“I like having you as my secret,” Jordan said.
He leaned in closer and for a moment I thought he was going to kiss me but instead he just touched my cheek. His finger sent a shiver down my spine.
“You had a smudge of dirt,” he said softly.
“I have smudges of dirt everywhere,” I whispered back.
“Don’t tempt me,” he said.
But almost as though he knew something magical was about to happen, my father appeared, ranting and raving about more free handouts and how this was a business not a charity.
“I know you didn’t find those by the side of the road,” I whispered. “But you’d better convince my father if you want to be allowed to put them in.”
“Do you think I should have smashed them up with a hammer a bit first?” he asked.
“It couldn’t have hurt,” I replied.
But it didn’t matter. Dad and Jordan spent all day putting in posts and nailing up boards and by the time they were done, our ring was now officially a ring and not just footing dumped on the ground. Cat and I even made sandwiches and lemonade since it was so hot and we all sat out and ate them in the shade. The only thing that would have made it better was if Mickey was here but she wasn’t. Hampton was at Fox Run and so was her dressage instructor and just because we now had a ring with a fence around it that didn’t mean she was going to come and board with us. She was just as serious about her sport as I was about mine and I knew she needed to stay where she was if she was going to succeed but I missed her terribly.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Molly thought that the schooling show was a great idea. So did Faith.
“I can enter the pony jumpers,” she said excitedly. “And look, they have a kids speed class too. I bet we’d nail that one.”
She pointed to the classes that she wanted to enter.
“I think you’ll do great,” I told her.
But I was having trouble trying to decide who to take and which classes to enter them in. I’d told Bluebird he could have the winter off but I really wanted to take him. I wanted to see if he’d got the spring back in his jump because I needed a replacement for Socks on the Junior Olympic team. The first team show was in December and so far I hadn’t told the committee that I was without a horse because I wasn’t. I had plenty to choose from. I just wasn’t sure which one of them was up to the task and the show would be a good test for that. A trial run. One of them had to pull it together or else I knew what was going to happen. I’d be kicked off the team and replaced by an alternate and I couldn’t let that happen.
So my horses all got thrust into daily work. Molly showed up one day with some more jumps and now we had enough to make a small course. I didn’t ask her where she got them from and neither did my father. Some things were better off left to the imagination. An imagination where I could believe that Molly hadn’t stolen them from Fox Run in order to cover the money she still believed that they owed her. But I didn’t actually recognize the jump poles and standards so maybe she had just found them lying by the side of the road like Jordan had done with his boards and posts.
With better jumps and a real ring, Hashtag decided that he would jump again but I knew that he was unreliable and unreliable horses didn’t make good team horses. Neither did green ones.
Arion thought that the ring and the jumps were all exciting and spent a lot of his time galloping around at top speed and jumping feet above the poles so that we spent too much time in the air and not enough time getting around in a nice, safe manner.
Bluebird was Bluebird. He jumped when I asked him to and he hadn’t knocked any poles down, which gave me hope that he was almost back to his old self again but I’d promised him time off and I didn’t feel like it was fair to take it away from him. I wasn’t even sure that I was going to take him to the show. I’d have my hands full keeping Faith in line and making sure Hashtag jumped something and Arion didn’t jump everything in sight, like the arena fence.
“Are you going to take both your horses to the show?” I asked Molly as I sat on the fence and watched her school Bailey.
Bourbon was tied to a nearby tree, munching on a hay net, tacked up and waiting patiently for his turn.
“Of course,” she said. “Can’t take one without the other. They have to do everything together or else they fall apart.”
“Really?” I said. “They seem so put together.”
“They are,” she said. “As long as you don’t try and separate them.”
Molly shortened her reins and cantered Bailey over a decent sized oxer. The big horse powered over it with a grunt, Molly tight on his back. She may have had more money than she knew what to do with but she was also a natural rider and that wasn’t something that money could buy.
“You want to take that one for a spin?” She pointed to Bourbon. “He’s very well behaved.”
“I shouldn’t,” I said. “He’s yours. You should ride him.”
“You’d be helping me out,” she said, looking at her watch. “I’m tight on time today. I have an appointment that I can’t be late for. Really, you’d be doing me a favor.”
“Okay,” I said, not really having to be talked into riding the lovely, well trained horse.
I tightened his girth and shortened the stirrups, then pulled off the halter that had been over his bridle. He sniffed my hands and I rubbed his face. I’d never really had too much to do with Molly’s horses at Fox Run other than to clean their stalls or turn them out and sometimes I’d seen Molly take lessons with my father but she’d always seemed like a weekend rider. Someone who showed up once in a while and then disappeared again. But it turned out that I’d overlooked the fact that her horses probably didn’t need all the extra work that mine did. They were like well-oiled machines.
Bourbon trotted around the ring, his canter big and strong. When I asked him to jump one of the smaller fences, he popped over it like it was nothing.
“Don’t be a chicken,” Molly said. “Jump the big one.”
