by Stacy Gregg
“This is your start line. Now I don’t want you to take him flat out, the first time around just breeze him, OK?”
Issie looked puzzled.
“It’s a racing term,” Avery said. “It means ride him at a medium pace. Let him gallop, but don’t push him.”
Issie did up the strap on her helmet.
“Take it easy this time. We’ll see how he goes,” Avery said and Issie lined the stallion up.
“On your marks, get set… go!”
Avery dropped his hand and Issie took the cue, letting go of her tight grip on the reins. Angel lunged forward, breaking like a racehorse. His burst of speed was so sudden that for a moment Issie was left behind the stallion’s movement and had to snatch at his mane to hang on. She looked down and saw the ground rushing beneath her, felt a sick sensation and a rush of nervous energy. Don’t look down and don’t think about it, she told herself firmly. And then she pulled herself back up into position and shook off her fears, focused on looking at the track ahead of her.
She was in sync with the grey horse’s gallop now, moving with him, staying low over his neck, crouching like a jockey. As they rounded the first corner her arms were beginning to ache, feeling the strain of holding the stallion back. Avery had told her not to push Angel too hard, but she wasn’t pushing at all — she was using every bit of strength she had just to hold him!
Issie’s fingers were cramping from holding the reins so tight, the leather cutting into her fingers. Now, as she came past the trees that marked halfway on the course, she loosened her grip a little and Angel instantly took the bit and lengthened his stride. He was still fighting her hands, asking for even more rein, wanting to go faster.
“You want to go, huh, boy?” Issie whispered to him. She loosened the reins off more this time. She wasn’t going to fight him any more. “OK, Angel,” she said, letting the reins go slack, “time to go!”
As the great, grey stallion began to really lengthen his stride and extend his neck, Issie felt the wind in her face, blowing dust into her eyes, blurring her vision. She tried to stay low so that the horse’s mane protected her, and focused all her energy into hanging on as they headed down the final stretch.
As they crossed the line, Issie saw Avery out of the corner of her eye, clicking his stopwatch. He looked pleased. Angel, meanwhile, was thrilling at the chance to run, so much so that it took Issie another few hundred metres before she could pull the stallion back to a trot and turn him round to return to her instructor.
“Well?” she said to Tom. “How did we do?”
Avery showed Issie the numbers on the stopwatch. “He just did two kilometres in two minutes twenty. Never mind the Silver Bridle,” he said, “we should be entering Angel at Ascot.”
Over the next two days Avery and Issie trained Angel at the fields. Avery would get her to gallop the horse flat out for a lap or two and breeze the horse for a couple more laps of the barren fields, before trotting him for another twenty minutes or so to cool him down.
Every time Issie rode Angel around the track, she felt more and more in the groove with the grey stallion beneath her. When Avery had first shortened her stirrups so that she was riding high in the saddle she had felt a little unstable, out of balance. Now, it felt like the most natural thing in the world to be perched up there on top of this enormous horse, feeling the wind biting into her face as the stallion ran at a gallop towards the finish line.
On the Thursday, Francoise and Alfie accompanied them to the training grounds. Francoise wore a shotgun at her hip and Alfie carried a length of white rope slung over his shoulder.
“What’s that for?” Issie asked.
“You want Angel to be fast at the break, don’t you?” Francoise replied. “Well, this is how they start the horses for the Silver Bridle. There will be a length of white rope strung across the square. The horses will line up behind it and then when the starter’s gun goes they will take off. That is what we will now practise.”
And so Issie spent the morning lining Angel up again and again behind the white rope while Avery and Francoise held each end. Alfie stood nearby with the shotgun and fired it into the air every time Francoise and Avery dropped the rope. At exactly the same moment, Issie dug her heels into Angel’s sides, urging the stallion forward.
