I pointed to my nose but he didn’t care. After all he’d probably already forgotten. I gave him a treat anyway because he’d had two clean rounds and that was pretty amazing, even if he’d given me a black eye and an almost broken nose in the process.
I was rubbing his face, getting gray hairs all over myself and not really caring when one of the show volunteers came running over.
“You won,” she said. “Come and get your ribbon.”
“We won?” I said, shaking my head. I didn’t think we’d been that fast but apparently so.
I didn’t have time to tack Arion up again so I put on his halter, glad that Jordan had bought him a fancy new one and we didn’t have to go into the ring with a halter full of teeth marks. I pulled him out and ran over to the arena, Arion trotting next to me, all full of himself like he knew that he was about to get an award.
In the ring the judge pinned the blue ribbon on his halter.
“You’ve got guts young lady,” he said as he patted Arion on the neck and my gray horse puffed himself up and arched his neck like a stallion. “Not many kids would keep going after a smack in the face like that. In fact I don’t know too many adults that would either.”
“Thanks,” I said, not sure what else I was supposed to have done? Pull up and retire just because of a bloody nose? I wasn’t going to let a little thing like that get in the way of finishing my round.
Jess and Harlow weren’t in the lineup. Apparently there had been a lot of clear rounds in the jump off and they were just nudged out of the ribbons because they were so slow. I knew that wasn’t going to go down very well with Mr. Eastford. He didn’t like having horses that weren’t winners in his barn. Maybe this loss was all I needed to get my hands on Harlow again but two clear rounds wasn’t exactly something to be sneered out and Harlow had never even come close to rubbing a fence.
But I didn’t have time to think about that as I ran back to the barn to put my big goofy gray horse away. The team was already walking the course in the other ring and I ran after them, still feeling a little woozy and not entirely sure that I didn’t have a concussion after all.
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
This time the team class was simple. We all went once and the round was timed so the team with the least amount of faults and the fastest combination of rounds would win. It was a bit of an odd class but since the team events were being squeezed in between the other classes it sort of made sense to get us in and out of the ring quickly and efficiently. And this time we didn’t have to switch horses, which made me super happy because I still wasn’t about to let Jess anywhere near Bluebird and if she was ever was chosen to ride him, I’d knew that I’d quit the team in a heartbeat.
Duncan walked the course with us and pointed out problems that he thought might come up like a tight turn, places where we could shave time off and another tight double combination. At least this time I’d be riding Bluebird and not Arion and hopefully wouldn’t get smacked in the face again. I don’t think my nose could take a second bash.
“Everyone good?” Duncan said. “Questions? Comments?”
Jess opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again. I guess she had second thoughts about making another scene. We all hustled back to the barn to tack up where I found that Bluebird had managed to pop out two of his braids. I was quickly putting them back in when I heard a familiar voice and saw Faith walking by with Macaroni, closely followed by her mother. She had insisted on being with Faith today as though she didn’t trust us anymore, which was why my father had to go back to get the pony. It was like we were on probation or something. I felt bad for Faith. She wasn’t used to having her mother hover over her like that. I knew it had to be annoying.
“Hey Faith,” I called out, forgetting for a moment that I looked like something out of a horror movie.
“Hey,” she saw me and grinned, then her face fell. “What happened to you?”
“Arion bashed me,” I said. “But we won our class.” I pointed proudly to the blue ribbon hanging on the front of his stall.
“And you think that makes up for almost getting killed, do you?” Faith’s mom said.
She was wearing jeans and flat shoes, carrying a grooming kit and looking every part the horsey mom. I couldn’t help wondering if my own mother had been there for Summer when she went to shows, polishing my big sister’s boots before she went in the ring and wishing her good luck before that one fateful moment when it all went horribly wrong.
“He hardly almost killed me,” I said.
“Yeah mom, don’t be so dramatic,” Faith said.
“That’s enough out of you young lady,” her mom told her sternly. “Go and put your pony in his stall. Now.”
She glared at me before walking off. I guess she didn’t trust us anymore but it wasn’t exactly our fault. Her daughter was the one who had ridden off the farm without permission and she was the one who had pushed her pony to jump slippery fallen logs in the woods on the spooky trail. Dad was trailing behind them, an exasperated trainer at the end of his rope, leading two horses.
“Hey, Dad,” I called out. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t hear me so I ran after him. He had Socks’ lead rope in one hand and Canterbury’s in the other. He’d brought two more horses to the show but why? Was I supposed to ride them? Was he going to? I already had my hands full as it was. He could have at least talked to me about it. And I only had five minutes before the team class to talk to him now. I just hoped that he wouldn’t freak out about my face like Faith’s mom had done. Maybe I should have asked around to see if anyone had some concealer and made myself look a little less horrible but it was too late now. Dad probably wouldn’t even notice anyway. At least I hoped he wouldn’t.
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
“Dad?” I said. “What are you doing? Why are Socks and Canterbury here?”
For a moment I thought he was going to ignore me, then he said, “They are here to compete. No point them sitting home when they could be here winning money.”
I guess he had a point but I kind of wished he’d talked to me about it first because I didn’t feel prepared to ride quite so many horses today.