When I did, I felt what it must be like to have a horse that grew up galloping and jumping giant ditches like those crazy Irish fox hunters.
Molly and I took turns jumping her horses and when we were done, we walked them out the drive and down the lane. It was a quiet road and the horse’s shoes clipped against the tarmac. There was a warm breeze and it felt more like spring than fall. The only way you could tell that winter was coming at all was because a few of the trees had lost their leaves but only a few. The rest stayed green all winter long. This was Florida after all.
“Why did you really come here?” I asked Molly as we rode her horses on a loose rein and they didn’t try and put their heads down to eat the grass because they were too well behaved. “My father isn’t that great at teaching lessons and you haven’t even had one with him yet.”
“You’re right,” Molly said. “And I like your honesty.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, realizing that Molly was a client and that I really shouldn’t be questioning her motives.
“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “You have to be honest to get anywhere in this world. There are too many people who are fake. Who will tell you what you want to hear and not what you need to hear.”
“People who will tell you that you are brilliant when you’re not.” I nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “But I am not one of those people. And I’m here to tell you that you are brilliant. You just sat on my horse and rode him as well as I do and Bourbon doesn’t like it when other people ride him.”
“You could have told me that before,” I said, thinking that the horse could have killed me just like Nix, the black demon horse we’d sent back because he had a dangerous streak.
“I didn’t need to,” she said. “I knew you could ride him. And I’m here to tell you that you do have talent and I think that one day you will make it to the top and I want to make sure that happens.”
“But why?” I said.
“Let’s just say I owe th
e universe and leave it at that for now,” she said, smiling at me.
“Okay,” I said with a grin.
I wasn’t about to question the woman who had so far made it so that we had a ring to ride in and more than two jumps and an income from her board checks. But I also wasn’t naive enough to believe that she couldn't take it all away again in a second if she changed her mind and that was why we needed to go to the show and do well and attract some more clients so that we weren’t just relying on the good graces of Molly Sugden.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
In the end we took all our horses to the show. It was the only thing that made sense. Go big or go home, which was what Dad always said. He even loaded up Canterbury, mumbling about putting him in one of the low jumper classes as a way to get back into showing again. We just left behind Chantilly, Phoenix and Bandit with Cat promising to keep an eye on them while we were gone.
She had helped me load up the two trailers because Molly was going to take Canterbury and Macaroni since they wouldn’t fit in our three horse slant with my horses in there. I thought I caught a look of longing on her face as a faded blue ribbon from an old show fell out of one of the tack trunks.
“Maybe you can come to the next show,” I told her. “If I give you some more lessons, I’m sure you’d be ready to go in one of the flat classes.”
I knew it was a lie. Cat was nowhere near show ready after only having had two lessons but I felt bad that we were leaving her behind with my mother who had suddenly gone all depressed and sullen again now that she had a fully-fledged ring in her front yard and could pretty much see me flying over the jumps out there any time she looked out her kitchen window.
“Yeah, maybe that would be cool,” she said. “But I kind of like playing with the foal anyway.”
Cat had figured out that Phoenix was pretty good at playing tag and I’d caught her out there more than once chasing the foal around and then laughing as he practically jumped on her. I warned her that she was treading on dangerous territory because once he got a bit bigger he could really hurt her but she didn’t seem to care or maybe she just didn’t realize and I hated to spoil the one bit of fun she was having on our broken down farm.
“Good luck,” she said as we pulled out early on show morning, standing there on the front step in her pajamas with a steaming mug of coffee.
“Thanks,” I said with a wave.
I knew we were going to need all the luck we could get. It may have only been a schooling show but our horses were out of shape and out of sorts. My training had been spotty since the move and my horses had taken advantage of it. The only one whose horses didn’t seem fazed by it all were Molly’s Irish Sport Horses who would no doubt clean up in all their classes and put us to shame. I just really hoped that no one we knew would be there to see it.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
I shouldn’t have been worried about running into people that we knew because the kind of people that we knew went to shows that were big and rated and had large money prizes and points and giant ribbons. This was more like one of the shows that I used to go to back when I rode with Esther at Sand Hill and things didn’t seem so important. Back when we did it all for fun. And in a way it was comforting to see that the ring wasn’t perfectly manicured and parents were volunteering as stewards and the barn had a tumbledown look to it just like ours did.
There were kids with hand me down breeches that were too big for them and ponies with fluffy coats and long manes. It was like stepping back to a time I used to know and for a moment I thought that it wasn’t fair that we’d brought our fancy show horses to a place like this but then I realized that our horses weren’t so fancy anymore and neither were we.
“Don’t you just love shows like this,” Molly said as she jumped out of her truck and stretched her arms. “No pressure. No points. Just here for the fun of it.”
I wasn’t sure how a person with so much money could be so down to earth. Usually people like Molly would only look down their noses at shows like this and the people who went to them and yet here she was, as excited as if she’d just pulled up to the Winter Circuit in Wellington and her enthusiasm was infectious.
