Pony Jumpers (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 2)

by Claire Svendsen

  "I wonder where that poor pony was going," I said as we sat in the shade and watched the camp kids ride.

  "Maybe the auction?" Mickey said.

  "You think?"

  "Why not? You heard what Jess said. That's where they send horses that they don't want anymore. Sounds like a perfect place for her to unload a pony."

  "That's horrible," I sighed.

  "I know. She’s dumping her pony out like the trash and you don’t even have anything to ride.”

  With the kids riding every day, there wasn't anything for me to ride. All the lesson mounts were being used and though Esther said that what the camp kids were doing was hardly work and that I could still jump them after they left for the day, I still didn't feel like pushing them. The weather was hot. It was summer in Florida and that meant baking heat and high humidity. I was sure that after spending all afternoon in the ring, the last thing the ponies would have wanted was to go back out there and jump.

  "The vet is coming at four," Esther said on Friday. "Harlow is still just as lame so it's time we got his leg checked out."

  "Okay," I said.

  I was glad that perhaps now we would have an official diagnosis for Harlow but I was also scared. What if the vet said that his jumping days were over? I distracted myself by helping Esther set up some games in the ring. She decided that Friday should be fun day and so she was going to let the kids have a go at pole bending and egg and spoon races. Not that there would be much racing going on. Only about half of them had figured out how to trot. The rest of them were still trying not to fall off all the time.

  "I thought you said that camp wasn't supposed to be fun?" I asked, wiping the sweat from my face.

  "I didn't mean it," she said. "I just wanted to scare them a little. Horses can be dangerous. You can't have them all running around like little crazy people. They have to respect me and they have to respect the horse. When they have done that, then they can have some fun. Safe, controlled fun."

  I didn't think that holding an egg and spoon while trying to get to the end of the arena sounded particularly safe considering that some of them fell off just trying to turn their pony and walk in the opposite direction but I kept my mouth shut. Esther finally seemed like she was enjoying teaching the camp kids and that was good for her business. And what was good for her business was good for Harlow. And me.

  I thought the Friday fun day would be a flop for sure but for once none of the kids fell off and everyone had a great time.

  "This is so much fun," Faith, the serious pigtail girl said. "Can we do this again but for real? Like a proper show at the end of camp?"

  All the other kids chimed in that they wanted to do that too so Esther agreed that we could put on a proper show at the end of camp and that everyone should invite their parents.

  "See, who says that there are no summer shows?" Mickey grinned.

  But it didn't matter about shows if the vet said that Harlow couldn't be ridden and there he was, pulling into the barn parking lot with his dark blue truck.

  "I have to go and see what he says," I said to Mickey.

  Dr. Delta was a tall thin man with gray hair and a thoughtful expression. He watched as I pulled Harlow out of his stall and unwrapped him, then he felt his legs.

  "Trot him down the aisle," he said.

  I did, hoping that I wouldn’t see Harlow's head bob and for a moment I thought that he was fine. But then there it was. He was still just as lame as that day in the arena.

  Dr. Delta stood there thinking, then went to his truck and pulled out his hoof testers. They were big steel pincers that he used to squeeze Harlow's hoof. He didn't flinch.

  "What do you think?" Esther said as she came into the barn.

  "Well it's not in his foot," Dr. Delta said. "It's here."

  He picked up Harlow's leg and squeezed it, this time Harlow flinched.

  "It's that old suspensory injury then," Esther shook her head. "Poor guy. I thought we'd dealt with that."

  "Has he been doing a lot of work lately?" Dr. Delta asked.

  My heart sank. I knew when we went to the Fox Run show that Harlow had issues but I'd ridden him anyway. Esther had said that it would be okay. I trusted her and now here I was holding a lame horse.

  "Will he get better?" I asked.

  Dr. Delta looked at me and said, "Time will tell."

  That wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear. Wait and see was not going to get me back in the saddle. I wanted a time frame. A plan. I wanted him to fix it.

