Flame and the Rebel Riders

by Stacy Gregg

  Despite looking complicated, the Dutch gag wasn’t that tricky to put on. Verity helped with the saddle too and then she gave Issie a leg up and tightened the girth up another hole.

  “OK,” she said. “Take him into the arena and let’s see if he goes any better today.”

  Yesterday Natasha had held Flame permanently on a tight, tight rein to stop him from bolting. Today Issie used a loose rein and the big chestnut seemed perfectly relaxed as she allowed him to stretch his neck as they walked around to warm up. Maybe it was because Issie knew that the Dutch gag bit would give her the power to stop him, but she never worried about the big Hanoverian getting away on her.

  “He’s looking much better today,” Ginty called out to Issie. “Try collecting him up a little on to a shorter rein and get him moving! Let’s see how he goes for you.”

  Issie did as Ginty asked. As she shortened the reins she felt Flame tense up, so she kept talking, trying to calm him with her voice.

  When she felt like the horse was walking forward without a fuss, Issie put her legs on and Flame lifted up immediately into the most spectacular trot. He had amazing floaty, Hanoverian paces, which swept along in huge, extended strides that were so enormous they were almost scary to ride. Issie tried his canter and it was even bigger and bolder than the trot! Flame moved so quickly and with such vigour that she had to fight her instinct to grip at the reins and hold him back.

  This must have been where Natasha had gone wrong, Issie thought. If you held Flame back because you were afraid of his power, then he would only fight you. You needed to steel your nerve and go with the horse, rather than trying to hold him back.

  At least that was what Issie thought, but Ginty seemed to disagree.

  “What are you doing?” Ginty demanded. “Hold him back! He’s rushing. Restrain him and keep the reins tight. Slow him down as you take him up to the jump!”

  The upright rail was still set up in the middle of the arena. Issie did as Ginty said and held Flame tightly in check as they cantered around the corner to face it. The moment the chestnut gelding caught sight of the jump he surged beneath her. Issie wanted to relax and let go, but Ginty had other ideas.

  “Bring him back harder!” Ginty insisted. “Use the gag! Make him submit!”

  The chestnut was beginning to bob up and down like a jack-in-the-box, just as he had with Natasha. He was crab-stepping again, his body was quivering with tension. His head was way up in the air as he tried to get above the bit, but the gag held him firm. He couldn’t gallop off.

  “Tight rein! Tight rein! Tighter!” Ginty’s cries filled Issie’s ears. She did as she was told, hanging off the horse’s face until she was a couple of strides out from the jump, when Ginty suddenly yelled, “Let him go now!”

  Thrilled to finally be let loose, Flame leapt away from Issie’s hands, put in two huge strides and flew the fence with ease. As he landed on the other side of the fence the chestnut fought to stay free of the gag and Issie had to canter a lap of the arena to bring him back under control. It hadn’t been the most comfortable jump, but at least he’d gone over. Issie gave Flame a slappy pat on his neck. “Well done, boy!”

  “Bring him around and let’s do that again,” Ginty said brightly.

  Issie took Flame over the upright another half a dozen times with Ginty calling out instructions. She was beginning to understand what the trainer wanted from her. Ginty liked it when her riders really held the horse back, keeping the pressure on until the last minute. It was about creating energy so the horses would jump big. A bit like shaking a fizzy drink and then opening the lid right in front of the jump.

  It was a very different style of riding from anything she had learnt with Avery. But in some ways, Issie thought, the two instructors were alike. After all, Avery and Ginty were both focused on getting the best out of their horses. OK, so Ginty’s methods were the opposite of Tom’s, but that didn’t mean they were wrong. Issie had to trust Ginty and do what she said — then she would get results.

  The gag was definitely helping Issie to hold Flame as she worked him around the arena. Once Ginty was satisfied with the way Flame took the upright rail, she asked Issie to ride him over some of the other jumps. There was a treble, a small oxer and a little brick wall. Issie took him around the three fences one at a time before Ginty told her that was enough for today and she could put him back in the stables.

  “He’s performing very nicely with the new bit,” Ginty told her. “Ride him in the gag from now on.”

