this quickly, although there was always the off chance that she would have decided to enter Beauty. But thankfully I didn’t see them anywhere.
Becka had been right about her barn being fancy. While we had tack trunks in our colors and barn polo shirts, they had a giant banner that hung across the front of their stalls announcing that Riverdale Equestrian Center was there and that you shouldn’t forget it. There were places to hang all the ribbons that they expected to win and some of the kids were sitting on monogrammed chairs in the aisle. From that end of the barn I could see the horses that we had kicked out of their stalls by being there, standing in the back fields looking a little disgruntled.
“Emily!” Becka cried, barreling into me. She squeezed me t
ight. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” I said. “Where is Topaz?”
“He had a bit of a cough so Todd wouldn’t let me bring him,” she said, looking crestfallen.
“Oh no,” I said. “Guess I won’t have too much competition after all then.”
“Fat chance,” she said. “Todd’s got me on this evil beast.”
She pointed to the stall behind her. I peered inside and saw a lanky chestnut pony with a white snip on the end of his nose and a bored look in his eye.
“That’s Maximillian,” she said. “But we just call him Max or sometimes butt head.”
“He looks kind of mean,” I said.
“Not really. He’s just doesn’t like to be fussed over but he can jump pretty much anything you point him at.”
“Who does he belong to?”
“Todd. He’s up for sale.”
“Well that’s great. Can’t we get the girl from your barn to buy him instead of Hampton?”
“Not a chance,” she leant against the stall and crossed her arms. “I found out who it is. See that girl over there with the blonde hair and stars in her eyes?”
She pointed to a group of girls who were all gathered around one boy with an iPad. They were all laughing and smiling as he showed them a video. The blonde girl laughing and smiling only when the others did.
“Well she wants to be one of them and the only way into that clique is an expensive Warmblood who is going to clean up in the hunter ring. She doesn’t care about galloping fast and jumping high. She only cares about being pretty.”
“Jumpers are pretty,” I said. “Maybe she should try it sometime. It only takes one jump off to get hooked.”
“Never going to happen,” she shook her head.
“Well what am I supposed to do?” I sighed, leaning against the stall with her.
“There is not much you can do,” she said. “If you ride badly, you look bad and I heard that Miguel is keeping tabs on us. Wrecking in the hunters isn’t exactly the sort of thing you want getting back to him.”
“Then I’m screwed,” I said.
“Pretty much,” she agreed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
As usual the younger kid’s classes were first and Faith had her game face on. It was clear that this time she was not going to mess things up like she did at her first show. As soon as she was up in the saddle, the giggles and smiles disappeared. She was ready to trample over everyone to get that blue ribbon.
“I gave Princess one carrot,” she told me seriously. “And I told her that there are plenty more where that came from if she wins.”
“And if she doesn’t?” I asked, wiping the dust off her boots.
“Then she knows where they’ll go,” she said solemnly before riding off.
“How did she get to be so serious?” I asked Ethan as we both lent on the rail of the warm up ring.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “The kid has drive.”
I always thought that Ethan had been the one with all the drive but since leaving Fox Run Farm and coming to ride with Esther, I’d seen his focus starting to slip. I wondered if it was because Esther was being too soft on him. Not pushing him hard enough. Or maybe it was Wendell? He was a great horse but he didn’t really seem to fit into the hunters or the jumpers. He was lost somewhere in no man’s land, just like Ethan was.
Esther navigated Faith through a basic warm up and had her trot a couple of cross rails.
“You know,” I said as Faith gave Princess a curt, businesslike pat on the neck. “She really has improved a lot.”
And this time Faith didn’t let us down. In fact she won the short stirrup division against a bunch of kids who were a lot older and had been riding a lot longer than she had. She came back to our stalls with a handful of small blue ribbons and one large one that was bigger than the pony’s head. Princess looked smug and so did Faith.
“I told you I’d win,” she said.
“Yes you did,” I smiled. “And you rode very well. We are proud of you.”
“Do you think one day I’ll be able to ride in the jumpers like you?” she asked, dutifully feeding the aforementioned carrots to Princess.
“I don’t see why not,” I said. “If you want to.”
“I do,” she said.
And just like I’d told Ethan that Faith would beat him, I had a suspicion that eventually she would probably beat me at my own game as well.
“Ready to get your butt kicked?”
