Pony Jumpers 2- Double Clear

by Kate Lattey

  Pony Jumpers

  #2

  DOUBLE CLEAR

  Kate Lattey

  1st Edition

  Copyright 2015 © by Kate Lattey

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  CONTENTS

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Preview of Pony Jumpers #3: TRIPLE BAR

  More books by Kate Lattey

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Find & Follow

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Some of the characters and storylines in this novel will be familiar to readers of my earlier works, Dare to Dream and Dream On. This story does contain mild spoilers for those books, so I do recommend reading them first (or after) you read this novel. Both books are available for download on Kindle at Amazon.com.

  However in saying that, this book does stand on its own without requiring prior knowledge, so it is not a prerequisite.

  * * *

  “If riding were only blue ribbons

  and bright lights

  I would have quit a long time ago.”

  - George Morris

  * * *

  CHAPTER ONE

  The rain was coming down in sheets, turning the ponies into misty outlines as they grazed in their paddocks, hindquarters to the wind. I pushed the dripping hair out of my eyes and dragged a heavy cover down from its rack in the tack room, then walked back out to where Molly was standing in her stable, finishing her feed.

  She looked up at me as I opened her door, her delicately-curved ears swivelling in my direction. Lifted her bran-coated muzzle from the feed bucket, and watched me approach with the warm rug over my arm.

  “All done?” I asked her, peering into her bucket. “Come on, eat up.”

  A layer of bran still covered the bottom of the bucket, and clumps of pony nuts were pushed into the corners. Molly swished her tail at me and lowered her nose back into the feed, lipping delicately at it. She’d always been a picky eater, but she got worse the more work she was in. By the end of the competition season, I had to leave her with a feed for a couple of hours before she’d finish it up. But it was only October, and the fussiness didn’t usually start this early.

  “Get with the program Mollypop,” I grumbled at her as I threw the heavy cover over her back. She was still growing out her clip and needed a bit of help to stay warm. And I couldn’t afford to let her get cold, especially if she wasn’t going to eat properly.

  Molly lifted her head out of the bucket again and snorted, spraying bits of bran mash onto my face.

  “That’s great, thanks,” I told her as I buckled the front straps and tugged her neck rug into place. “Who needs an oatmeal scrub when I have a pony as disgusting as you?”

  The porch light came on – Mum’s signal to me that dinner was ready and it was time to come inside. I dropped a kiss onto Molly’s nose, and she dribbled more bran onto my neck.

  “You’re my best girl,” I told her. “Finish up your dinner and I’ll let you out once I’ve had mine.”

  Yanking my hoodie up over my head, I turned and ran across the yard, dodging puddles on the way to the house. Critter yapped at me as I kicked the front door open and went inside.

  “There you are,” Mum said, glancing up from the couch. “I thought you’d drowned out there or something.”

  “Funny.” I peeled my wet hoodie off and sat down at the table to unzip my chaps. “Moll’s not eating again.”

  Mum groaned. “That pony, honestly. I knew she was called Double Trouble for a reason.”

  “Hey, be nice. We’re lucky to have her.” That was the understatement of the century, as far as I was concerned, and Mum didn’t argue. I pulled my paddock boots off and threw them into the corner by the door, followed by my soggy chaps. My socks squelched slightly as I crossed the kitchen floor and filled a glass of water from the tap.

  “Dinner’s in the microwave,” Mum told me. “Butter chicken.”

  “I’m not really hungry.” I sat down at the kitchen table and looked at my schoolbag, overflowing with assignments and essays and exemplars. Usually by this time of the year I had all of that under control, needing only a handful of credits to pass my subjects, but I’d been so busy over winter riding the schoolers and breakers that Mum had kept bringing in that I’d fallen behind. Now I was in danger of actually failing a couple of subjects. Not that Mum knew that. Not yet, anyway.

  “You’re as bad as that pony,” Mum grumbled. “Go on, I’ll heat your food while you shower.”

  I peeled my wet socks off and left them under the table. “I’ll shower before bed. I need to get started on this.” I opened my bag and looked critically at the pile of paperwork.

  “Dinner first, Katy.”

  Mum’s voice was insistent, and I knew she wouldn’t shut up until I did as I was told, so I got reluctantly to my feet and went to the microwave. 8:25. When did it get so late? I pressed the buttons to reheat my meal, then looked across the yard towards the stables. The light was still on in Molly’s box, but she was standing at the door, looking plaintively out into the night.

  “Moll’s not going to eat. I’ll go turn her out,” I said, but Mum stood up.

  “I’ll do it. You eat your dinner. Do you have homework to do?”

  And how. “Yeah, a bit.”

  “Get on with it then.” Mum pulled on her gumboots and shouldered herself into her large, smelly oilskin before heading back out into the rain. The microwave beeped as she left, but I already had my schoolwork laid out in front of me, so I ignored it.