  Ginty set a fast pace for her riders at Dulmoth Park. When you were riding six horses in one day there wasn’t time to stand around and analyse your performance afterwards. Issie only had a few minutes to wash down Flame, run the sweat scraper over him and rug him up again, before she was busy saddling up her next mount.

  Her next pony on the roster that morning was Orlando, a fourteen-two fleabitten grey with a Roman nose. It didn’t take Issie long to saddle him up, and by the time she was back in the arena, Verity was about to bring Tottie in as well.

  As Verity worked the dapple-grey mare around the edge of the arena, Issie could see that something was wrong. Tottie’s strides were uneven and the mare looked miserable. She was swishing her tail and her ears were flat back — signs that a horse is unhappy or in pain. Even at a quick glance it was clear to see that poor Tottie was lame on one of her hind legs.

  Ginty shook her head with disappointment. “Put Tottie back in the stables, Verity, she’s favouring that left leg.” And that was it. The grey mare’s workout was over before it had begun.

  It was a busy morning at the stables. Issie rode four horses before lunch and then the girls were kept busy cleaning tack and mucking out the stalls. The farrier was due that afternoon too, and Ginty asked Issie if she would mind staying back after four to help her deal with the horses needing to be shod.

  It was five thirty when the farrier finally finished the last horse. Issie had tidied up the tack room and was just about to get her bike and cycle home when she noticed that someone was still riding in the arena.

  It was Verity. The head groom was mounted up on Tottie once again, despite the fact that Ginty had told her quite clearly that the mare was lame and shouldn’t be ridden.

  Issie watched as Verity began to trot Tottie around the arena. Something very strange was going on. Issie found herself staring almost hypnotically at the mare’s hind legs as she trotted in serpentines between the fences. Issie couldn’t believe it. Tottie had definitely been lame that morning. She had seen it with her own eyes. But now the mare was trotting perfectly. She wasn’t lame at all! It was impossible. Tottie was cured.

  Chapter 6

  After spending her first week at Dulmoth Park, doing twelve-hour shifts, riding six horses each day, grooming them, mucking out stalls and doing all the hard feeds, Issie didn’t really feel like riding her own ponies. But she had promised Kate and Stella that she would go hacking on Sunday, so she cycled to the River Paddock that afternoon to meet them, her legs aching as she pedalled.

  Stella and Kate were already waiting at the gate with Marmite and Toby tacked up, dying to hear all the details. “So how was it?” Stella asked eagerly.

  “Two words,” Issie said as she parked her bike beside the others. “Natasha. Tucker.”

  Stella couldn’t believe it when Issie told her that Natasha was the other new groom at Ginty’s stables. “Ohmygod! Stuck-up Tucker must be so furious that she’s working with you!”

  “Well, I’m not exactly thrilled about it either,” Issie groaned. “It’s even worse now since Ginty made us swap horses. I’m sure Natasha thinks I suggested the swap — she hasn’t spoken to me since — even though she got the better deal, if you ask me!”

  “I think I’d rather be stacking supermarket shelves after all!” Stella said.

  “Wait,” Issie told her, “there’s more, and it gets worse.” And she filled them in on the dramas at Dulmoth Park, including Verity’s strange behaviour and Tottie’s curiou
s come-and-go lameness.

  “How can a horse be totally sore in the morning and fine again in the afternoon?” Stella said. “That just doesn’t happen!”

  “The farrier had been,” Kate said. “Perhaps she had something wrong with one of her shoes and he fixed it?”

  Issie shook her head. “The farrier didn’t shoe Tottie — he didn’t even go near her. He was only replacing the shoes on Baxter, Quebec and Tanga.”

  “What about that injection Verity gave her?” Kate asked. “What do you think was in that?”

  “I don’t know,” Issie sighed. “Maybe it was vitamins or something? It’s a professional stable and they feed them all these supplements. They do things differently there.”

  “I still think you should go and talk to Avery about it,” Kate insisted. “You should tell him about the rapping too. Making horses hit jumps on purpose sounds weird to me.”

