Heart Horse (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 27)

by Claire Svendsen

  “I know it is cold,” I told him as he tossed his head and nearly smacked me in the face. “And you just want to go back to your stall and you can later. You only have one class today. That is your job. I know you can do it. We both can. I need that prize money and we need to beat Jess and Harlow. If he won’t win then her father will make her get rid of him and then maybe I can buy him.”

  But even though I said the words I was pretty sure that an old, lame horse was the last thing my own father would let me bring onto our farm. We didn’t have the room or the money to take care of him but I needed to bring him back home. I couldn’t let him down and I’d have to beat him in order to do so.

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  I’d barely had time to settle Arion into a canter that wasn’t a gallop when Rose came running over to tell me that they were walking the course for my class.

  “But I haven’t even had time to jump him,” I said, feeling a surge of desperation. I hated not being prepared.

  “You can pop him over one after,” she said. “I’ll hold him if you like.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I felt relieved that I had friends who were willing to help me out. Without them I’d have been left to stick Arion in his stall while I walked the course and he’d think he was done. Instead Rose would walk him around and keep him settled while I was gone without his muscles getting all stiff again.

  “His cooler is back at the barn,” I said. “Can you toss it over him?”

  “Sure,” she said, looking worried as I started to cough. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said but I had to admit that the cold air was starting to make my lungs hurt again.

  I hadn’t even finished my course of antibiotics yet and I knew I was getting better but I bet that when the doctor said I could start riding again when the fever had gone and the cough was less, he didn’t mean ride three horses in one day at a show in the freezing cold.

  I ran over to the ring where a group of people were wandering around the jumps. It was a big class because there was a decent amount of prize money. The fences were tall but they wouldn’t over face Arion. As I started to walk and pace out the striding I caught Jess out of the corner of my eye, walking with a tall guy. She saw me looking and grabbed his hand. Then she kissed him right there in the middle of the ring. I looked away. I didn’t know who the guy was and I didn’t care. Jess could kiss all the guys she wanted, it was Harlow that I was worried about.

  Sometimes, if a course was tricky, I’d walk it twice. Sometimes three times. Both Dad and Esther were sticklers about making sure you had a plan so that you didn’t lose your place on course but I usually forgot what I’d worked out when I walked the course anyway and sometimes it didn’t ride like it walked. Places that you thought you’d fit three strides in ended up being four no matter how you rode it and I preferred to just go with it and ride by the seat of my pants. There was only so much you could prepare for. The rest of it was skill and a healthy side helping of good luck.

  “Thank you so much,” I told Rose as I took back my horse.

  I’d seen her holding him by the side of the ring, his braids dark and coat dappled. He’d come so far from the skinny Thoroughbred that I’d rescued and looking at him now it was easy to believe that he’d always been well cared for. That he’d been bred to jump and had been trained with that goal in mind his whole life. It was funny how you could look at a horse or a person and not be able to tell anything about their past. If they had been treated well or if bad things had happened to them. None of that mattered in the moment and I was really proud of Arion and how far he had come.

  As I took his reins and patted his neck I saw another gray horse out of the corner of my eye. In the morning sun I could now see that his coat was no longer dappled and his mane wasn’t dark. He was white, like a ghost. The ghost of a horse I once rode. Jess was sitting on him with his cooler wrapped around her own shoulders instead of on her horse. The reins were loose on his neck. He was the babysitter she’d always needed, a horse that would never put a foot wrong. Would never take off or buck or spook. He’d take care of her, even though she didn’t deserve it. I looked away. I had to forget about Harlow and concentrate on what I was doing if I wanted a chance at that prize money.

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO

  The warm up ring was now really crowded and even though Jess wasn’t in there a bunch of other riders were, cantering around in all different directions and flying over the warm up jump with no regard for anyone else.

  I took one look and decided that taking Arion in there would only make him worse, not better, so we decided to skip the warm up jump. It didn’t really matter anyway. The first jump on course was an inviting vertical with blue and white poles and a nice ground line. Arion wouldn’t have a problem with it. In fact I didn’t think he’d have a problem with much of the course at all except for maybe the last line, a good gallop from a triple combination to a narrow plank. It was going to be hard to get him back off his forehand and rounded enough to jump it without touching those brown planks on flat cups.

  The order of go had been posted on a board by the ring next to the course layout. I was going third. Jess and Harlow were fifth. That meant I wouldn’t know how she’d done when I rode but it didn’t matter. There were a lot of competent riders in the class, plenty of people who had the skill and a good enough horse to beat us. We just had to think about what we were doing and forget about everyone else.

  I watched the two riders go before me. They both had rails but not the plank. Then again they didn’t gallop to the last fence either. That would only be necessary if you had to stay in the ring and complete the jump off course.

