Boot Camp (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 24)

by Claire Svendsen

  I picked up some of the flyers. They announced a barrel race in a nearby town. Some western riders had obviously been here recently but they weren’t any longer. They’d cleared out and left Sand Hill to continue its final decay. To let nature take it back and it would if no one stepped in to save it.

  The stalls were all empty, except for the manure that was piled high and hadn’t been cleaned. I felt bad for the horses that had to endure such conditions but they weren’t here now. They’d gone on to another farm that their owners would more than likely destroy. There were people like that out there. They moved in, wrecked farms until there was nothing usable left and then moved on to the next one. I just couldn’t believe that someone had done that to our beloved Sand Hill.

  At the end of the barn was the stall that had belonged to Bluebird. I could still see the faint outline of his name on the wooden plaque I’d hung there for him. I ran my fingers over it, wishing I could go back to a simpler time. To the time we’d spent at Sand Hill going to schooling shows where nothing had seemed as important as it did now.

  “Come on Emily, let’s go,” Faith called out.

  “Coming,” I called back.

  I wandered back through the deserted barn to where Faith stood with our two ponies, looking worried.

  “No starving horses.” I shook my head. “In fact no horses of any kind. The place has been cleared out.”

  “Well that is good, isn’t it?” Faith said, looking relieved.

  “I guess,” I said.

  But as we rode away from Sand Hill, I didn’t feel relieved. I just felt sad. It was another barn, trashed and lay to waste and would probably be sold to a developer who would build tiny cardboard cutout houses on the land that we had once ridden our horses over.

  “You should get your dad to buy it,” Faith said as we made our way back along the trail. “At least then we’d have a barn with stalls.”

  “That would be a good idea,” I said. “If he had any money in the first place but he doesn’t.”

  “Isn’t that what banks are for?” Faith said.

  “That’s not quite how it works,” I said. “You can’t just go in and say give me money. You have to have credit and I don’t think he has any. At least not the good kind anyway.”

  But it got me thinking, not about buying Sand Hill but about getting a loan to fix up our own farm. With money we could build stalls in the barn and a proper ring and then Dad could start teaching again and we’d attract more boarders. It was a good business plan and it could work. I could help him make it work. I sat down that night at the dinner table, feeling a renewed surge of energy. We could do this. We would do this.

  “Look,” I said. “Here is a map of the barn.”

  I pushed my crude drawing over the table to him.

  “To maximize space and still get a tack room, feed room and a small bathroom, I think we could still get twelve stalls. Ten if you decide you really need an office. This is the layout for the fields. We should cross fence so that we can rotate and save the grass and we should have a couple of small paddocks for recoveries and layups. The ring needs to be fenced and we need footing and jumps. Irrigation would be good but we could get by without it if you get a tractor and a trailer with a water sprayer. You’d need the tractor anyway to drag the ring and mow the fields. Look, it is all here.”

  I pushed the rest of the folder in front of him. Flyers for tractors. Pre made stall fronts that could be delivered and installed immediately. Jumps that I’d found at a discount online.

  “And this is your business plan,” I said, handing him the most important part. “It lays out your plan for the next five years but you’ll be making money in the first year, I just know it. People like to ride with you. You get results. And Missy is concentrating on all the hunter riders so where are all the jumpers supposed to go? We could be that farm. But we have to act fast. You have to go to the bank first thing tomorrow morning and get a loan.”

  Dad looked through everything I’d handed him. Then he let out a big sigh.

  “This is really great work,” he said, shaking his head. “Virtual school must be really paying off but my credit is bad. They’ll never give me a loan. Not in a million years.”

  “My credit is okay,” Mom said.

  She’d been standing off to the side, stirring a pot of soup on the stove.

  “You don’t want to get involved in this Lily,” Dad said. “You hate horses.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I like it here. I don’t want to have to move again.”

  “I don’t want to have to move again either,” Cat said.

  I thought of Missy and how we’d all made a home together at Fox Run and how it had been ripped apart. I couldn't stand it if that happened again. But I wanted to make a go of it here on our own turf with our own rules. No one telling us what we could or couldn’t do. And as we sat around the kitchen table discussing the farm and the future, it felt like the world was at our fingertips and nothing could stop us. We’d get the loan and fix up the farm and we’d have people lining up to come and train here. Maybe we were all delusional but wasn’t that what dreams were made of anyway?

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  Mom and Dad left early the next morning dressed in their best clothes. Cat and I sat at the kitchen table in our pajamas and wished them well. I had my fingers crossed and I’d keep them crossed all day if I had to.

  “Do you really think they’ll get the money?” Cat said.

  “Well there are plenty of other banks to try if the first one doesn’t work out,” I said.

  “Or loan sharks,” Cat said.

  “I’m not sure that is the best way to go,” I said. “We don’t need some big burly guy showing up in the middle of the night and breaking Dad’s legs because he missed a payment or something.”

  “True.” Cat nodded. “So are you going to give me another lesson or what?”