“We want him to make the connection between the gun firing and the rope falling so that he leaps forward on cue,” Avery explained. And so they kept going, starting the horse over and over again, firing the gun and dropping the rope, honing his instincts so that after a dozen or so times, Issie didn’t even need to kick him on, the stallion instinctively surged forward the moment the rope fell. By the end of the day all four of them were convinced that when the race day came, Angel would be the fastest horse at the break. Now all he had to do was stay in front.
“How is the training progressing?” Roberto asked them at dinner that evening. “Do we have a champion in our stables?”
Avery pushed his fork into his paella. “I think so,” he replied.
“Victorioso will be the horse to beat,” Roberto continued. “The black stallion is a threat, especially with Vega on his back.”
“Angel can take Victorioso,” Avery said with certainty. “He’s fast, Roberto. Faster than any Andalusian has the right to be. When the race starts he’ll be out in front. Issie just has to keep him there.”
“Do not forget, you must be careful on the corners,” Alfie told Issie. “The village square isn’t built like a real race track. The turns are much sharper than they look.”
“He’s right,” Francoise agreed. “The square is white chalk underfoot and very slippery. It is not uncommon for horses to slide and crash, and the houses are built so close to the streets if the horses don’t stay on course they risk slamming into the walls.”
“OK,” Issie said nervously. “I’ll be careful on the corners.”
Roberto shook his head. “It is just as dangerous on the straight. There, the riders will try and grab you, your clothes, your reins, anything they can get their hands on. They will try and unbalance you, try and pull you off your horse so that they can get past you.”
“Isn’t that illegal?” Issie asked.
“Nothing is illegal in this race,” said Roberto. “On the day of the Silver Bridle the village square will become a battleground. Do you truly think you are ready for that?”
Issie put down her fork. Suddenly she didn’t feel so hungry any more. The race was coming and nothing could stop it now. Was she ready? She had to be.
Chapter 14
The next morning, when Issie sat down to breakfast with Avery, he told her that the training session was cancelled for the day.
“He’s already race-fit and you’ve learnt every trick I have to show you,” Avery said. “Why don’t you just saddle him up and go off for a ride, just the two of you? Don’t gallop him, just take him for a bit of a hack. Relax, get your head together.”
Issie was happy to be left to her own devices. Last night’s discussion of tactics at the dinner table had left her a bundle of nerves. Going for a ride by herself was the perfect way to calm down and mentally prepare herself for tomorrow’s race.
At the stables, the grey stallion gave a nicker as she walked into his stall, greeting Issie as if she were an old friend. The training over the past few days had made Issie even more aware of how special Angel really was. She loved his softness, how he could be so strong and focused when he raced, and yet so gentle here in the stables. In the afternoons, while El Caballo vaqueros were having their siestas, Issie would often come by to visit Angel. She would sit down in the straw at the side of his stall and chat away to the stallion as if he were Stella or Kate, talking to him about everything she was thinking, about how much she missed Storm, and about her life back in Chevalier Point with Blaze and Comet.
Sitting there next to the majestic stallion she felt completely safe, despite the fact that with a single sweep of his mighty hooves he could have struck her a mortal blo
w. She wasn’t afraid. Angel was the gentlest horse she had ever met, unlike any other stallion she had ever encountered. The horse, for his part, seemed glad of her company. He would cock one ear as he listened to her idle chatter and then, if he got bored with Issie’s endless stories, he would lower his neck, nudging the girl with his muzzle, which was his signal that he wanted her to scratch him in the sweet spot just behind his ears.
“No training today, Angel,” Issie told the grey stallion as she saddled him up. “We’ve got the day off. We’re going to take a ride, just you and me.”
The sky was clear and blue, and the early-morning sun was already warm on her bare skin as Issie rode into the cobbled courtyard. Beneath her, Angel was keyed up and ready to gallop, and she had to steady him back with her legs and her hands.
“Not today, boy,” she cooed to the horse. “Save it for tomorrow, today we’re just going to take it easy.”
