Pony Jumpers 9- Nine Lives

by Kate Lattey

  There was an uncharacteristic bitterness in her voice as she mentioned her ex-husband, and any thoughts I’d had about them getting along better lately were quickly disillusioned.

  “Isn’t there someone who can come and do some ground work for us?” I asked. “Put some manners on her while we’re both incapacitated?”

  “If you know of anyone who’s willing to risk life and limb to work with that horse, they can be my guest,” Deb said. “But you’ll be lucky to find them.”

  I watched her scoop up another armload of hay and limp off into the darkness, then turned back to Tori. Surely there must be someone, somewhere out there who could help.

  6

  PRESSURE & RELEASE

  “So this is the problem child?” Charlie asked as she stepped up to Tori’s stable and looked at her. “I’d be mad too if I got shut into a box all day,” she commiserated with the black mare, who laid her ears back and glared at Charlie.

  I watched nervously as she slid open the bolt on Tori’s stable door and stepped inside. Charlie had coached me and Katy at a Pony Club rally during the season, and although Katy had found the obstacle course and desensitising activities boring, I’d enjoyed our session and learned a lot. Charlie had brought along a horse of her own, and she’d completed the spooky obstacles effortlessly with the horse in just a rope halter. We’d stayed in touch afterwards via Facebook, and although she hadn’t been too impressed by my decision to put shoes on Squib, being a firm proponent of barefoot trimming, she wasn’t holding it against me. When I’d got in touch with her last night to see if she’d be prepared to help out with Tori, she’d promised to be over first thing in the morning. And now here she was, standing in Tori’s stable with a rope halter over her shoulder, pulling gloves onto her hands as the black mare glowered at her from the corner.

  “She had to be boxed after her injury,” I explained. “It’s still healing, although she’s sound on it now. But before that she was paddocked twenty-four-seven before she got hurt, and she was still like this.”

  “She’s obviously not enjoying life, is she?” Charlie asked.

  The question seemed to be rhetorical so I didn’t answer, just watched as she approached Tori, holding a hand out to her and speaking in a soft murmur. Tori swivelled her ears back and forth as she reached out to sniff Charlie’s hand, checking for food.

  Without missing a beat, Charlie lifted her long rope over Tori’s neck, then removed her leather halter and slipped the rope one onto her head in one smooth, practiced movement. The mare wrinkled her nostrils, but didn’t object otherwise. I smiled. Already, the benefit of Charlie’s experience was coming to the fore.

  “So far, so good,” she said. “Now let’s get those feet moving.”

  As she led Tori to the front of the box, I noticed that the rope halter had extra knots tied across the noseband.

  “Just makes it a bit stronger,” Charlie explained, when I asked. “It makes them back off the pressure faster if they start to pull against it. You said she tries to get away from you, so I want to be sure that she doesn’t think she can just bugger off if she feels like it. It’s still mild compared to a bit,” she added. “She’ll work it out quickly enough. They all do.”

  I nodded, stepping back and watching as Charlie led Tori out of her stable, then asked her to halt in the middle of the yard. Tori did as she was told for a change, standing there as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Squib noticed her from his paddock and whinnied, because he just couldn’t help getting involved in everyone else’s business. Tori raised her head and looked at him, her ears pricked forward, and my pony obviously felt encouraged by this show of interest, because he came towards Tori at a floating trot, his neck arched and tail kinked into the air.

  Tori tugged at the lead rope and took a step towards him, but Charlie tugged back.

  “Uh uh. Stay here.”

  Under pressure, the knots on the halter dragged across Tori’s nose, and her reaction was instantaneous. She threw her head into the air, set her neck against Charlie and started to tow her towards the paddock. I watched helplessly as Charlie skied across the gravel yard behind the black horse for a few metres, but then she turned her body sideways and pulled hard on the rope, regaining the upper hand as Tori was thrown off balance. The mare stumbled slightly, turning her head into the pressure, and Charlie straightened up.

