Horse Gentler in Training
Page 1
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Horse Gentler in Training
Copyright © 2018 by Dandi A. Mackall. All rights reserved.
Illustrations by Phyllis Harris. Copyright © Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Designed by Jacqueline L. Nuñez
Edited by Sarah Rubio
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Horse Gentler in Training is a work of fiction. Where real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales appear, they are used fictitiously. All other elements of the novel are drawn from the author’s imagination.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mackall, Dandi Daley, author. | Harris, Phyllis, illustrator.
Title: Horse gentler in training / Dandi Daley Mackall ; illustrations by Phyllis Harris.
Description: Carol Stream, Illinois : Tyndale Kids, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., [2018] | Summary: Eight-year-old Winnie is determined to become a horse gentler like her mother, both to prove herself to Austin, a big-talking classmate who owns a thoroughbred, and to save the ranch.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018027427 | ISBN 9781496432803 (sc)
Subjects: | CYAC: Christian life—Fiction. | Horses—Training—Fiction. | Ranch life—Wyoming—Fiction. | Wyoming—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.M1905 Hnq 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018027427
ISBN 978-1-4964-3282-7 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-4964-3281-0 (Kindle); ISBN 978-1-4964-3283-4 (Apple)
Build: 2018-10-02 15:34:28 EPUB 3.0
For Ellie, my granddaughter, who is already on her way to becoming a horse gentler
What is impossible for people is possible with God.
LUKE 18:27
Contents
Chapter 1: How Not to Catch a Princess
Chapter 2: Teaching Moments
Chapter 3: Catch Me If You Can
Chapter 4: Lizzy’s Lizard
Chapter 5: Monday, Monday—Not a Fun Day
Chapter 6: Big Talker
Chapter 7: Ride ’Em, Cowgirl?
Chapter 8: Ouch!
Chapter 9: Very Tricky
Chapter 10: Trick or Treat
Chapter 11: Try, Try Again
Chapter 12: Disappearing Act
Chapter 13: All’s Well That Ends Well
My True Horse Story
Fun Horse Facts
Horse Terms
Common Horse Breeds
Parts of the Horse
About the Author
How Not to Catch a Princess
“Hang on, Winnie!” Mom shouts into the wind as Chief, our sleepy plow horse, plods on.
I wrap my arms around Mom’s waist. We’re riding double. Bareback. I know what’s coming.
Chief trots, making us bounce on his broad back. Then he breaks into a slow canter. He’s the oldest horse on the Willis Wyoming Ranch. I love our ranch, so I can’t stop thinking about the argument I overheard last night:
“Jack, we can’t lose the ranch!” Mom said. “We need to hold on and pray.”
“Prayer won’t pay the bills, Emily,” Dad said.
We board horses, and Mom gentles them. Other trainers “break” horses, sometimes in cruel ways. Not Mom. She is so good with horses you’d think she was one. It’s their owners we have trouble with.
More than anything on earth, I want to be a horse gentler like Mom.
“Uh-oh.” Mom eases Chief to a walk.
Mr. Green and his son Austin are in our pasture. Mr. Green is wearing green pants and a green shirt. I’ve never seen him in any other color. Austin is eight, like his twin, Simon. And me.
Mr. Green runs toward Royal Princess, their new champion Thoroughbred. The mare’s deep-brown coat shines in the sunlight. Princess keeps munching grass until Mr. Green is a horse’s tail away. Then she trots to the far end of the pasture. “Come back here!” he cries.
“I’ll get that horse!” Austin shouts.
Mom slides off Chief and whispers, “Winnie Willis, in the beginning God created heaven and earth and horses. And sometimes I have to wonder if the good Lord shouldn’t have quit while he was ahead.”
Teaching Moments
Austin tiptoes behind Princess.
Never a good idea.
Before I can holler, Princess kicks, just missing Austin. He scrambles backward, trips over his own feet, and lands in the dust.
“Austin, what did I tell you about standing behind a horse?” Mom shouts.
Austin jumps up and dusts off his jeans like they’re on fire. “Stupid horse!” he mutters.
I feel a teaching moment coming on. That’s what Mom calls a talking-to about something that just happened.
Austin won’t be easy to “gentle.”
“Austin,” Mom begins in her gentlest voice. “Horses see all around them, except for blind spots in front and behind. Princess saw you coming at her. Then she lost sight of you. That frightened her, so she kicked.”
“You’re supposed to tame my horse!” Austin cries. “That’s what we pay you for!”
I slide off Chief. He’s about 18 hands (or 6 feet) high, a farm horse that came with the farm we turned into our ranch. I’m short. It’s a long way down.
Then I get a great idea.
Note to self: Winnie Willis, this is your chance. Call me Winnie the Horse Gentler!
“I got this!” I tell Mom.
“Winnie?”
But she’s too late. I’m going to catch that horse, or my name isn’t Winnie the Horse Gentler!
Catch Me If You Can
“Here, Princess,” I whisper.
Princess stops grazing.