“You’ll be riding Socks in the mini Grand Prix and I’ll be riding Canterbury,” he told me.
“We’re competing against each other?” I said.
“What’s the matter, don’t think you can beat your old man?” He turned to look at me with a grin but it fell off his face as soon as he saw mine. “What on earth happened to your face?”
“Arion happened to my face,” I said. “From now on he’s going in a martingale.”
“I should think so,” he replied. “Did you win?”
That was more like my father, more concerned with the outcome of the class than whether or not bone from my nose had smashed into my brain. It was also why I loved him so much. He got me. I didn’t need to be babied. I needed a trainer more than I needed a dad, or so I thought anyway.
“Of course we won,” I said.
“Good job,” he replied. “Now I’ve got to get these guys situated and I’ve got to babysit Faith so that her mother doesn’t have a heart attack.”
“Right,” I said.
“I’ll see you after your team event so that you can warm up Socks,” he said.
That was when I remembered Valentine and Walter Grey.
“Dad, wait,” I said. “I’m already catch riding a horse in that class.”
“You are?” he said as I trailed after him. “For who?”
“Some girl called Fiola, she rides with Walter Grey.”
Dad stopped and looked at me. “Walter Grey asked you to ride one of his horses? That is a big deal. You know that, right?”
“Well he didn’t exactly ask and it’s not technically his horse but yes, I guess so. Do you think he’ll be mad if I ride my own horse in the class too?”
“Socks isn’t your horse. He belongs to Missy. Lots of girls ride more than one horse in a class so yo
u might as well get used to it,” Dad said.
I could tell he was impressed. I wasn’t sure if he knew Walter personally but he seemed to think that he was as big a deal as I did.
“Well how am I supposed to know which horse to let win?” I said.
“You don’t let any horse win,” Dad said. “You ride both horses to the best of your ability and let the best horse of the day win.”
“But I don’t understand,” I said. “Shouldn’t I try and make sure Valentine wins to make Walter Grey happy?”
Dad put the horses into their stalls and after he’d taken their halters off and closed the doors he came and stood next to me, his voice low.
“If you want to catch ride horses then you have to ride every horse to win, not just your own. Not just the one you think will impress people. You ride each one honestly and to the best of your ability or you’ll fail. Got it?”
“I guess so,” I said.
“You’d better,” he replied. “What do you think happens down the road when you are competing at the top? All those horses won’t be yours. They’ll belong to co-ops and companies and groups of people who have pooled their money together to buy the horse and trust you to ride him to win. All the owners will be. You can’t favor one over the other. You can’t ride like that ever.”
I ran back to Bluebird’s stall feeling a little conflicted. I’d never really thought about it much before. I’d always ridden my horses to win but that was because they’d belonged to me or at least they almost had. And Bluebird and Arion had nearly always competed in different classes so I’d never had to worry about favoritism. I could give each horse my all, my desire to win fueling them on. How were you supposed to ride more than one horse in the same class and still ride each one like they were the one you wanted to win? It was totally confusing. I decided not to think about it until after the team class.
“You’re late,” Duncan said as I ran out to the warm up ring with Bluebird.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just found out I’m riding a second horse in the mini Grand Prix later.”
“I don’t care what you do after the team class.” He sounded annoyed. “But right now I need you to focus on this.”
“I will,” I said, tightening Bluebird’s girth.
“Don’t spread yourself too thin Emily,” Duncan warned me. “That is when accidents happen.”
“Okay,” I said.
I didn’t know what he wanted from me. I already had a bloody nose and a black eye. How much worse could things get?
CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT
Asking how much worse things could get was tempting the fates, I knew that. But I hadn’t said it out loud. I thought it to myself. I thought that meant it was okay but I rubbed my lucky horseshoe charm anyway before slipping it into my boot.
I couldn’t let anything go wrong. We needed a team win today after our first failed outing. I didn’t care about shopping but I really wanted to go and compete in the finals in Paris. I wanted to get more experience. Ride a million different horses. Compete in more places than just our little corner of Florida.
I was getting older. I needed exposure and I could only get so much around here. If I really wanted to get noticed I was going to have to go out there in the world and a team win today would be the first step in doing that.
The class was easier than the one I’d just ridden Arion in. There were no tricky lines or funny distances but there was a liverpool, a blue plastic inflatable tarp holding a puddle of water under a purple and yellow fence. That was going to give some of the horses trouble. It always did. The water caught the sun and reflected off it and the horses backed off when they saw it. I wasn’t worried. Bluebird could jump a liverpool in his sleep. I wasn’t sure about Blue though, the Cremello horse seemed unsettled and fussy as Sam held him for Jess to get on. She looked at me and nodded but I pretended that I didn’t see her. As far as I was concerned she was working for the enemy and that meant that no matter how nice she seemed, she was still on Jess’s side.
As I waited for the class to start and Duncan gave us last minute instructions, I wasn’t listening. Instead I was scanning the crowd for a black horse. Every now and then I would see one but it wouldn’t be Wizard. I’d know as soon as I saw a white blaze or a roman nose. I’d come to the show hoping to find him but who would be stupid enough to bring a stolen horse to a show anyway? Even Jess wasn’t that dumb.