  Issie shook her head. “I can’t. Tom already loathes Ginty. He’ll just say ‘I told you so’. Besides, I can’t go behind Ginty’s back and complain about her to another trainer. Her methods are different, but they must work, because she’s really well-respected.” Issie paused. “I don’t think I’m explaining the rapping very well. It sounds awful, but it wasn’t that bad. By the end of the lesson Tokyo and the other horses were all clearing the jump by miles.”

  Kate looked doubtful. “I still think it’s hideous.”

  “You didn’t see it!” Issie insisted. “It actually seemed to work, and the horses were OK…”

  As they hacked their horses out together that evening, it felt so nice to be back with Stella and Kate, laughing about Stuck-up Tucker and gossiping about the goings-on at pony club. Still, at times Issie felt kind of distant from her friends. She had missed out on yesterday’s pony-club rally because she had to work. And she wouldn’t be going to the rally next weekend either. She’d be riding in her first proper event as part of the Dulmoth Park team. They would be heading south to the Sandilands showgrounds to compete at the first showjumping fixture of the season.

  That’s what Stella and Kate don’t understand, Issie thought. She was riding as a professional now, and they weren’t. They didn’t have the right to judge Ginty’s methods. If they had been there then they would have seen how effective the rapping technique had been. Didn’t they realise that Ginty had been at the top of the showjumping circuit for years? This was a proper stable, not a pony club. It was a totally different world. And it was one that Issie was excited to be part of.

  Ginty’s horse truck could only fit seven horses, and since there were over twenty horses in the stables it was going to be a tough call deciding who to take to the show. For the next week, Ginty assessed the progress of the horses and figured out which ones would be going to Sandilands.

  “It’s got to be a mix of advanced horses and the new, young stock needing some experience,” Verity explained to Issie as she chalked up Ginty’s chosen list on the board in the tack room. “Not all of the horses in this stable are destined for greatness. Some of them will never amount to much, but if we can take them out and give them some showring experience and even win a few ribbons then they’ll be worth much more money when they are sold.”

  Despite his ongoing problems with rushing the fences, Ginty had decided that Flame needed the competition experience and would be travelling to Sandilands.

  “He’s young and green and he needs the outing,” Verity said. “He’ll be jumping in a couple of minor classes — not big fences.”

  Tottie was also on the list. Issie had kept an eye on the mare ever since she had seen Verity riding her the previous week and she seemed to be quite sound. After jumping her on Wednesday, Verity had taken her on a road ride on the Thursday, even trotting on the tarmac. By the time the chalkboard list was written up on the Friday, Ginty seemed to have no qualms about taking Tottie with them to Sandilands.

  Issie’s other ride at Sandilands would be Quebec, a sweet-natured dun pony that she had been riding regularly for the past two weeks, who was a very clever jumper. Natasha was riding Tokyo and a green young pony named Baxter, and Penny was down to ride Sebastian and Vertigo.

  That night, before she went home, Ginty called the girls together and gave Issie and Natasha a purple Dulmoth Park sweatshirt each, just like the ones Penny and Verity wore. “You’re part of the team,” she told them. “You have to look the part.”

  “Big day tomorrow then!” Mrs Brown said as she dished up the fish pie for dinner that evening. “Are you excited?”

  “I’m too nervous to eat!” Issie said. It was always a bit funny the night before a competition, but this was worse than usual.

  “The owner is going to be there tomorrow watching us,” Issie told her mum. As she said this she felt something damp pressing into her hand. Wombat, who had been curled up at Issie’s feet under the table, had stuck his snout in her lap and was nudging her with his moist nose. He usually sat in this position at mealtimes in the hope that Issie would smuggle him titbits from her plate. But it was hard to smuggle pieces of sloppy fish pie under the table, so tonight he was out of luck.

  Mrs Brown was confused. “I thought Ginty was the owner?”

  Issie had to explain to her mum how Cassandra Steele actually owned most of the horses at Dulmoth Park.

  “She owns the two horses that I’ll be riding tomorrow — Flame and Quebec,” Issie said.

  “So is this a big show?” Mrs Brown wanted to know. “Is that why the owner’s coming to watch? Do you want me to come along too?”

