Lisa didn’t see the looks on her friends’ faces. She didn’t hear Carole whisper, “Talk to you later,” or Stevie’s “Tough luck!” All she was aware of was her own humiliation and her own broken dream. She’d been disqualified. The horse show was over for her and for Prancer.
LISA’S FEET MARCHED and her mind raced as she led Prancer out of the show ring. She saw only the dark interior of the stabling area ahead, and she never felt the annoyed tugging on the lead rope. The only thing in her mind was anger.
This time it wasn’t my fault, she thought. Prancer is far and away the finest horse in the ring. The only way Prancer would have bucked and kicked the judge would be if the judge provoked her.
That was it, then, Lisa was sure. It had to be the answer. She decided the judge must have somehow resented the fact that an Intermediate rider had such a fine and valuable horse and had found a way to get her out of the competition. Maybe it was because the judge had always wished she could have ridden a horse like Prancer. Or maybe somebody she’d known when she was a kid did have a horse like Prancer and she was jealous. Or maybe the judge actually didn’t like young riders and wanted to be mean. Or maybe—
“I knew another young rider who had that happen once,” a voice said to Lisa. She looked up. It was Mrs. Reg. She was standing by Prancer’s stall. Lisa realized with a little surprise that she’d apparently been waiting for Lisa and Prancer there.
Lisa didn’t say anything. There wasn’t any point in it. Some days there wasn’t any point in anything at all.
Mrs. Reg didn’t seem to notice that Lisa hadn’t answered. She went on talking.
“He was a fine young rider with great potential.”
Lisa groaned inwardly. Mrs. Reg was well-known for her endless supply of stories. The stories were always about horses; they were always about something that happened a long time ago; and they always related to something that had just happened. Usually, the trick was figuring out exactly how they related to what had just happened.
Right now Lisa wasn’t interested in what Mrs. Reg had to say—unless it had to do with a judge who had it in for a rider in a show. That didn’t seem to be what this was about.
“So this young boy fell for a new horse that came to the stable—Lightning was his name, I think. The boy was bound and determined to take him out on a trail ride. Max—my Max, that is—” She meant, then, that it was her husband Max, not the current Max, who was her son. “Max told the boy the horse wasn’t ready. He hadn’t finished his training. The boy said the horse had all the training he needed to go out on the trail. In a way, he was right. The horse knew what he was doing. Didn’t need the boy to tell him anything. As a result, he didn’t listen to anything the boy told him.”
Mrs. Reg stopped talking. Lisa was annoyed because the story didn’t have anything to do with a judge, but her curiosity was piqued. She couldn’t help herself. She asked the question.
“So what happened?”
Mrs. Reg looked confused, as if the story was totally self-explanatory and no question should have been asked. Then she shrugged her shoulders and continued, briefly. “Oh, the boy got out of the hospital in a week or so. He’s fine now.”
That was it. Mrs. Reg’s story was finished, and she wasn’t going to say anything more. She held the stall door for Lisa and Prancer. Once the horse was inside and Lisa was out, Mrs. Reg closed the door and fastened the latch. She walked off, muttering something about saddle soap, leaving Lisa to herself.
Lisa was by herself. In fact, she felt as alone as she could ever remember feeling. All her dreams had been shattered in one quick kick and a simple word from a judge. “Disqualified.” Now it seemed that it was going to get even worse. She couldn’t leave. Her mother and father were coming, but not until the afternoon, and she couldn’t even reach them to have them come get her now. She had to stay. But she didn’t have to stay where anybody could see her or talk to her or try to comfort her or tell her dumb stories about riders who ended up in the hospital. She decided that she wanted to be as much by herself as she felt.
She looked around the temporary stalls and didn’t see anyplace to go. She wandered into Briarwood’s stables and found what she was looking for—a staircase. She climbed up to the stable’s loft. It was just what she wanted: empty.
It was empty of people anyway. There were only bales of hay, sweet-smelling, fresh hay. No horses, no kids, and best of all, no judges. She sat on one bale and leaned on another.