“Good girl,” I say, loud enough for Austin and his dad to hear. Horses learn by watching horses. Maybe people learn by watching people.
Princess is watching me.
So is Mom.
I whistle, like Mom does. Slowly, I reach for Princess. Thoroughbreds can be nervous and high strung. That quick energy makes them good racehorses. But they can get scared easily. Austin and his dad scared Princess. I know better. Plus, I’m not at all scary.
My hand is almost to her halter.
Princess lets out a whistle of her own, a whinny.
A horse laugh.
She rears, then canters off.
Behind me, I hear human laughter. Austin’s.
Mom brushes past me and whistles.
Princess prances up. “Come on, Princess.” Mom scratches the horse’s neck. Instead of grabbing the halter, she keeps scratching Princess.
Austin and his dad stare as Mom and Princess stroll into the barn.
Note to self: there is only one horse gentler at the Willis Wyoming Ranch. And it’s not Winnie.
Lizzy’s Lizard
Austin and his dad storm into the barn after Mom and Princess.
“Can I ride now?” Austin shouts, making Princess stir in the cross-ties. We keep leather lead ropes hanging from both sides of the stall way so we can snap the hooks onto the halter from both sides. Horses have now
here to go when they’re in cross-ties.
“Today we’ll work on grooming.” Mom says grooming a horse is the best way to get to know her.
“What?” Austin sounds like Mom’s asking him to eat Princess. “That’s your job!”
“Next time, please have the horse groomed before our arrival,” Mr. Green says.
Mom gives them a big smile. “We’ll be using those brushes.” She points to the shelf outside the tack room. “And we’ll need a hoof pick for cleaning her hooves. It’s the small metal thing that looks like a question mark—the red one.”
Austin and his dad exchange looks. Then Mr. Green gets the brushes and hoof pick and delivers them to Mom.
Austin crosses his arms in front of him. “I’m not doing it! We paid for riding lessons. Not grooming lessons.”
I can’t watch. I head for the house.
Lizzy, my little sister, is on her hands and knees, sniffing the ground. She’s one day short of a year younger and a whole inch taller than me. We both have Mom’s dark hair and green eyes. But Lizzy is scared of horses and loves bugs and lizards almost as much as I love horses. Our school takes field trips to Lizzy’s lizard farm.
Mom says I’m a wild Mustang and Lizzy is a good-natured Trakehner.
“I’ve lost my only Great Plains Earless,” Lizzy explains.
“Need my help?” I ask, hoping she’ll say no. The last time I helped her catch a lizard, I freaked out. Plus, I got poison ivy.
Note to self: next time, stay in the stable.
Something swishes behind me. I jump and bump into something. Someone. “Sorry, Simon.” It’s hard to believe Simon and Austin are twins. They both have black hair, but Simon’s is really short. He wears glasses and almost always a smile. Austin wears no glasses and no smile.
“That’s okay. I’m in the way. Winnie, how are you today?”
There is a reason we call him Rhymin’ Simon.
“Help me find my Earless Lizard?” Lizzy begs. “Officially, it’s called a Great Plains Earless Lizard. They only showed up in Wyoming a few years ago. It’s not even as long as my finger. No ear openings, but a big mouth. The head is kind of funny shaped, like God forgot to give them chins. White belly. Stripes on its back. But they’re brown and gray, so that makes them hard to see. I thought I’d never catch it. Now we have to catch it again!”
Simon drops down next to her. “Can do . . . for you.”
I never feel at ease around Simon. I keep thinking I should rhyme back. And I’m not a good rhymer. “See you guys.” Eagle eyes. Just my size. I’ll be wise.
Note to self: maybe I’m not so bad at rhyming.
As I walk away, I hear Simon: “Lizzy, Lizzy, have no fears. We’ll catch this creature with no ears.”
I turn back. As Lizzy’s big sis, I have a duty to set her straight. “You do know catching the same lizard twice is impossible?”
Lizzy doesn’t look up. “Winnie, nothing is impossible with God.”
“Even capturing a lizard so odd,” Simon adds.
Note to self: I really don’t like rhyme.
Monday, Monday—Not a Fun Day
Monday I catch Dad just as he’s leaving for work. He’s asking Mom and Lizzy, “How about a remote-controlled shower? You could turn it on from bed, and the water would warm up while you get a few more minutes of sleep.” Dad’s always thinking up crazy inventions.
Mom kisses Dad’s cheek. “Someday you’ll have to quit selling insurance and make these inventions yourself.”
“What would they do with Dad’s billboards if he quit?” I ask. Dad’s the boss of Best Bet Insurance. They put his face on two billboards, so he’s kind of famous.
“I’m sure they’d think of something,” Mom says.
“Dad? Can you please get home before bedtime tonight?” Even I can hear the whine in my voice.
Dad kisses the top of my head. “I promise to be home before bedtime, Winnie,” he says. “My bedtime.”
“Not funny, Dad,” Lizzy says.
Dad kisses Lizzy’s head too. “Don’t miss the bus, girls.”