  “Good girl.” She stood still for a moment, then grinned at me. “She thought she had me there, but she was wrong.” She sounded triumphant, and I smiled back at her, then looked at Tori. The mare’s eyes were wide, and her muscles rippled and quivered under her coat in what I’d come to learn was a precursor for trouble.

  “She doesn’t give up easily,” I warned Charlie.

  “Not many of them do,” she agreed. “But they all give up eventually. Now,” she told Tori. “Let’s get you to move your feet the way I want you to.”

  I retreated into the shade of the stables and watched as Charlie and Tori engaged in a battle of wills under the blistering hot sun. Tori submitted to the pressure of the rope halter, but grudgingly, and she never really softened in her body or relaxed. She was focused on Charlie, but there was still a wild look in her eye as she circled around her. Several times she tried to spin out of the circle that Charlie had her on, and I realised why the young trainer was wearing gloves.

  “I’m guessing a round pen would be too much to hope for,” she said breathlessly, looking around as Tori came to an impatient halt in front of her.

  “You guessed right,” I replied. “But we have an arena, if you want to be more enclosed.”

  She nodded. “Let’s try that. Less of an escape route. She’s seriously considering bolting off down the driveway. Good thing I shut the gate behind me, eh?”

  I agreed, then led the way towards the arena. Charlie followed, with Tori trailing reluctantly behind her. I sat on the low fence to watch as Charlie sent Tori back out onto a circle. At least, she tried to, but Tori was annoyed that she could no longer see the other horses, and kept walking across right in front of Charlie, refusing to move away from her.

  “Hey now. Get off me,” Charlie muttered, swinging the end of the rope at Tori’s hindquarters to encourage her to yield.

  “She kinda walks all over people,” I said. “She does it to Katy as well.”

  “That’s not allowed,” Charlie told the mare. “You have to learn to respect me. When she does,” she called to me, clicking her tongue to Tori, “she’ll be a lot easier to handle.”

  Tori picked up a trot. Her floating movement was as breathtaking as ever, with no sign of lameness from her injury, but I felt a twinge of guilt. The vet had specifically told us not to work her on a circle until the bandage was off.

  “She’s not really supposed to be lunged,” I told Charlie anxiously. Her rope was longer than a normal lead rope, but not as long as a lunge line, and she was working Tori on a small circle. Her injured hind leg was on the inside, bearing her weight as she trotted around.

  Charlie looked at me over her shoulder. “Her injured leg is the least of your concerns right now. If she’s unable to be safely handled, it won’t matter much whether she’s lame or not.”

  I wasn’t sure that Katy would agree with that assessment, and I stood at the gate, paralysed with indecision. Tori needed someone like Charlie to teach her some respect, but I didn’t want to make her injury worse, and I knew Katy wouldn’t approve of Charlie being here, handling her horse, whether it helped or not.

  The big mare was struggling to go forward on such a small circle, and when Charlie slapped the end of the rope against her own leg to urge her on, Tori spun around and lashed out at her with both hind feet. Charlie ducked, even though Tori wasn’t quite within range of kicking her, but her aim had been accurate. She’d gone straight for Charlie’s head, and I started to feel sick. What if Tori lost the plot entirely, and attacked her? It wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility. Katy had often complained that the mare felt like
she was about to explode, and just last week, had wondered whether she had some kind of psychological trauma that made her into a schizophrenic. I’d Googled equine schizophrenia and come up with nothing, but Katy had simply said that didn’t mean Tori wasn’t the world’s first case.

  I watched Charlie recover her composure quickly, straightening up, taking hold of the rope with both hands and pulling hard. Caught off guard, Tori was forced to turn back towards her. Horse and human both stood still for a moment, facing off as they sweated together in the midday sun.

  “She’s defiant, that’s for sure,” Charlie said. “Think you can come hold her for a minute, AJ? I need to get some gear out of my car.”

  I stepped into the arena and approached the mare. “Body armour?” I suggested, and Charlie smiled.

  “Just a flag,” she replied. “I need something to be able to keep her out on the circle, so she can’t knock my head clean off my shoulders if she gets in the mood.”