Around her and below, she could hear the horse show continuing relentlessly without her. The crowd buzzed with excited interest. Here and there horses whinnied and stomped. She could smell the rich, warm aroma of horses. But she wasn’t part of it. She was in the loft, above it all, separated, alone—very much alone.
She tried to shut out the sounds of the show beneath her, but they wouldn’t go. The amplifier for the public-address system had been mounted just outside the upper door to the loft. The loft was filled with the sound of the judges’ instructions, blaring through the microphones.
“Please walk your horses in a circle, clockwise. Now trot. Now, beginning with number eighteen, please change directions at the half circle. Good. Thank you. Now line up again—in order. Thank you.”
It was all a blur. One second Lisa felt as though she were still down in the ring with her friends. The next second Lisa felt a million miles away. And though she was actually only a few feet from the competition, she might as well have been a million miles away. Disqualified.
The amplifiers were quiet for a few minutes. Curiosity took Lisa to the large window that overlooked the ring. She found she had the best seat in the house. Nobody seemed to notice her, but she could see everything.
Fourteen horses were lined up in the ring, and next to each one stood a rider. They waited patiently. Some of the kids chatted with the other competitors. Others patted their horses. None of them seemed to find it necessary to stand at attention, eyes straight ahead, gripping the rope. Lisa wondered about that. If nobody had really good form, would the judges actually award the blue ribbon to anybody?
Then she looked at the horses. Each was groomed to gleaming perfection. Manes were combed, or in some cases braided. Hooves had been polished a shiny black. They all really looked good. Some of the horses were actually better looking than others, but all of them were fit for showing. Her eyes went to Topside and Starlight. Her friends stood proudly with their horses. They’d each worked hard and deserved credit for the great results. Lisa was glad for her friends that the judge hadn’t gone after their horses the way she had gone after Prancer. If Lisa couldn’t win, at least maybe her friends could. That thought made her feel a little better.
Then the judges came out into the ring with the ribbons. It was time to announce winners.
“The first prize, blue ribbon, goes to Miss Veronica diAngelo and her horse, Garnet.”
Veronica?! The judges had to be crazy!
The audience didn’t seem to agree with Lisa. There was genuine applause as Veronica stepped forward to collect her ribbon. Garnet followed docilely and seemed pleased to have the ribbon attached to her halter. Veronica positively beamed as she waited for the other ribbons to be awarded.
Life wasn’t fair. Lisa had done everything she could to see that she would win the blue ribbon. She had the best horse, she’d done the most work on the horse’s grooming. How could it be that somebody as awful and undeserving as Veronica diAngelo would win it?
A strange and unfamiliar feeling came over Lisa. It was jealousy. She’d never had cause to be envious of other riders before. She’d always done well. She’d always succeeded at anything she’d ever tried. She’d never been the one who was left out or forced out. Yet now she was. She was alone, up in the loft, watching her friends do what she wanted to do more than anything in the world, and watching the girl she hated the most get the ribbon Lisa felt she deserved.
The first tear rolled down her cheek, followed quickly by another, and then a flood. It seemed as though they woul
dn’t stop. Through the blur of her tears, she watched the judges award the rest of the ribbons. Red went to the boy with the horse named Duffy. Yellow went to somebody Lisa had not even noticed. Carole got white and Stevie got pink for fifth place. Lisa stared blankly out of the loft window and the rest of the proceedings. She barely noticed while Veronica proudly walked her horse around the ring and then received what appeared to be genuine congratulations from the other competitors—including Stevie and Carole. None of it seemed to Lisa to make any sense, and none of it made any difference. She and Prancer had been disqualified.
There was a ten-minute break then while the riders tacked up their horses and prepared for the first riding class of the day, Equitation. Lisa didn’t move.
She was still sitting there, staring out of the loft window, when the horses reentered the ring, this time under mount.
“Riders, a rising trot please, clockwise,” the judge instructed them.