  "Apply this under the wraps instead of the poultice," he said, handing Esther a bottle of yellow liquid. "And stall rest for four weeks."

  "Four weeks?" I squealed.

  "Four weeks," he said.

  Esther went into the office to write him a check and I just stood there, looking at the man in the blue overalls who held the fate of the horse I loved in his knowledgeable hands.

  "Will he ever jump again?" I asked him.

  "Maybe," he said.

  Only maybe wasn’t good enough.

  “Four weeks of stall rest?” Mickey said that night. “That’s like, forever.”

  “I know,” I sulked.

  Four weeks was practically the whole summer. There would be no beach rides or trail rides or rides of any kind. The ponies were tied up in the summer camp and I was left completely horseless.

  “You could share Hampton if you want,” Mickey said.

  “Yeah, because that worked out so well the last time,” I said.

  When Esther had suggested we switch horses during a lesson, Mickey had been really mad that Hampton had gone better for me and she ended up not talking to me for ages. It was awful, losing my best friend like that. I couldn’t lose her and Harlow all at the same time.

  “I totally wouldn’t get mad this time, I promise,” she said.

  “It’s okay. Hampton is your horse. You should get to ride him. It’s not your fault Harlow is lame. It’s mine.”

  “It’s not your fault either,” Mickey said. “That’s stupid. Why would you say that?”

  “Because it is. I rode him at the Fox Run show. I jumped him when I knew he had old injuries. I wanted to prove to everyone that I was this great rider and instead I just proved that I’m not a very good horsewoman at all.”

  “Esther wanted you to ride. She told you what class to go in. He’s her horse. If she had thought that he couldn’t do it then she wouldn’t have let you ride him.”

  “I guess,” I said, rolling over in my sleeping bag.

  But part of me knew that Esther needed money and our performance at the show was the thing that had prompted parents to enroll their kids in summer camp. Would Esther really have put that before Harlow’s health?

  “Well, maybe you’ll find some amazing jumper at the auction tomorrow,” Mickey said.

  “For five hundred dollars?” I sighed.

  “Sure. I’ll bet they’ll be some fantastic horse there that is being sold because its owner is going off to college or something.”

  “That would be pretty cool,” I said. But I knew that the chances of that happening were one in a million.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The morning of the auction dawned bright and sunny and hot. As in, it’s going to be a million degrees out today hot.

  “I don’t care if it is a horse auction,” Mickey said. “I’m still not wearing my breeches.”

  “Me either,” I agreed. “It’s not like you get to try the horses out anyway.”

  So we dressed in shorts and tank tops, and I slathered some sunscreen on because my skin only had two shades, pasty white or burnt red. I tossed the bottle to Mickey but she tossed it right back.

  “No way,” she said. “I’m working on my tan.”

  “Okay but don’t blame me when you end up looking like a lobster.”

  “I never burn,” she said.

  “You shouldn’t have said that,” I laughed. “Now you’ll definitely burn for sure.”

  I folded up my money in a wh
ite handkerchief that used to belong to my father and pinned it inside my pocket. The last thing I needed was all the money I had in the world falling out and being trampled across the fairgrounds.

  “Do you really think the horses will be cheap?” I asked Mickey.

  “Probably,” she said. “Especially if not very many people show up.”

  But the truth was that neither one of us had ever been to a horse auction before and as we pulled into the fair grounds it was clear that everyone for miles around had shown up. There were trucks and cars and rows of horse trailers. Kids were running around with ice creams and balloons and people were carrying picnic baskets and blankets.

  “Wow,” Mickey’s mom said. “People are really making a day of this thing.”

  “Yeah,” Mickey said, looking at me and frowning.

  “So I’ll pick you girls up in a couple of hours. All right?”

  “Fine Mom,” Mickey said.

  The flyer said that the horse part of the auction started at ten so that meant we only had fifteen minutes to look around beforehand.