They cantered out through the gates of El Caballo Danza Magnifico and Issie was about to turn left towards the olive-tree hills and the race track, but something made her change her mind. Instead, she turned right, back around the white walls of the hacienda, through the fields where the mares and their foals were grazing, heading towards the gorge.
“We’re not going all the way to Vega’s,” she reassured Angel, “I just want to go to the end of the gorge.”
Once they had entered the gorge Issie held Angel to a trot, careful not to let him injure himself on the rocky terrain. She looked at the chalky cliffs rising up on either side of her, the slit of blue sky above her head.
It had been less than a week ago that Vega’s men had chased Issie and Angel from his hacienda to this gorge when she had tried to steal her colt back. So much had happened in that short time! Throughout it all, though, Issie had never forgotten why she had come here. She was here to get her colt back. Now, as she rode on through the gorge, she realised she was riding towards Vega’s hacienda, drawn towards the colt once more. She knew she couldn’t get close enough to see him without getting caught, but she wished she could, just for a moment. She wanted to let him know that she hadn’t forgotten him, that she was doing her best to get him back.
“Just one more day, Storm,” she said under her breath, “one more day and you’ll be with me again, I promise.”
She was lost in her own thoughts as she trotted Angel on, heading into the narrow part of the gorge, a skinny path cut between the rocks, and it took her a moment to realise that there was a shadow in front of them, and it was moving towards them at speed.
She could see that it was a rider on horseback, but the sunlight was behind whoever it was, and the light was so strong it blinded her. It wasn’t until they were much closer that she could make out who it was. The horse was an enormous black stallion — and the rider was none other than Miguel Vega.
Seized with panic, Issie tried to turn Angel round, but they were in the narrowest part of the gorge and turning here was impossible. She was in a frenzy now, trying to rein-back to get away, when she heard Vega’s voice calling out to her.
“Wait! Do not run, little girl. I want to talk to you.”
And then she was face to face with Vega, the man grinning stupidly at her, his bushy moustache twitching with pleasure at her obvious discomfort.
“The young señorita!” Vega said. “You came looking for me? What a lovely surprise!”
Issie felt her heart racing. “I wasn’t looking for you.” She tried to keep the fear out of her voice but she knew that Vega would be able to see that she was shaking. “Let me leave — I want to go home.”
“Ah,” Vega said. “You are afraid of Miguel Vega? Do not be scared. I only want to talk! It is fortunate that we have met here today. Why not take advantage of this wonderful opportunity that now presents itself to both of us?” His voice was as oily as his slicked-back hair. “I hear that Marius is injured and that you are the one who will now be riding against my hacienda in the Silver Bridle.”
Issie nodded.
Vega smiled. “Excellent! Then luck is truly on your side, because this meeting may be most beneficial to you.”
“What do you mean?” Issie was getting nervous. She had her hands and legs poised, ready to manoeuvre Angel quickly back in a half-circle to gallop off if she needed to, if Vega got any closer. Angel was ready to run too. He hated being this close to Vega, and Issie could feel the stallion’s muscles twitching with barely controlled desperation to get away from the bully who had inflicted the pain of the serreta upon him so long ago.
The mustachioed man laughed and the fat on his belly wobbled beneath his cummerbund. “Look at you! As tense as a cat! Do not fear. I have no plans to hurt you…” A malevolent grin played across his face. “Why would I? I do not need to. Not when I still have your colt.”
Issie’s eyes widened in horror. “What do you mean? Is that a threat? What have you done to him?”
“I have not done anything to him… yet,” Vega said. “What happens to him next is up to you.”
Vega rode the black stallion a few steps closer, and Issie fought to control Angel as the grey stallion became more desperate than ever to get away from the man he hated so deeply. “Hold your horse still and listen,” Vega snapped, “because I am making you an offer that you have no choice but to accept. I do not want to take any chances with the contest tomorrow. If you agree to hold Angel back, and make sure that you lose the race, then I will be generous. I will give you back your colt and you will be free to take him home. You have my word.”
“You want me to lose?” Issie said.