On signal from their riders, the horses began trotting instantly, and, in turn, the riders began posting with the two-beat gait. Lisa’s eyes followed Stevie on Topside. Her form seemed almost perfect. Stevie’s lower legs remained nearly motionless, while her upper legs easily lifted her ever so slightly out of the saddle. Her forearms remained in a straight line with the reins to Topside’s mouth. But her shoulders seemed a little stiff. Stevie should relax them, Lisa told herself. If she were riding, if she were in the ring with Prancer, she’d be able to do it. She’d make it look right. Prancer could do it better than Topside. She was sure. If only…
STEVIE RELAXED HER shoulders. She’d been holding them too stiffly, and it wasn’t right for a rising trot. It wasn’t right for any gait, actually. It was important for a rider to look relaxed. Topside was doing everything right; now Stevie had to do as well as her horse was doing.
“Now change directions at the half school,” the judge instructed the riders. She pointed to Stevie, meaning she was supposed to be the first rider to do it. She got a third of the way along the side of the ring, about eight on a clock face, put mild pressure on Topside with her outside leg, moved her inside hand ever so slightly to instruct Topside with the rein, and found the horse doing exactly what she wanted him to do. Halfway across the ring on the diagonal, Stevie sat for two beats of the trot, changing her posting diagonal, and then resumed a normal rising trot.
Perfect, she told herself, and she was right.
She smiled proudly. It wasn’t a hard thing to do. She’d done it hundreds of times, only she’d never done it in a show before, in front of a crowd and in front of judges. Her experience told her that often the things that seemed the simplest turned out to be the hardest in a stressful situation. This was certainly stress. She’d known Topside would do the right thing. It was Stevie she’d been worried about. However, she’d come through for herself, and she felt good about it.
“And now canter, beginning at the A,” the judge instructed. The ring was marked with the letters of the alphabet for dressage. A was at the center of the far end. The riders had to maintain a trot until they got there, and then they were to begin their canter. Stevie watched while several of the riders’ horses burst into a canter well before they reached A. The problem was that the horses had heard the word and followed the oral instruction of the judge instead of the instructions from their riders. That was really bad form. When a few of the horses started cantering, all the rest of them wanted to as well. Horses were naturally competitive animals and always wanted to keep up with, and pass, the horse in front of them. The judges watched keenly.
Topside behaved beautifully. He waited patiently for Stevie to give him his instructions, maintaining an even trot while they circled the ring until point A. Stevie then moved her outside leg behind Topside’s girth, touched his belly gently with her foot, and relaxed while he moved into his lilting canter. She noticed the judge nod approval. She kept her own smile to a minimum.
Starlight was having a hard time, and, as a result, so was Carole. Carole had known this would be the most difficult class for Starlight. He was a great horse, but details were not his strong point. From the day she’d gotten Starlight, Carole had been working on his training, knowing that he would have to develop better manners if he was ever going to be a champion. He’d learned an awful lot and was much better than he had been. He wasn’t perfect yet, though, and this was hard for him. The minute another horse started cantering, Starlight wanted to canter, too. Carole held him back, but it wasn’t easy, and the judges noticed. It was as if she could feel their eyes, missing nothing. They seemed to be even tougher than Max!
Where was Max? Carole looked around, wondering if he was watching. And where was Mrs. Reg? She was sure they were both in the audience, unless…
Starlight tugged at the reins. He was ready to go, but Carole wasn’t. She turned all her attention to her horse and looked straight ahead, just as she should have been doing when her mind had wandered. She couldn’t let her mind wander any more than she could let her eyes wander. Horses seemed to be able to sense a change of balance when a rider’s head turned, and they were likely to begin to turn themselves when that happened. It took Carole just a second to get both herself and Starlight back on track. But it was a second that she was sure the judges had noticed. She was determined to do better.
She and Starlight began her canter. As the judges seemed to notice everything that went wrong, Carole hoped they noticed everything that went right. Starlight’s canter was the most unbelievably smooth, rocking gait in the world. Carole was sure she could spend her entire life riding Starlight at a canter. She felt the utter joy of it as they rounded the ring together. The smile on her face must have been noticed by a judge, then, because, though she was looking straight ahead, she could see the judge smiling back at her.