  “You seriously want another one?” I said. “I saw how you were limping yesterday.”

  “I’ll admit, it wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be,” she said. “But then I saw you and that little kid galloping up the hill and I thought, if she can learn to do it, then why can’t I?”

  “I’ll tack up Bluebird then,” I told her.

  I didn’t really want to give Cat another lesson. Some people took to riding like a duck to water like Faith but Cat wasn’t one of those people. I could already tell she was going to be one of those who were stuck in the learning to post phase for ages and then when she got it she’d move on to failing at cantering. Still, I wanted to help her and it would take my mind off whatever was happening at the bank.

  “Come on you two,” I said as I went to get Bluebird and Arion out of the field later. “Do you think you are retired or what?”

  Bluebird had come to the gate like a good pony for his carrot but Arion stood back looking wary like he knew that work was coming his way and he wasn’t sure he wanted it. Plus he had a pretty big field he could use to avoid me if he wanted to.

  “I’ve got a carrot for you too big boy,” I said, holding it out.

  Bluebird tried to snatch it and I had to push his nose away. Then Hashtag came over and crunched it while I wasn’t looking.

  “You guys are hopeless,” I said. “Fine, I’ll be back for you later. Don’t think you can escape work though because right now you are looking like my top prospect for the team.”

  I knew I couldn't rely on Hashtag. He was all out of sorts with the move and if something like that upset him enough to make him not want to jump then what was going to happen when we went to a show? And although the idea of Bluebird making a big comeback would have been a dream come true, in the back of my mind I knew he needed the winter off doing lazy things like teaching my stepsister to ride and being a pony again. Boot camp wasn’t quite turning into the training marathon session I was hoping it would.

  “I tacked him up for you to save time,” I told Cat when she finally appeared.

  “Good
,” she said, looking relieved. “I’ve already forgotten about the whole finger thing.”

  “We’ll focus on that later,” I said. “For now I want you to try and remember everything I taught you yesterday.”

  “It’s all a bit scrambled up in my brain,” Cat complained. “Heels up? Back down? Reins loose? Or tight? Or oh I can’t remember.”

  She looked so flustered that I figured maybe I should take it easy on her today.

  “Come on,” I said. “It will all come back to you once you get up in the saddle.”

  Only it didn’t. I spent the morning repeating all the same things I’d told Cat the day before. Heels down. Back straight. Look up. She’d remember for a second and then Bluebird would do something like wander off to a juicy patch of grass and pull his head down to eat it and she’d fall apart.

  “You know better than that,” I scolded my pony as I clipped the lunge line on. “Ready to try trotting again?”

  “I’m not sure my butt can take it,” Cat said.

  “You’ll be fine,” I encouraged her.

  Bluebird’s trot was slow enough to qualify as an almost walk and still Cat couldn’t get the hang of posting. She just bumped around up there like a sack of potatoes while I tried to offer words of wisdom but really learning to post was just one of those things that you didn’t get until suddenly one day you did. I hoped that day came quickly for Cat because if she had to bounce around up there for much longer I had the feeling that she was going to give up all together.

  “Maybe if we went faster it would be better?” she said.

  “Fine,” I replied, feeling like my teaching skills were so sadly lacking that it didn’t even matter anymore.

  I clucked and Bluebird moved into a loping canter. Cat’s eyes lit up for one second as she flopped around and then slid off to the side. Bluebird, ever the patient and long suffering pony, stood there quietly like a good boy as Cat plopped to the ground.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  She was sitting there looking at the grass and probably wondering how she got there.

  “Are you okay?” I tried again.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think so.”

  “Want to give up?”

  It wasn’t usually something we said to lesson students but then again Cat wasn’t a normal student. I wasn’t even sure why she was doing this other than the fact that she was bored.

  “Of course I don’t want to give up,” she said, standing and brushing the dirt off her breeches. “Do I look like a quitter to you?”

  “No,” I said, feeling kind of proud of the girl who was now my stepsister. “You don’t.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  Cat didn’t quite get the hang of posting but she tried really hard after falling off and I was proud of her all the same.

  “Do you want to go for a mini trail ride? I could tack up Arion?”

  “Okay,” she said. “Anything is better than going round in circles.”

  “Stay here and don’t move,” I said.

  “Alright,” she promised.

  I wasn’t convinced she wouldn't move at all but my pony was pretty good at taking care of people. After all, he’d always taken care of me. I went to catch Arion and gave him a quick once over with the brush before tacking him up.

  “You are always going to be disgusting living outside, aren’t you?” I told him.

  He looked pretty proud of the fact that he’d managed to get grass stains up his legs, under his belly and on his face.

  “You are going to be a green horse in more than one sense of the word,” I told him, shaking my head.

  It was impossible to keep the horses clean without stalls to put them in. I only hoped that my parents were sweet talking the bank into giving them a massive loan because without it all I could see were endless hours of grooming looming ahead of me. I went back to the front field to find Bluebird scoffing down an especially juicy patch of grass.