  Moments later, the phone rang. I tried to ignore that too, hoping it would go straight to voicemail, but when it rang again only seconds after it stopped, I gave in and picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Have you heard the news?” It was AJ, my best friend, and she sounded upset.

  “What news?”

  “Oh my God. About Samantha Marshall. You know her, right? Because of Molly?”

  “Right.” Sam’s family had bred and still owned Molly. She’d been ridden by Sam’s younger sister Steph from break-in through to the start of her competition career, but although she came from a long and distinguished line of Grand Prix ponies, she’d never jumped very well for Steph, so had been consigned to their broodmare paddock. When repeated attempts to get her in foal had failed, Mum had talked Steph’s mother Kat, an old friend of hers, into letting us lease her. We’d expected that Molly would give me some good mileage at the lower heights, but I’d never had a problem convincing her to jump well, and we’d taken on the Grand Prix circuit after only a few months together. She would never be a completely easy or consistent pony, but we’d won some big classes, and she’d taught me more than any other pony I’d had.

  “What’s happened to Sam?”

  “She fell off on the cross-country at Burghley.”

  “What?” Unlike her sister, who was a show jumper through and through, Sam was a keen three-day event rider. One of the most promising young riders New Zealand had ever seen, and only a few months ago, her top ten finish at Badminton had cemented
her spot in the upcoming Olympic squad. “Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know,” AJ admitted. “They’re not saying, but it doesn’t look good. She’s not dead,” she quickly clarified as my blood turned to ice. “But it was a rotational fall. The horse flipped right over on top of her, and they think she’s broken her neck.”

  My heart was pounding. “How do you know this?”

  “It’s all over Facebook, and the news, and everywhere. How do you not?”

  Mum came back inside just then, and I told AJ I had to go, then swiftly broke the news to her.

  “Sam Marshall fell off at Burghley, and they think she’s broken her neck.”

  The words sounded unreal coming out of my mouth, and Mum turned white as I spoke. She grabbed the phone from me and dialled frantically. I knew she would be trying to get hold of Sam’s mum, but I doubted her chances.

  “They’ve probably taken the phone off the hook,” I told her, then caught a glimpse of a horse on the TV. We both hurried towards the screen, and I quickly turned the sound back on.

  “…riding an up-and-coming horse called Monkey Trouble for his British owners, and had jumped strongly around the course before the fall at fence eighteen. Earlier in the day, Marshall rode a clear round on her own horse Kingdom Come, one of only three riders to come home within the time allowed.”

  I watched in sick trepidation as the footage showed Sam riding confidently down to a huge solid oxer on a strong bay horse. They looked perfect, the horse cantering strongly, Sam expertly balanced in the saddle. And then the horse tripped, losing his footing at the base of the jump. The footage went into slow motion, and I gasped as Monkey Trouble lifted off and almost made it, until his forelegs hit the massive wooden log, catapulting his huge body through the air. His hind legs came up over his head and he flipped right over, cannoning into the turf. Sam was still in the saddle as several hundred kilos of horseflesh landed on her slender frame, slamming her into the ground beneath him.

  “Marshall is in critical condition in hospital, with suspected neck and spinal fractures. Whether she will make a full recovery is unknown, but experts reviewing the footage consider it to be unlikely. The horse suffered a broken shoulder, and was euthanized at the scene.”

  * * *

  “Have you heard anything?”

  I looked at AJ as she sat down next to me at school the next day, and shook my head. “Nothing. Mum’s been trying, but no luck so far.”

  “What a terrible thing to have happened.”

  “Tragic,” I agreed. “I still can’t believe it.”

  “What if she can’t ever walk again?” AJ said sadly.

  “What if she can’t ever ride?”

  AJ gave me a strange look, and I knew that it sounded weird to consider walking less important than riding, but I couldn’t think of Sam not being on horseback. There are people who look good on a horse, and then there are people who look as though they were born on a horse. People who, when you see them walking around on their own feet, look like just another ordinary person. But when you see them in the saddle, they become confident and self-possessed - like a different person altogether.

  I’ve felt that way myself sometimes. At school, wearing my stupid uniform and walking through the halls filled with other people, all so much smarter and prettier and more confident than me, I would imagine myself on horseback. I’d picture Molly’s pricked ears in front of me, or Lucas’ arched neck with its short flaxen mane. I’d imagine their confident, swinging length of stride, and hold myself straighter and walk taller, filled with a sense of purpose and competence. Feeling like a complete person, strong and capable and ready to take on the world, if only there was a horse under me.

  Sam must have felt that way too. I only met her a handful of times, but she was always nice, friendly and quick to offer encouragement and praise. Everyone loved her – horses included. Everyone said she could’ve jumped a donkey around Badminton, and I wondered how it had all gone so terribly wrong.

  * * *

  Lucas’ chestnut ears were pricked ahead of me as I cantered across the diagonal of the arena. Three strides, two strides, one stride out of the corner and I asked for a flying change. Lucas gave it to me as always, but he was late behind, and took one disunited step before correcting himself. I gritted my teeth as I balanced him around the turn, waiting for Mum to comment.