  “Don’t buy any horses girls,” Mickey’s mom joked as she pulled away.

  “She has no clue, does she?” I said.

  “None at all,” Mickey laughed.

  She laced her arm through mine and we ran between hot dog stands and cotton candy machines. Some shady looking people had set up some carnival rides and kids were being zipped around in the air, looking like they were trying not to throw up.

  “The poor horses,” Mickey said. “Imagine being stuffed in between all this madness.”

  But when we finally got to the horse pens, it turned out that the horses didn’t seem to care at all as most of them looked to be on their last legs. They were standing in stalls made out of metal gates under the shade of a row of trees back behind the auction block. Most of them could barely be bothered to swat away the flies with their tails.

  “I can’t look,” Mickey said. “It’s too awful.”

  “We have to,” I said. “They can’t all be bad.”

  Upon closer inspection it turned out that most of the horses weren’t horribly abused, just more neglected than anything. Some had really long hooves that needed a good trim and others had coats that were matted with manure and mud. None of them were fat but most of them weren’t emaciated. It was just that we were used to being around horses that were well taken care of and loved. None of these horses looked like they had been loved in a very long time.

  “I don’t see anything that looks like a jumping champion,” I said to Mickey.

  “Neither do I,” she said.

  We were out of our depth. Looking at these horses, I knew that buying any one of them could mean a multitude of problems. Who knew if they were lame or mean or even trained? As much as I wanted to save each and every one of them, the last thing I needed was another horse that couldn’t even be ridden.

  “The program says that the show horses go first. They’re probably not even here in the pens. I bet they are up by the trailers with their owners. Maybe there is still hope,” she tried to smile.

  “Maybe,” I said, only I didn’t feel very hopeful.

  We found a place on the metal bleachers down at the front where we would get a good view of the horses coming in and out of the ring. Most of the people sitting around us were mean looking men who chain smoked and wore sweat stained shirts.

  “Which one do you think is the dog food man?” I whispered to Mickey.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “They all look like murderers.”

  She was right. I felt bad for any of the horses that were going to end up in the sweaty dog food men’s trailers and suddenly wished I could buy them all. Luckily, as the time got closer to the start of the auction, a few other people started wandering in. There was a group of ladies in breeches and boots who looked like they might have been from a horse rescue and some families with little kids. Maybe the dog food men wouldn’t be so lucky after all.

  The auctioneer was a fat man with pressed jeans and a moustache. He tapped the microphone a couple of times sending static blaring through the speakers and then the auction started. Mickey clutched my hand as the first horse was led into the ring, a stunning gray with dapples.

  “He looks kind of like Harlow,” Mickey whispered as the auctioneer read out the horse’s details.

  “Should I bid on him?” I asked her.

  But I didn’t stand a chance. The bidding opened at a thousand dollars and the horse was popular both with the rescue ladies and a tall man in breeches and boots who was standing in the back. He ended up with the winning bid of three thousand dollars.

  “That was a bargain,” Mickey said.

  And it may have been but I didn’t have three thousand dollars or even a thousand dollars. I only had five hundred dollars. The next horse was a bright bay with a white star. She went for two thousand five hundred. The muscled chestnut after her went for five thousand.

  “This is hopeless,” I said. “I’m never going to be able to afford any of these horses.”

  “Well that’s because they haven’t got to the cheap ones yet,” Mickey said.

  Eventually the quality stock came to an end and the auctioneer announced that there would be a five minute break. Mickey and I sat there feeling kind of stupid. It was just us, the rescue ladies and the dog food men left. Then I heard a high pitched laugh.

  “Look who it is! Come to buy your next champion?” Jess said.

  She was looking tanned and gorgeous in a white sundress. Amber stood behind her in a yellow one and the British girls, Rena and Carla, were there too, looking a little awkward.

  “That’s a pretty long vacation you guys are on,” I snapped at them. “Aren’t you ever going to go home?”