  I walked Arion into the ring but he jigged until I let him trot. He was excited. I knew that he would be. He loved to jump and even more than that he loved having people watch him jump. The class was early and there wasn’t much of a crowd but other riders hung on the fence to watch us go. Walter Grey was over by the warm up ring, coaching some of his own riders who were going after me. I knew they’d be good too and if they beat us then just maybe Walter Grey would have one of them ride Valentine instead of me. But I pushed those doubts from my mind. If I didn’t believe that we could do it then why would Arion? I patted my horse on the neck and told him we had this. I just hoped that I wasn’t telling him empty promises.

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE

  The bell rang and my horse took off like a rocket.

  “It’s not a race,” I said through gritted teeth as I tried to get him to settle.

  So much for the first fence being easy. It was all I could do to get him to take off from a decent spot. If I’d been riding him at home I would have circled him, got him to listen, made him pay attention but here in the ring the only thing we could do was keep going.

  The second fence was a double oxer. It was wide enough that Arion realized he’d better pay attention pretty quick. He rounded nicely over it and by the time we got to the third fence I was starting to feel like I was in control again and not just along for a death ride.

  My hands were sweaty inside my gloves and I shortened my reins as we approached a double combination. There was only one stride between the verticals and if Arion didn’t come back to me after the first fence, I knew that he’d tried to jump it like a bounce, leaving out the stride altogether and we’d never make it. We’d crash and burn.

  “Easy,” I whispered. “Easy.”

  He jumped the first, the yellow and white poles flashing beneath us and as he was landing I was already sitting up, ready to take back the reins and ask him for a quiet stride. I got it but I wouldn’t say it was quiet. He fought me and threw his head up, smashing me in the face before jumping the second fence clean.

  For a moment I was blinded by pain, my vision flashing white zigzags and all I could think was that I couldn’t pass out. I had to keep going. I tasted blood, felt it flowing down my face and saw it drop onto my jacket but I didn’t care.

  Arion seemed to reali
ze that he’d crossed a line. He settled into an easy canter and finished the course clean as blood ran from my nose and dripped onto his gray neck. The round of applause I got was probably more to do with the fact that I finished the course looking like something out of a horror movie than the fact that we were clean.

  And now we had to go again, the jump off round following the first round with only a few moments to gather myself and my reins, wiping my bloody nose on my sleeve. At least it had stopped dripping.

  Now that Arion was able to gallop, he was a very happy horse. We flew over the fences and I didn’t have to worry about settling him or making him wait. I just let him go partly because I knew that it was pointless to try and hold him back and partly because my nose was still stinging and my vision was a little blurry. I was lucky that he hadn’t pushed my nose all the way back through my skull because that was what it had felt like. We finished the jump off round clear, though how I wasn’t even sure. In fact I couldn’t even really remember what had just happened. There was a very distinct possibility that I had a concussion.

  “That was crazy,” Rose said as I came out of the ring to more applause. “Here, let me take him. You go and get cleaned up.”

  “That bad, huh?” I asked.

  “You look like someone tried to kill you,” she replied.

  I hit the ground with shaky legs, trying to stay upright by grabbing the saddle.

  “Are you sure you are okay?” Rose said.

  “Yeah, fine.” I shrugged. And I did feel fine. In fact I felt fantastic, like I could jump a million rounds on a hundred horses. Like I could jump the moon.

  “I think she might have a concussion,” Rose told Duncan as he rushed over, looking concerned.

  “I’m fine,” I said, waving them away with my hand, wondering why there were four of them.

  “I’ll take care of the horse,” Duncan said. “You take her to the bathroom and make sure she gets cleaned up. Then get her over to the medics to get checked out.”

  “No,” I said. “I need to see Jess ride.”

  The girl after me was already in the ring. She’d had the first fence down. She wouldn’t be doing a jump off round. That meant Jess and Harlow would be up in a few minutes.

  “You need to take care of yourself,” Duncan said. “Forget about Jess.”

  “I can’t,” I said, clutching the arena fence with a death grip.

  I needed to see Jess ride Harlow and I didn’t care if that meant standing there with dried blood on my face to do so.

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  Duncan tried to force me to go to the medical tent but short of picking me up and carrying me, there wasn’t much he could do. He took Arion back to the barn, still covered in drops of my blood, stark red against his gray coat. That wouldn’t be an experience I’d forget any time soon and I was putting him in a running martingale as soon as I got my hands on one. Even if it had been a spur of the moment deal, him getting overly excited, it wasn’t an experience I was willing to repeat.

  The girl who went after me finished to lukewarm applause, her chestnut mare having had three rails down. I clapped for her as well even though I didn't know who she was. Sometimes it just wasn’t your day.

  After she left the ring, Jess rode in. She looked kind of silly on Harlow, like she didn’t belong. He glided into the ring like royalty and stood quietly as she saluted the judge, a far cry from the brief helmet tap I’d managed before Arion took off.

  Harlow picked up a trot and then a loping canter. I scanned his gait for any sign of lameness, a head bob that shouldn’t be there, a shortened stride but I couldn’t see a thing. He looked perfectly sound. How could that be? They cantered easily over the first fence, on to the second and then the double combination where we’d had trouble. Harlow made it look like a beginner’s course. He’d always been an accomplished jumper and I don’t think he’d ever forgotten his show days with Esther.