“Oh, I am sure I will beat you anyway,” Vega said boastfully. “Miguel Vega is a great rider. My horse Victorioso is magnificent. A little girl like you, a chica, you will never beat us. But then I figure, why take chances? I want your word that you will lose. I look forward to seeing the face of Roberto Nunez when you come in last.”
“So if I lose the race, you’ll give me back my colt.”
“Si, si, of course,” Vega said dismissively, “but you must not try to pass me in the race. If you try to take the lead at any stage I will know that you have betrayed me. My men will be watching you too and they will know that this is the signal to return to my stables and fix the serreta bridle on to your beloved colt. If you cross the line first, your colt will suffer for it. You must bow to my demands. It is the only way to save your beloved Nightstorm.”
“How do I know you’ll really give him back to me?” Issie asked.
“You have Miguel Vega’s word as a gentleman,” Vega said. As he said this, he rode a step closer towards her and suddenly reached out a hand to grasp at Angel’s reins. The stallion was too quick for him, though, rearing back and pirouetting on his hocks. All the time they had been talking, Issie had been inching the stallion backwards slowly. They had now reached a small gap in the rocks that was wide enough to turn and she did so now.
“Run then!” Vega laughed after her as Angel broke into a gallop. “But do not forget my kind offer. If you do not take it you are nothing but a fool, and your precious Storm, your colt, will suffer.”
Vega made no attempt to chase after them. As he had already told Issie, he didn’t need to hurt her. Not when he could cause her so much more pain by hurting the thing she loved most — her colt.
Issie spoke to no one about her encounter with Vega when she got back to El Caballo. She knew what Avery and Roberto would both say if she told them. They would tell her that Vega was not a man to be trusted, that even if she lost the race on purpose as he asked, he would not honour the deal. Her best hope still, they would say, was to win the race and get Storm back.
Issie knew this was probably true. But Storm was her baby, and if she won the race now it would be as if she were the one putting the serreta on him herself. It would be her fault when Vega’s men strapped the spiked metal noseband to the colt’s face and scarred him forever.
It was easy for Issie to excuse herself from dinner that night. Everyone expected her to have
nerves the night before the race. She had stayed upstairs in her room, fretting about the decision that she was about to make. She realised now that even if she threw the race Vega would not give Storm back, and yet she could no more abandon her colt than she could betray El Caballo Danza Magnifico. It was the hardest choice she had ever had to make.
It was almost midnight. Dinner had been eaten and Francoise, Avery and Roberto were still gathered in the library talking tactics when Issie turned up with her pillow and her duvet.
“I thought I’d sleep in the stables tonight,” she explained. “I want to keep an eye on Angel.”
Francoise nodded at this. “I understand. My cot bed that I use when the mares are foaling is folded away in the tack room. It is easy to set up, you can put it in Angel’s stall. Why don’t you go and make yourself comfortable out there and let me bring you some dinner? I got the chef to keep a platter for you in case you were hungry after all.”
Issie shook her head. “I don’t want anything to eat, thanks, Francoise. I’ll be fine.”
“Then we’ll see you in the morning. We leave for the village at seven.” Francoise smiled gently at her.
“OK, see you then,” Issie said.
“Goodnight Issie. Try and get some sleep out there, OK?” Avery said.
“I will,” Issie said.
She wasn’t certain that she would get any sleep, though. After the meeting with Vega today she was now worried that his men might try to sneak into the stables and hurt Angel during the night. She would put nothing past Vega — no dirty tactics were beneath this man. She would be sleeping with one eye open, looking out for trouble.
Angel greeted her with a nicker as she arrived in his stall with her bedding and the cot bed from the tack shed tucked under her arm.
“It’s OK, boy,” she said gently to the grey stallion. “It’s just me. I thought I’d come and share your stall for the night.”
Angel was happy to have a room-mate. But he could sense that something was wrong. Issie usually lavished attention on him, but tonight she just sat on the edge of her cot staring out into the night. She looked like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.