  Issie shrugged. “You don’t have to. It’s an hour’s drive and it’s not a big event. Lots of the big-name riders will be there, though, because the competition points count towards the accumulator for the Horse of the Year. The big show is the North Island champs at the end of next month.”

  “Are Stella and Kate going to this show tomorrow?” Mrs Brown asked.

  Issie shook her head. “They’ve got pony club.”

  Mrs Brown reached across the table and forked a serving of salad on to her plate. “What about Tom?”

  “He’ll be at pony club too,” Issie said. She was assuming this. She didn’t actually know for certain, because she hadn’t spoken to him since they’d had the fight about her going to work for Ginty.

  “Well,” Mrs Brown said with a mischievous grin, “I suppose you’ll be hanging out with Natasha then.”

  Issie groaned. “Thanks for that, Mum.”

  Mrs Brown obviously thought it was funny that Issie had ended up being stuck with Natasha for the holidays. She had no idea just how bad things had got between the girls over the past fortnight. It was crazy — Issie should have been the one holding the grudge, since she’d had to give up the ride on Tokyo. But Natasha was still angry with Issie over the trouble she’d caused her father. Issie had exposed Mr Tucker’s underhand plans to build luxury apartments next door to the golf club by taking over the lease on Chevalier Point Pony Club land. Thankfully his dodgy business deal had been thwarted. But it was an expensive blow for the property developer, and Natasha clearly blamed Issie for her father’s ongoing money worries.

  Issie had steered clear of Stuck-up Tucker as much as she could. The two girls were on speaking terms, but only just. Natasha could barely bring herself to grunt hello most mornings.

  At the stables it wasn’t a big deal because they were so busy working and riding the whole time. But on Saturday, it was a different matter. When Issie turned up at Dulmoth Park to load the horses on to the truck, she discovered that the senior grooms had already organised the seating arrangements. Verity and Penny had put themselves up the front in the cab with Ginty and left Issie in the back alone with Natasha and the horses.

  Even with seven horses on board, the truck had loads of room inside. It was like a Tardis — somehow it was bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside. The horse stalls were totally space-age, with heavily padded barriers and rubber matting. The rider’s area was plush too, with suede banquette seating t
hat folded out into bunk beds for overnight trips, and a rather chic kitchen with a marble benchtop and a dining table. Issie and Natasha both took up positions on either end of one of the suede banquettes, with the dogs — Wombat, Jock and Angus — forming a canine barricade between them, as Ginty pulled the truck out on to the main road and headed for Sandilands.

  The journey was one of the longest hours of Issie’s life. Natasha spent most of the time pointedly ignoring Issie and texting on her hot-pink mobile phone, reading back the messages to herself and giggling as if they were hysterically funny. After about half an hour of this, however, she seemed to get bored with her texts and turned to Issie instead.

  “It’s pony club today, isn’t it?” she asked, already knowing the answer to her own question. “I’m surprised Avery has let you take the day off to go showjumping.”

  “I didn’t tell him…” Issie began and instantly regretted it. She didn’t want to talk to Natasha about this.

  “What?” Natasha’s ears pricked up. “He doesn’t know you’re not going to be at his little rally? Or he doesn’t know that you’re going showjumping with us?”

  “Both,” Issie said.

  “Well, I can’t imagine he’ll be very pleased when he finds out,” Natasha said smugly. “His star pupil abandoning him like that.”

  “I’m not,” Issie said. “I mean, I don’t have a choice. This is my job.”

  “Yeah, right. Like you didn’t have a choice about ruining my father’s property development,” Natasha shot back.

  In a way, Issie had been waiting for Natasha to bring this up. She knew that the bratty blonde had been festering over this ever since the Golden Trophy.

  “Verity told me that you have to work at Ginty’s because of your dad’s money problems,” Issie began.

  “My dad wouldn’t have money problems if it wasn’t for you!” Natasha’s eyes went red and it looked like she was going to cry. “He’d be furious if he knew I was even speaking to you. And Verity shouldn’t be talking about my family’s business to anyone either!”