The judges began giving the riders more instructions. The horses made an S-curve down the center of the ring at a walk, and then at a sitting trot. Carole knew that she and Starlight were doing better than they had at first, but she wasn’t sure they were doing well enough. Stevie, on the other hand, was doing beautifully.
Everything was working right for Stevie and Topside. From the very first moment in the ring, Topside had simply done everything Stevie could possibly have asked of him. He was a champion, and he was making her look good. Since Stevie didn’t have to worry about her horse, she could focus on herself. She tried to remember everything she had to do, and then she did it. She found herself enjoying every minute of it.
It was coming to an end, though. The judges had the riders bring their horses to a walk and asked them to continue walking while they made their decisions. It didn’t take long. There was just no question about who had earned the blue. It was Stevie Lake on Topside.
Even though Stevie had been certain they’d done a great job, she was still surprised when she heard her name called. It was impossible, wasn’t it? There were fourteen other riders here, and they were all good, weren’t they? Was she really the best?
“Go on!” Carole whispered to her. “You deserve it!”
If Carole said so, it had to be true. Stevie turned Topside over to the judges’ stand and watched with pride as the judge clipped the bright blue ribbon onto Topside’s bridle.
“Congratulations,” the judge said. “Topside is a great horse, and you’re a fine rider.”
“Thank you,” Stevie said, shaking the woman’s hand. Then she rode a few feet away and waited while the rest of the ribbons were given out. Carole’s friend, Cam, whom Stevie had met between classes, took second place. That seemed fair. He was an awfully good rider, and his horse, Duffy, was very well trained and responsive. Starlight had been giving Carole trouble, and the judges obviously noticed it, because Carole got only fifth place. Veronica got a seventh-place ribbon. Stevie noticed her glaring at it with displeasure just before the judges told Stevie she could take Topside off on a victory gallop. It was a wonderful moment. While all the other riders stood still on their horses out of respect for the blue-ribbon win
ner, Stevie turned Topside to her right and let him go. He swept around the ring joyously, feeling the admiration of the crowd. Stevie spotted Max and Mrs. Reg in the front row of the audience. They waved at her proudly. She nodded politely, deciding it wouldn’t be polite to wave back. It would be like showing off, though the victory gallop itself was the biggest show-off of all. Stevie loved every second of it. She drew her horse to a halt back near the judges and next to Carole, who offered her hand for a high five. That didn’t feel like showing off. That felt like being congratulated by her best friend. It was wonderful! And then Stevie got to lead the class back out of the ring.
Carole was thrilled for Stevie, who definitely had deserved the blue ribbon in that class, but she was disappointed for herself. It wasn’t so much that she’d wanted to beat Stevie. She had just wanted Starlight to do better in Equitation than he’d done. She scowled at Starlight. Was it really his fault, though? she asked herself. Training a horse was a long and arduous task. And now she understood from what had happened that she had a lot more work to do. She was pretty sure she could do it. She hoped she could do a lot of it before Briarwood next year, if she got asked back.
“What happened?” a voice asked. Carole turned around and found herself looking at Cam. His concern seemed genuine. “It seemed to me that you and Starlight were doing great, especially when he got to cantering.”
“He lost his train of thought,” Carole said truthfully. “I guess I did, too. And the judges noticed.”
“It’s like Murphy’s Law,” Cam said. “If something can go wrong, it will. At horse shows it works like this: If something goes wrong, even for a split second, that’s when the judges will be looking.”
Carole smiled and nodded agreement. “Well, for most of the class, Starlight was great—”
“It seemed to me that his rider was as great as he was,” Cam interrupted.
“Thanks, but I goofed, too. I just got lax for a few seconds, and by the time I noticed, the judge had noticed. I have to find a way to keep Starlight focused at all times.”
Show Horse Page 7