Ethan looked into Hampton’s stall where I was redoing one of his braids. Since I was riding Hampton in the hunter classes, today we were going to be competing against each other.
“I’ve forgotten how to ride slow and steady,” I said. “All I see is the inside line.”
“Yes but you have Hampton,” he grinned. “You could ride that horse with your eyes closed and he’d still get the job done.”
“Maybe I should do just that,” I said. “If his rounds get mucked up it will be my fault, not his.”
“Spoken like a true horsewoman,” Esther said, sticking her head into the stall. “Now come on, you know what you are doing and so does Hampton. I want first and second place ribbons and I don’t care who gets which as long as you get them.”
“I don’t know if I can really do this,” I whispered to Hampton as Esther’s head disappeared from the door. “What would Mickey say?”
Here I was, about to go into the ring to ride her horse for a prospective purchaser. A girl who hadn’t even bothered to come by and look at him standing in his stall all neat and pretty. If I was the one whose parents had been considering shelling out a ton of money on a fancy horse, I’d have been all over it. In fact, I’d have been all over it no matter what it looked like or how much it was going to cost. Part of me hoped that maybe she wasn’t really interested in Hampton at all but the realist in me said that she would only be interested in him if he won. Would coming in second be enough to put her off? After all, Esther said she didn’t care who came in where.
CHAPTER TWENTY
On the way to the ring, I caught sight of the one thing I’d forgotten about, crazy Liesl and the equine massage booth. But there she was, standing on the top of a step stool, rubbing the back of a very happy looking gray horse. Part of me was angry that she was there, encroaching on my space and my horse show life. But another part of me knew that there was nothing Harlow enjoyed more than back rubs and if Liesl was at a horse show then she was obviously somewhat involved in the sport and not just some nut job off the street like I had assumed. Only I didn’t have time to think about that now. I had a class to win.
“She’s going to be watching you,” Becka appeared beside me.
“Who? Liesl?” I asked, still a little distracted.
“Who? No. The girl from my barn. Samantha.”
“I know,” I sighed. “Can she even ride?”
“On a ready-made horse like this?” Becka pointed to Hampton. “Absolutely.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Hampton has been doing a pretty good job of sabotaging every single person who has come to try him out. He may even decide to dump me off in the ring. He really wants Mickey back.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “The whole thing sucks but just go in there and do your best anyway. Remember, it’s your career on the line too, not just your friend’s horse.”
The children’s hunter class was crowded. Esther had entered us in this division because the over fences class was two foot six and Hampton could take it in stride. He could easily go higher but Esther wanted to show case his pretty, fancy stride and she didn’t want me to get carried away and try to treat it like a jumper class. Here the goal was slow and steady. Balance, pace and pretty all the way. I tried to remember that as we walked into the ring.
“I think I’m more nervous than I am for my jumper classes,” I whispered to Ethan.
“That’s because here you have to practice restraint,” he whispered back. “Just
follow my lead.”
Hampton seemed a little despondent but otherwise happy to tuck in behind Wendell’s broad butt. The flat class was uneventful and I managed not to do anything to muck it up. Even a despondent Hampton was a million times more fancy than most of the other horses in the ring. I could see Samantha out of the corner of my eye, leaning on the rail, watching intently. Becka was off to the side of the group, watching too.
“See?” Ethan said as we came out of the ring. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“I felt like everyone was staring at me,” I grumbled.
“That’s because they were,” Becka appeared as I jumped to the ground. “And I’m afraid to say that so far Samantha thinks Hampton is pretty awesome.”
“Great,” I groaned.
“And she thinks your horse is pretty good too,” she told Ethan.
“Too bad my horse isn’t for sale then,” he said.
Esther, ever the cheerleader, appeared to congratulate us on not messing up and to tell us that the worst wasn’t over yet. I was pretty sure she was convinced that somehow I had forgotten how to ride a hunter course and I was afraid that she was right. I’d been so focused on the jumpers lately that I was sure I would forget all about slow and pretty and just kick on instead.
“Will you be mad if I mess up?” I asked her as Ethan and Wendell went into the ring.
“Will you be mad at yourself if you mess up?” she asked.
It was a good question and one I’d been struggling with but as I stood there, I knew that all I could do was my best. Being a professional meant going in there and trying to win no matter who the horse belonged to and what the circumstances were. I owed it to Hampton to showcase how great he was. If nothing else, he deserved for people to see that he was a champion.
Sale Horse (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 5) Page 6