  “I tugged really hard,” Cat said. “Honest I did but he is so strong.”

  “I know.” I shook my head. “It’s okay. He’s just taking advantage of you because he knows better.”

  I yanked Bluebird’s head out of the grass. He looked at me with guilty eyes.

  “Come on,” I said.

  I clipped a lead rope onto Bluebird’s bit so that I could keep control of him just in case he decided to go crazy. After all he was a pony, not a machine and this was only Cat’s second lesson.

  “I feel like a baby with you leading me about,” Cat said.

  “You won’t feel like a baby if he spooks and decides to take off on you. What would you do then?”

  “Scream for help and grab hold of his neck,” Cat said.

  “Exactly and that would be wrong.”

  “So what should I do?”

  I explained all about sitting back and shortening her reins and pulling on them in a see saw motion with all her might if a horse was ever to bolt on her. Then I explained how you could brace one hand against a horse’s neck and pull the other one all the way to your boot so that the horse's neck was so bent that he had no choice but to go in a circle and eventually slow down. But either way was dangerous and I hoped she’d never have to use them.

  “The farm looks so small from up here,” Cat said as we got to the top of the hill.

  “That’s because it is small,” I said.

  “And there is a girl down there, look.” She pointed next door where Jess was working a horse in her ring again. “Maybe you guys could become best friends.”

  “That is Jess,” I said darkly. “And the only thing she wants is to get rid of me and my pony once and for all.”

  “She’s probably just jealous,” Cat said. “Because you are a better rider than she is.”

  I felt a sudden swell of joy in my heart and was glad that I’d decided to put the past behind me and be nice to Cat. It was good to have a friend and I needed one. I didn’t have that many left.

  When we got back to the yard, there was a motor bike parked in the rutted drive.

  “Oh no,” I whispered under my breath.

  “Who is it?” Cat said, then she saw Jordan, all dressed in leather and looking like he’d just stepped out of a cologne commercial. “Never mind, I don’t need to know who he is. I just want him.”

  “You can have him,” I said.

  “Really?” she said, waving like a silly school girl and almost falling off.

  I didn’t wave, just got off Arion and helped Cat off Bluebird. She didn’t even offer to help untack him, she was too busy running over the uneven ground to meet Jordan.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m Cat.”

  “Yes you are,” Jordan said. “I remember you.”

  “Wait, we’ve met before?” she said and then I saw the recognition flash across her face. “Wait a minute, you’re the guy that was always hanging around Emily.” She shook her head. “You could have told me he was already taken,” she called after me.

  “He’s not,” I yelled back.

  I had both horses in the barn and my arms full of saddles when Jordan sauntered in.

  “Need some help?” he said.

  “What does it look like?” I replied.

  He grabbed one of the saddles before it fell to the floor and helped me put the rest of the stuff away. Then we put Bluebird and Arion back in the field where they both trotted off and then rolled before settling down to graze.

  “You didn’t tell me that you moved,” he said as we leaned on the fence.

  “You found me anyway,” I said.

  “I’ll always find you,” he said. “No matter where you go.”

  “You sound like a stalker,” I told him.

  “No.” He shook his head. “Just a concerned citizen.”

  “So who blabbed?” I said.

  “Mickey,” he said. “But it's all over town. Missy stealing your father's job and kicking you out to live in this dump.”

  “It’s not a dump,” I said, feeling defensi
ve.

  “True, I've seen worse but your barn doesn’t have any stalls, your ring is in your front yard and you only have two jumps.”

  “I know,” I said. “You’re right. It's a dump. Why do you think I didn’t tell you?”

  “Why did you think that I’d care about any of that?” he said. “I could have helped you.”

  “You’ve helped enough,” I said. “And I was embarrassed.”

  “It’s not your fault,” he said.

  He put his arm around me and I let him. It felt warm and solid and reliable. He was right, I should have told him.

  “It feels like my fault,” I said.

  “That’s because you blame yourself for everything. When are you going to stop doing that?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged.

  “So now that I am here, what can I actually do to help?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I showed Jordan my crude plans. The stalls in the barn. The ring in front. And I explained how my parents had gone to the bank to beg for a loan.

  “They’ll be lucky if they get one,” Jordan said. “The banks don’t like giving out money to people these days. Not even to people with good credit.”

  “How do you know?” I said, feeling defensive again.

  “Mom tried to get one to expand the store and they said that she couldn't have one because she was a risky investment.”

  “If your mom’s tack store is a risky investment, then ours is an impossible one,” I said, looking out over our farm.

  I could see white fences in my mind and horses grazing in the lush fields, a barn filled with big expensive horses that belonged to wealthy clients who paid my father a fortune to train them. But what did banks know of things like feed bills and shavings and the reasons why a certain horse didn’t pull their weight that month and win the big prize at the show. Jordan was right. They were never going to give us the money.

  “Even if you don’t get the loan,” Jordan said. “You could still make this place better.”

  “How?” I said, knowing he was just trying to cheer me up.