  It didn’t take long.

  “He was late behind,” she called from her vantage point on the long side, sitting on an oil drum turned sideways with Critter panting at her feet.

  “I can tell for myself. I’m not a beginner.”

  I turned Lucas away from Mum, still cantering, and circled him in the corner. Focused hard on having him pushing through from behind, working that inside hind leg, bending through his body yet staying light and supple in the contact. I could feel him focusing beneath me, trying so hard to do what I was asking of him. I blocked out Mum’s continuing barrage of criticism of my riding and aimed Lucas back across the diagonal. This time, I let his canter out a little as we went, wrapping my legs around his sides and powering him up, letting his stride get quicker and longer as we crossed the middle of the arena. Sat down and looked right and prepared for the turn, then slid my outside leg back and shifted my weight slightly to the right. Lucas executed a flawless flying change onto the right lead.

  “Good boy,” I told him, letting my inside hand shift forward to touch his withers as gentle praise, and Lucas arched his neck slightly in response. Molly had taught me that technique. She didn’t appreciate overenthusiastic patting, and the first time I’d tried to praise her with the conventional firm slaps on her neck for a job well done, she’d thrown her head up and given me a nosebleed. That’d only had to happen a couple of times before I’d discovered that less was more with her, and softened my approach. The habit had gradually translated over to my other ponies, who all seemed to appreciate it too. As it turned out, horses preferred a gentle rub to an open-handed whack. Not rocket science, if you thought about it, but it took Molly complaining to make me work it out. There were a lot of things I’d taken for granted before she came into my life, but everything she’d taught me had made me a much better rider, even if I’d had to learn them through a lot of trial and error.

  Lucas made another perfect flying change back onto the left lead, and I eased him back to a walk, letting the reins out onto his neck and scratching his withers with my fingertips.

  “Good job.” Mum looked out across the arena towards our yard, where a big black Range Rover had just driven in. “Who’s this?”

  I shrugged, kicking my feet free of the stirrups and circling Lucas. “Wasn’t someone coming to look at Robin?”

  “They cancelled,” Mum reminded me.

  “I wish they hadn’t.” I let one hand rest on my thigh as I rode Lucas in a smaller circle, using my seat and leg to steer him. I held the reins one-handed and high, pretending I was a Western rider on a stock horse. Lucas lowered his head obligingly, playing his part. “I can’t wait to get rid of that pony.”

  “Don’t you dare talk like that about him when they do show up,” Mum cautioned me, and I rolled my eyes.

  “I’m not stupid. We have sold ponies before, you know.”

  Mum and I had spent the past few years patching together additional income by buying cheap ponies, producing them well and selling them on at a profit. We always had several on the go, and when I was younger no pony was safe from being sold out from under me. Even my good ponies, the ones that had been bought with the intention to keep them and let me have a shot at the big time, had left when the money got too good. Reebok and Johnny and Tucker and Spice. Bart, Coffee, Kiwi and little Prancer. Every time, Mum had promised me that the money would go on an even better pony, but somehow it never had. We’d always needed something else more, and she could never let a cheap prospect pass her by.

  Molly had been the first pony to come on long-term lease, unable to be sold on, and Lucas had followed a year later.
They were the only two on the property that were safe. Puppet was also a lease, but I already knew he wasn’t going to get to stick around, because his owners had some wild aspiration that their twelve-year-old daughter Lacey was going to be capable of riding him some day. Considering Lacey was one of those kids who cried if her pony cantered, and wouldn’t jump more than a crossbar, the very thought of her sitting on a pony as sensitive and talented as Puppet broke my heart, but it wasn’t something I could do anything about.

  “Can you see who it is?” Mum asked as we heard a car door slam, and I turned in the saddle and squinted from my higher vantage point. A man in a black windbreaker and grey jeans was standing in the yard, talking to AJ as she brushed out Squib’s white tail.

  “Some guy,” I told Mum. “Probably trying to sell us something we don’t need.”

  I watched AJ turn and point towards the arena, right at me. The man’s eyes followed her arm, and he saw me. After nodding a brief thanks to my friend, he turned and started walking towards us, and something in the pit of my stomach turned to ice. I knew that man. I looked at Mum, and she saw the panic on my face.

  “What?”

  I couldn’t say it out loud. She would see soon enough, when he stepped around the other side of the flax bushes and appeared in the gateway of our arena. I kept my head turned away from him, watching her face instead and waiting to gauge her reaction. I was probably wrong. I had to be. Because it couldn’t be…

  “Lionel,” Mum breathed, and my heart thudded again.

  He strode towards us as though nothing was wrong, as though he hadn’t walked out on us several years ago and left us to fend for ourselves, because he had met a younger, blonder, fitter and far less horse-obsessed woman than my mother, and decided that actually, he didn’t want to be a father or a husband after all.