She was the first member of our team to go, which she wasn’t very happy about.
“Remember fast and clean,” Duncan told her. “Time counts but clean is better. I’d rather you have a fault free round than a fast one with fences down.”
“I know what I’m doing,” she said, snatching her reins up so that Blue jumped backwards and Duncan let go of them.
“She doesn’t look like she knows what she is doing,” Andy whispered as Blue bolted into the ring, spooked at a potted palm and then bounced off a volunteer, who jumped out of the way just before they got trampled.
“You know Jess,” I told him. “She’ll either pull a clean round out of her hat or she’ll crash and burn.”
“Are you sure it’s her hat she’s going to pull it out of?” Andy said as Blue slid to a stop in front of the first fence and she fell up on his neck.
“Oh come on Jess,” I said through gritted teeth. “Get it together.”
It was totally weird being put in a position where I actually wanted Jess to do well but I did in this class because I wanted the team to do well. She circled her horse again, his pale cream tail fanning out behind him in the breeze but Blue Morning Mist was flustered. He’d done so well in the schooling session. I didn’t know what had happened. Maybe it was show ring nerves. Maybe it was Jess. Either way no matter how hard Jess kicked him, he put on the brakes again and this time Jess did fly over his head. I don’t know why. She should have been expecting him to try and put in another stop. She should have been sitting back, kicking on, using every aid she had to urge him to jump. Instead she was now sitting in the dirt wondering what had gone wrong while her fancy horse galloped around the ring, trailing his broken reins.
“Well that’s just great,” Duncan said, smacking his hand on the arena fence.
“You do all realize that there is no alternate and no drop score. What you do out there affects the whole team. Stop screwing up,” he snapped at us.
“Shouldn’t he be telling that to Jess?” Rose said in a low voice.
Someone eventually caught Blue only to find that Jess had gone back to the barn without her horse. They gave him to Duncan, who strode off with him, completely ignoring the rest of us. He was so mad that it looked like steam was about to come out of his ears. Later he reappeared with a helmet and I watched him take Blue over the fences in the warm up ring. The horse didn’t even attempt to stop. The problem was Jess. It always had been.
CHAPTER FORTY NINE
Andy and Mousse had a nice clean round. Rose and Noelle had the liverpool down but were still pretty fast. I was last to go with Bluebird. I knew that we had it. Cantering my pony around the course I tucked him between fences and made tight turns. He didn’t even falter at the liverpool, stretching over the jump like he was the biggest horse out there. And as we crossed the finish line clean and clear, I looked around for Duncan but he wasn’t there. Our team coach had deserted us. Just because he’d been disappointed in Jess, didn’t mean that he should have just walked off and left us all.
“Nice round,” Andy said.
“Thanks,” I replied. “Not that it matters. We won’t place. Not with Jess getting eliminated. Duncan didn't even stay to watch.”
“I think he went back to the barn to set Jess straight on a few things,” Andy said as we walked our horses side by side.
“What, like not having your horse refuse the first fence and embarrassing yourself?” I said.
I was starting to get a headache where Arion had smacked me in the head and my nose felt like it had swollen shut.
“I think I need to
get some ice from the medical tent,” I said. “My nose feels huge. Is it huge?”
“Yes its ginormous,” Andy replied with a grin. “In fact I’ve never seen such a big nose in all my life.”
“Thanks a lot,” I said.
He turned Mousse back to the barn and I walked my pony across the show grounds to the medical tent. The sun was high in the sky and even though the breeze was cool, it had warmed up considerably. I felt hot in my dark jacket and couldn’t wait to take it off. I undid the buttons and the strap on my helmet, which was feeling smaller by the second. I wondered if my head was swelling up too. If it was that was definitely something I was keeping to myself. I wanted to ride later and no one would let me if I told them my head felt like a balloon that had been over inflated.
“What did you hurt this time?” Paramedic Josh said.
He was standing at the entrance to his tent with his arms folded.
“Nothing,” I said. “But can I get an ice pack or something. See how swollen my nose is now?” I pointed at my face.
“Looks about the same to me,” he said, peering at it for a moment before rummaging around in a box, snapping the ice pack and then handing it to me.
“Is this the one that hurt you?” he said, looking warily at Bluebird.
“No,” I said. “It was my other horse.”
“How many do you have?” he said.
“Too many,” I admitted.
And in that one singular moment, I realized that I did. I wanted to spend my energy on campaigning Bluebird and Arion this year and not juggling my time between a whole herd of horses and anyway, I could always catch ride when I wanted to.
Why was I so obsessed with bringing Harlow into our barn? Why couldn’t I let Hashtag go? These were questions that I didn’t have the answers to and love was only part of it. The other part was the side of me that wasn’t as sweet, the side that was selfish and greedy and wanted to keep all the horses to herself, the part that held onto things so tight that I suffocated them. I was afraid of losing everything because I’d already lost so many things. I couldn’t help the way I felt but maybe I didn’t need to have such a death grip on every horse and every person that I loved.
Heart Horse (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 27) Page 10