“I think this is going to be a great show,” Faith said as Molly backed Macaroni out of the trailer and handed him off to her.
She’d spent ages grooming and braiding her mismatched pony but to be honest he looked like he fit in more here than at any of the shows we’d been to recently. Especially since Faith had insisted on doing her own braids and they were kind of lumpy and uneven but somehow endearing.
“I think you are right,” I said. “This is going to be a good show and you know why?”
“Why?” Faith asked as she tied Macaroni to the trailer and shoved a hay net in front of his nose.
“Because it's not always about being fancy and having the best of everything. Sometimes it's just about having some fun.”
“Well while you lot are going to goof off and have fun,” Dad said. “I’m going to see what class I can find to enter my big beast in that he'll like and won’t kill me in.”
“Lead line?” Faith said.
For a moment Dad looked at her and I thought maybe he was mad but then he said, “I might just have to sign up for that class.”
We all laughed at the thought of my father being led around on his big chestnut horse, clutching the reins like a beginner and trying not to fall off.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
It turned out that the little schooling show had something for everyone. Faith even ran into a girl from her school who had a backyard pony that looked suspiciously like Macaroni’s twin and as young, bubbly, extroverted kids like Faith usually did, they quickly became best friends. I, on the other hand, didn’t see anyone I knew, for which I was glad. And I decided to enter Hashtag in one of the hunter classes, flat Bluebird in the equitation class and shove Arion right into the highest jumper class they were offering, which wasn’t that high anyway.
“Don’t you think you are doing things backwards?” Dad said as I tacked Bluebird up. “I know that he is a pony and that I’ve had my reservations about him but shouldn’t he be the one you plan to push the hardest?”
“After the year he’s had?” I said, buckling up his throat latch. “No. I promised him time off and that is what he is going to get. I just didn’t want to leave him behind because I didn’t want him feeling left out.”
“So you are giving the pony a break and yet still taking him to shows?” Dad shook his head. “Sometimes I don’t understand your logic.”
“Bluebird does,” I said, throwing my arms around his neck and giving him a big hug.
In fact Bluebird seemed to quite enjoy the equitation class where he got to trot and canter around the ring with a bunch of other horses and ponies that were nowhere near as fancy as he was and I was able to concentrate on my own riding for a change and make sure that all my sloppy habits were shoved back in the boxes they belonged. And when we were called into second place next to a girl on a tall leggy Thoroughbred, I patted my pony on the neck and was just as pleased with his red ribbon as I would have been with any blue one and so was he because horses were partially color blind anyway so he probably couldn’t tell the difference.
And while we were in our class, Faith was busy cleaning up in the pony jumpers. I’d never seen a kid so fearless, she just put her leg on and never took it off the whole way round. But because this was a local schooling show it had attracted the kind of kids that were all rather fearless and careless, the ones who galloped like mad and slid their ponies into jumps, flying over their heads as they crash landed. Others had ponies so wild that you had to wonder what they were pumped full of in order to act so crazy.
One little girl had to make three rounds of the ring to get her black pony to stop, all the while hauling on his mouth that was full of complicated, shiny hardware that was obviously having no effect whatsoever. In the end she only got him to stop by slamming him into the fence and spraying dirt up i
nto the faces of the three spectators who were standing there. She was lucky that the pony didn’t just jump it or even worse, flip over the fence.
Faith may have been fast but she wasn’t dangerous and she always put Macaroni first and she won because unlike the others, she knew about things like tight turns and cutting corners. And when she came back to the trailer with her blue ribbon, she wasn’t smug about it either.
“You won,” I said. “Congratulations.”
“I didn’t win,” she replied. “Macaroni did because he is the best pony in the whole world.”
She threw her arms around his neck just like I’d done with Bluebird, ignoring the fact that some of his braids had popped out and he looked even scruffier than he had before.
Molly seemed to be racking up the blue ribbons with Bourbon and Bailey, taking both her horses away and then coming back with fluttering blue satin and big smiles.
Dad even won his class on Canterbury, which was kind of a miracle because he hadn’t even ridden him that much since he recovered from his broken ankle.
“The horse was a star,” he said, patting his neck.
And I knew that he would have hugged him just like we’d done with our horses if he hadn’t been so manly and stoic but I could tell he was proud of the big silly chestnut gelding who wiped his slobber over dad’s shirt and got a carrot as a reward instead of being scolded for it.
Hashtag managed to not freak out and actually jumped the jumps in the ring without losing his mind and I didn’t have to push him because it was a hunter class instead of a jumper one. All he had to do was look pretty and neat and since he had a nice jumping style, tucked his knees square and had good, clean changes we were second, only beaten by the same girl on the Thoroughbred who had just nudged me and Bluebird out of first in the equitation class.
“See,” I told him. “You can do this. You just have to step on the gas a bit if you want to be a jumper again.”
Boot Camp (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 24) Page 9