I like my teacher. If Miss Pento were a horse, she’d be a frisky Welsh Pony. They’re small, but they can do anything—jump, dressage, pull a cart, or trail ride.
Miss Pento pulls her blonde hair into a ponytail. “Class, let’s share your answers to the journal question: ‘What did you do this weekend?’”
I forgot all about this. And I’m supposed to have such a great memory. Dad says I have a photographic memory, so I should have a better report card. I tried to explain that my brain takes pictures without me, and I can’t help if it doesn’t like math pictures.
Landri goes first. She looks enough like our teacher to be her kid. She’d be a Palomino yearling if she were a horse. Her creamy blonde hair is exactly the right color for a Palomino. “I had ballet with Ellie and Maddie and Cassie,” she begins. “I went to church. Then we watched boring sports on TV.”
We all clap for Landri, partly because she did such a good job but mostly because we like her.
Simon’s presentations are usually unusual. “You’d hardly believe what a weekend I had. It started out fine. Then the day became sad. A lizard was lost. My brother got mad. And now I am done—too bad.”
Even Miss Pento looks confused. “Well, Simon, that was very . . . rhyming.”
Ellie tells what she read and what she drew and which crafts she worked on. Brooks tells what he ate. Seth played sports. Tamson claims she won everything, from board games to races.
When it’s Austin’s turn, he struts up front. “We saved the best for last!”
So Austin hasn’t noticed I’m last. Maybe Miss Pento won’t notice either.
“You guys told us what you did this weekend,” Austin begins. “Boring! I’m going to tell you what I didn’t do!” He gives me a look that makes me feel like losing my breakfast.
Note to self: this won’t be good.
Big Talker
“I got a really expensive horse,” Austin begins.
Landri asks, “Was it your birthday?”
Austin’s face wrinkles like he doesn’t get the question. “No. Why?”
Landri’s face turns pink. “Well, I just thought a horse would make a really good birthday gift, and maybe—”
“I got the horse because I wanted a champion,” Austin interrupts. “My horse’s father was a champion racehorse and ran in the Kentucky Derby. He only won third place. But that was the jockey’s fault. My horse will win first place. Dad says Royal Princess cost more than the car he bought Mom for Christmas.”
Note to self: Austin Green is a big talker.
Austin keeps bragging until Miss Pento interrupts. “Thank you, Austin.”
He frowns at her. “I’m not done! Remember? I said I was going to talk about what I didn’t do last weekend. So we take Royal Princess to the Willis ranch. They do the dirty work, like cleaning the stall. I got the horse so I could ride in shows and win trophies. But did I get to ride? NO! Why not?”
I feel boiling lava start in my toes and move to my face.
Austin glares at me. “Because certain people didn’t do their jobs! They took the money to break my horse, and they expect me to—”
The lava explodes inside me. “Break your horse? You don’t know anything about horses!”
“Like you do?” Austin says.
Usually, I know exactly what kind of horse a person would be. Austin could never be a horse. Not in a million years.
“We don’t break horses!” I explain.
Austin smirks. “No kidding.”
His buddies laugh.
“We don’t break a horse’s spirit. Mom and I gentle horses.”
Miss Pento swishes her ponytail. “Gentle them? How does that work?”
“It doesn’t!” Austin snaps. “She can’t even catch my horse.”
I storm up the aisle before Miss Pento can stop me. “I can too catch your horse!”
“Winnie?” Miss Pento steps from behind
her desk. “It’s still Austin’s turn.”
“I told Dad he should fire your mom,” Austin snaps.
“Oh yeah?” All I know is that Mom can’t get fired and that I’m so mad at Austin that if I were a horse, I’d bite him.
Austin fake laughs. “I’m done, Miss Pento,” he says. “It’s Winnie’s turn to tell us what she did over the weekend. More like what she didn’t do.”
“All right, Winnie. What did you do this weekend?” Miss Pento asks.
I’m in front of the class, alone. “I worked on catching Princess.”
Brooks, who is nice for a boy, asks, “What else do you do with Austin’s horse?”
I could say I brush Princess, feed her, clean out her hooves, and muck her stall. But that doesn’t sound like much. “Ride her.” That’s what I would do if I could catch her, if Mom says it’s okay, if—
“Cool!” Brooks turns to Austin. “So Winnie can ride your horse, but you can’t?”
As I walk to the back row, I hear Ellie whisper, “That’s so cool!”
Landri says, “I didn’t know you were so good with horses, Winnie.”
Austin glances at me, then says something to his buddies.
“How exciting!” Miss Pento exclaims. “You’ll have to keep us updated, Winnie. You, too, Austin.”
Austin sneers at me. “Count on it.”
I slide into my seat.
Note to self: Austin Green is not the only big talker.
Ride ’Em, Cowgirl?
After school, I run to the bus and sit behind Lizzy and Simon. Simon keeps reading, but Lizzy takes one look at me and asks, “Rough day, Winnie?”
“You could say that again.”
“Please help Winnie feel better.” Lizzy says this to God with her eyes open. She’s always praying before we realize who she’s talking to. Mom does the same thing.