  “Sorry she’s being so difficult,” I said apologetically. “She’s not usually this bad.”

  “Probably because you let her get away with too much,” Charlie said bluntly. “She needs to learn that she can’t treat humans like that. Too much more of that kind of behaviour and she’ll end up being put down for being too dangerous.”

  I swallowed hard. “Do you think you can fix her?”

  Charlie shrugged. “I’m not giving up yet. But I’m not asking her to do anything hard. She can do it – she just doesn’t want to try.”

  I took the rope and looked at Tori as Charlie walked away. She stood still, watching Charlie leave, her flanks heaving and damp with sweat. As soon as the trainer was out of sight, Tori’s head lowered, and she cleared her nostrils and shook her head. I knew enough about horses to know that she was relieving tension, and I stepped in closer and reached a hand out to touch her between the eyes. Tori’s ears flickered and she raised her head slightly, but didn’t move away. Sweat was trickling down her face in narrow rivulets, and her nostrils flared wide and red, showing obvious stress.

  “I know you hate this, but it’s for your own good,” I told her, hoping that would prove to be true.

  Tori flicked one ear at me in vague response, and shifted her weight behind. I noticed guiltily that she was resting her injured hind leg, and crossed my fingers on my good hand, hoping that she hadn’t done any damage to it. The sun baked down on us both, and a pair of tui swooped and gurgled down the long side of the arena. Tori stretched out a foreleg and rubbed her head on it for a few seconds, then straightened up and yawned.

  But her relaxation disappeared the moment that Charlie returned to the arena, and the horse seemed to grow several hands. Charlie was wearing a helmet now, a precaution I couldn’t fault her for, and was carrying a long stick with a white plastic bag tied onto the end.

  “Right,” she said in a businesslike manner as she let herself into the arena. “Let’s try this.”

  She reached for the lead rope in my hand, and Tori stepped back to the end of the line, bracing herself against it.

  I bit my lip. “You don’t think she’s done enough already? She’s kinda tired.”

  Charlie gave me a pitying look. “Sometimes you have to apply pressure before you get a breakthrough,” she explained. “You know that most of my work is very soft and gentle. But this mare has no respect for me, and until I can get control of her feet and gain her respect, she’s dangerous to be around.”

  I thought of the mare who’d stood so quietly in front of me just moments before, but said nothing. Either we got a breakthrough today, or Tori continued to be as difficult as she had been before Charlie got here. And if someone as experienced as Charlie couldn’t help, we were really in trouble.

  I moved out of the way as she waved the flag stick at Tori’s shoulder, pushing her out onto the circle again. The flag kept the horse at a distance, but the flapping plastic bag spooked the her, and she cantered several fast circles before Charlie could regain some control. I watched with my heart in my mouth, convinced that Tori would start hopping on three legs at any second and that her injury would be set back by months.

  She was so tense that it was hard to tell if she was unsound, but to my relief, she didn’t start limping. Tori rolled her eyes at me as she walked past, the steamy smell of her sweat-drenched coat lingering in the air.

  “Hey, Tor,” I said softly, and she halted just past me, then turned her head to look at me. I couldn’t help feeling like she was asking me to help her, and I felt like a traitor as I sat there and watched silently. Charlie shook the flag at her, but instead of walking on, Tori swung around and faced the trainer, ears flat back against her head.

  “Uh uh, don’t do that,” Charlie said. She began to move around so that she could flick the flag at Tori’s quarters, but the mare kept moving with her, refusing to allow Charlie access to her flank. Frustrated, Charlie shook the lead rope at her. “It’s going to be like that, is it? Fine then. If you won’t go forward, go back.” She snaked the lead back and forth under Tori’s chin. “Back,” she commanded.

  Tori flattened her ears and took one ornery step towards Charlie, but she shook the rope harder in retaliation. “Back,” she repeated firmly, and Tori halted. Once more, Charlie tried to get her to step backwards. Tori lifted a foreleg, shifted it back about two inches, then set it down.