  “We’re not on vacation,” Rena said sheepishly.

  “Really?” Mickey snapped. “We never would have guessed.”

  “So how is your summer prison camp going? We heard you got lumped with all the kids that fall off,” Jess laughed.

  “Don’t you have camp at Fox Run?” Mickey asked.

  “Hardly. You think Andre wants a bunch of screaming toddlers running around and ruining everything? We’ve been schooling every day. Beauty jumped four foot yesterday,” she crossed her arms and glared at us.

  “Was she running away from you at the time?” I said.

  Carla stifled a laugh and Jess jabbed her in the ribs with her elbow.

  “I’ll have you know that Andre says we’ll be ready for the big shows in the fall.”

  “Good for you,” I said sarcastically, only the sarcasm went right over her head.

  “It is good for me,” she said. “Because I’m a winner.”

  “More like a whiner,” Mickey whispered.

  But Jess didn’t hear her. She was too busy waving to someone in the back and beckoning them over. It was Ethan. He rode at Fox Run and had come second in the jumping class that I had won. He had brown hair and soft eyes and when I looked at him my stomach did weird things. I really didn’t need him watching me buy some bag full of bones that I hoped would have an ounce of the talent that Harlow did.

  “Hey Emily,” he said, totally ignoring Jess.

  “Hey Ethan,” I smiled, feeling like I was about to puke.

  “What are you doing here? Are you buying a horse?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “That’s cool,” he grinned.

  “It’s so not cool,” Jess said. “All the horses here are rejects. None of them have any talent. They’re worthless.”

  “My first horse Rocket came from an auction,” Ethan said. “He was one of the best horses I ever owned.”

  He sat down on the bleachers, smiling. Jess crossed her arms and glared at me.

  “Come on Ethan, let’s go on the rides.”

  “No,” he said. “I want to watch Emily buy a horse.”

  I thought steam was going to come out of Jess’s ears or something. Her face turned all red and her mouth twisted into t
his awful grimace but she didn’t leave, instead she sat down with a sigh.

  “Fine but I don’t see why,” she pouted.

  “You don’t have to stay,” he pointed out.

  Mickey nudged me in the ribs but I couldn’t look at her. I was too busy trying to remember to breathe.

  The first pony that came into the ring after the break was tiny. Twelve hands of white matted hair.

  “You should buy that one,” Jess said. “You could use your feet to propel it along the ground.”

  That pony went to the rescue group for seven hundred dollars. The next one was even smaller. It went to a family who had wandered in with two screaming kids. I was starting to lose hope. The good horses had all gone. All that was left were small ponies and half dead horses that were really old. I was never going to be able to buy anything, especially with Jess and Ethan watching me. My palms were sweaty just thinking about it. But as they got ready to bring the next one in, Jess stood up.

  “I’m leaving,” she said, glancing nervously at the ring. “Come on Ethan, let’s go.”

  “Look at this poor one,” Ethan said instead.

  The handler led in a large chestnut pony. You could tell that he had been really cute once upon a time with his four white socks and flashy blaze but now his coat was dull and his ribs stuck out. He had half healed wounds on his side where someone had beaten him and a gash was still bleeding on his nose.

  “How could anyone treat a pony like that?” Ethan said. “It’s disgusting.”

  “It’s life,” Jess said. “Let’s go.”

  The auctioneer’s voice rattled through the speakers and startled the poor pony.

  “This large pony gelding is ten years old, fourteen two hands and has a background in jumping and dressage.”

  “He has a background in jumping,” Mickey said, sounding excited.

  “But he’s too small,” I said.

  “He’s not that small,” Ethan said. “You could do the pony jumpers. I bet once he gets some weight on him, he’d be a great pony.”

  “No,” Jess almost shouted. “You can’t buy that one.”

  “Why not?” I said.

  “Look at him, he’s lame and sick. He’ll die before you even get him home.”