  Jess sat there in the saddle looking stiff and rigid. I could tell she was trying not to override him because she didn’t need to. To be honest she didn’t need to do anything. All she had to do was sit there and look pretty and as long as she pointed Harlow at the correct fence, he’d jump it. They finished clean and neat. I felt sick. Harlow could still do it all. He didn’t look lame. He didn’t look like he’d ever been retired and Esther had just given him away. Now Jess had him and if he continued to jump like that, she’d never give him up.

  The bell rang for the jump off round and Jess tried to kick Harlow into a gallop but he barely went faster than a canter. He proceeded to jump the course at his own speed, not going any faster than he had before. Jess kicked him on. I could see her spurs glinting in the sunlight and she used them more than she needed to. She flapped her reins like a little kid trying to get a pony ride mount to walk on when instead they had their feet planted firmly in the ground. She used her crop, smacking his side, the sound ringing out through the quiet crowd.

  No one cheered as Jess crossed the finish line clean. It had been a good round, except for their slow time but her display of bad horsemanship had ruined that. Harlow had been slow and she’d beaten him because of it. So slow that it looked like he wasn’t even in a jump off at all. I wondered if it was the drugs she had him on, making him lethargic and groggy. His mind too befuddled to gallop. And Harlow was always the sensible one. He wouldn't gallop if he didn’t think it was safe for either himself or his rider and there was nothing Jess could do to change that.

  She jumped off and threw the reins to Sam who was standing just outside the ring. There were specks of blood on Harlow’s grey sides where Jess’s spurs had dug in. If this had been a rated show, she would have been disqualified. As it was I could always lodge a complaint with the show committee but what was the point? Jess would never stop and every time I tried to make her, it only made things worse for me.

  “Can I take you to the medical tent now?” Rose said.

  “Yes,” I replied as she led me away.

  So I let Rose lead me off to the medical tent, a makeshift hospital where there was a nurse and a paramedic. They took one look at me and quickly ushered me inside. I guess I looked worse than I felt.

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  The paramedic didn’t think my nose was broken but that didn’t stop him from poking at it a whole bunch just to make sure.

  “Ouch,” I cried as he pushed it from one side to the other. “Can you not touch it?”

  “I have to make sure it’s not broken,” the paramedic said.

  His shiny tag said his name was Josh and he had a shaved head and a tattoo of a bleeding heart on his arm. His rubber gloves were already covered in my blood because my nose started bleeding again when he poked at it.

  “I don’t care if it is broken,” I told him. “Can you just get it to stop bleeding? I have more horses to ride today.”

  “You girls,” Paramedic Josh said, shaking his head. “Why don’t you think about taking up a nice sport like ballet?”

  “Do you know how many injuries ballet dancers get?” I told him. “You should see their toes. Their nails all fall off and their ankles get messed up. Plus they practically have to starve themselves to get selected for any good parts.”

  I didn’t add that my own toenail had fallen off after Oscar stepped on my foot last month because at least my toe didn’t look black anymore.

  “So hurtling thousand pound animals over fences taller than me is better, is it?” he asked, pressing a fresh wad of gauze against my nose.

  “Hey, if you don’t agree with it, why are you even here?” I asked him.

  “To stick you guys back together, I guess.” He shook his head. “Just keep pressure on it.”

  I wanted to ask how long I was going to have to sit there but after about five minutes a girl came in holding her arm. From the angle her hand was twisted I was pretty sure it was broken and so Paramedic Josh had more to think about than me and my bleeding nose.

  “Come on,” I whispered to Rose, who had b
een sitting there next to me. “Let’s make our bid for freedom now.”

  “But he didn’t say you could leave,” Rose said. “He didn’t even check to see if you have a concussion.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, swiping a few more packets of gauze on the way out just in case I needed them later. “Besides, I don’t need another lecture about how dangerous riding is. I think we all know that it is.”

  I gave the girl with the broken arm a commiserating smile as I left. She shrugged as if to say that she knew it was all part of the game. But I knew that she’d be getting an even worse lecture from Paramedic Josh than I had and that she’d also get shipped off to the emergency room. A broken arm wasn’t something that could be fixed with gauze in the medical tent.

  By the time we got back to the barn, everyone was getting ready for the team class.

  “We’re walking the course in ten minutes,” Andy said. “Where were you guys?” Then he looked at me and cringed. “Oh wow, who punched you in the face?”

  “Arion did,” I said. “With his neck.”

  “Nice.” Andy nodded. “That is going to leave a mark. You already look like you are getting a black eye.”

  “Great,” I said. “Just as well winning doesn’t have anything to do with my good looks.”

  “What good looks?” Andy said with a wink.

  “Very funny,” I told him.

  I slipped into Arion’s stall. Duncan had untacked him and put his cooler on. He looked all fancy and proud of himself. He pushed against me with his head.

  “Watch it,” I told him. “See what you did to me?”