  I let out a breath, relieved that she’d made an effort, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy Charlie. “Do it properly,” she insisted, lifting the flag and directing it at Tori’s chest.

  Tori didn’t move, so Charlie shook the flag again, and the tip of the plastic bag touched Tori’s broad chest. The big mare reared, her forelegs striking out at Charlie, who flung the flag up in front of herself and stood her ground. Tori’s front hooves hit the sand with a thud that echoed the thumping of my own heart. This was not going the way I’d hoped. Tori had far more fight in her than any of us had predicted, but Charlie wasn’t about to give up, either.

  It took another twenty minutes, but eventually, finally, Tori started to give in. As Charlie trotted her around on a circle, the horse lowered her head and slowly licked her lips, a clear sign of submission.

  Charlie heaved a sigh of relief, and lowered the flag tip until it was touching the ground. “That’ll do for today,” she said. I could see damp patches on the back of her polo shirt, and she looked exhausted. “Man, she’s a tough horse. She doesn’t want to give an inch.”

  I jumped down off the arena rail and walked up to them. Tori’s coat was crusted with sweat, and her skin twitched nervously as I approached. “She’s really stubborn,” I agreed.

  Charlie nodded, gathering up a loop in her long lead rope. “She’s definitely wilful, and she’s not afraid to push people around. She’s gotten away with it for far too long, but we’re on the home stretch. We’ll get her sorted out,” she said confidently.

  She stepped towards Tori and reached up to pat her between the eyes, but Tori swung her head away defiantly. Charlie frowned at the rejection, then shrugged. “We’re not friends yet, are we?” Tori snorted and shook her head, and Charlie laughed. “You’ll come around eventually,” she told Tori. “They always do.” She smiled at me. “I hope you learned something from all that.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Back in the stable, Charlie removed the knotted rope halter from Tori’s head, and the horse immediately went to the back of her stable and stood there sullenly, her head in the corner.

  “She’s a real piece of work.” Charlie took the halter from me and shook her head. “Well, I can come back tomorrow if you want, but I’ll have to start charging you for my time. Only the first one is a freebie, and that’s just because we’re friends.”

  “I’ll have to ask Deb,” I said tentatively, and she nodded.

  “Let me know what she says, but she’s going to have to do something. That horse is far too much for a teenager to handle, even one as experienced as Katy.”

  “I think she’ll be
okay. And Tori did improve a bit at the end,” I said hopefully.

  Charlie didn’t share my optimism. She just shook her head, coiling the rope into a loop in her hand. “Well, if you get really stuck, I do know some natural horsemanship people who’d take her. They won’t stand for any nonsense, and if they can’t straighten her out, nobody can.”

  “I don’t think Katy wants to sell her,” I said dubiously, and Charlie laughed.

  “If she leaves it much longer and she gets any worse, Katy will be lucky to give her away.”

  After Charlie had gone, I went back to Tori’s stable and leaned on the door, looking in at her. She was still standing with her head in the far corner. Her coat was grey with dried sweat, and she was resting her bandaged leg. I couldn’t help wondering whether Tori had gained any benefit from today’s experience, or if the firm handling had somehow made everything worse. But we were quickly running out of options. I’d expected to feel elated by her progress, but instead I just felt defeated.

  I grabbed a handful of grain and went into her stable, holding it out to the mare as a peace offering. Tori watched me approach warily, but ate greedily from my palm, then licked my hand when she was done. I smiled, and stroked her crusty neck. I couldn’t leave her like that, so I went and got a bucket of warm water and a sponge. Slowly and carefully, I went over her entire body, rinsing the sweat from her dark coat. She didn’t like it much at first, and she was as ticklish as ever under her belly and across her flanks, but she let me do it. It wasn’t until I was wiping the sweat out of the hollows above her eyes that I realised that I hadn’t put her halter back on. Yet she was standing quietly, unrestrained.

  Maybe we had made some progress after all. I picked up the bucket of murky water and departed, latching the door behind me. Tori went straight to the drinker at the back of her box and sucked down several litres of water. She looked weary, and I felt sorry for her.