Pony Jumpers 7- Seventh Place

by Kate Lattey

  But Bruce wasn’t satisfied. “I know he’s in a strop, but he needs to move out of that little shuffle he’s got going on,” he said. “That’s not a proper trot, and he can’t be allowed to get away with only giving you that when you’ve specifically asked for more.”

  I sat up taller, closed my leg again and pushed Forbes forward. He surged, and I corrected him with my reins, holding him together between hand and leg. For half a stride, I felt his back lift, felt his hindquarters start to engage, and got the small surge of adrenalin that always accompanied his powerful, ground-covering trot. But it didn’t last. Forbes changed his mind abruptly about cooperating and slammed the brakes on, nearly sending me up his neck. I gritted my teeth and put my leg on again, but I knew what was coming.

  Forbes tossed his head twice, then reared. I leaned forward, reaching my hands around his neck so I didn’t interfere with his balance. He stood, poised, on his hind legs in a public declaration of his rebellion, then returned to all fours. I pushed him forward again, knowing through bitter experience that kicking or smacking him now would only cause him to rear higher. Bruce was swearing, and although I knew his expletives were directed at the pony and not me, it still made me tense up. I blocked him out and clicked my tongue to Forbes, the pressure from my legs still insistent against his sides.

  Forbes took three steps in walk then reared again, a little higher this time. I could feel my temper boiling up inside me, but I knew I had to keep a lid on it. Losing my rag wasn’t going to help the situation. Bruce was saying something, and I pushed my attention back to him.

  “What?”

  “Bring his head round to the left, then send him forward. He can’t rear if he’s not straight.”

  I followed Bruce’s instructions, and to my surprise, discovered that he was right. I walked Forbes in a small circle, then brought him up to trot and made the circle a little larger. When he got bolshy and threatened to be naughty, I took him straight onto a smaller circle again until he capitulated.

  “Better. Now, let’s get that stronger trot out of him,” Bruce insisted.

  I closed my legs against Forbes’ sides and sent him forward, and although he tossed his head irritably, he complied at last with my request and moved forward with a powerful, swinging stride. I moved him out to the outside track and worked him around the perimeter of the arena, changed the rein and went back the other way. The fight seemed to have gone out of Forbes, and he did as he was told, but his tail swished and his ears were laid back. He had no joy in what he was doing, and his reluctance, despite his outward appearance of cooperation, took the pleasure out of it for me too.

  “Bring him back to walk, and give him a long rein. That’ll do him for today,” Bruce decided, to my relief. “He’s learned he has to work when he’s told, but he’s tired and it’s important to end on a successful note.”

  I drew Forbes back to a walk and let the reins out onto his sweating neck, giving him an appreciative pat.

  “You handled that well,” Bruce said as I circled the pony around him, letting his muscles relax as his body started to cool down. “When I first started teaching you, that would’ve been the beginning of the end.”

  I shrugged, slipping my feet out of my stirrups and stretching my legs. “If I still rode now like I did then, Forbes wouldn’t even let me get on him.”

  “Probably true.” He looked at the bay pony, who’d come to a halt to scratch his head on his foreleg. “Does he get much variety?”

  I blinked at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, do you hack him out much? Take him to the beach, ride him down the road? Does he get a change of scenery apart from when he goes to shows?”

  I could feel my face flushing red. “Um, not really.”

  Bruce just looked at me, like he was waiting for me to say something else. I stared down at Forbes’ neatly pulled mane, and ran a few strands of it through my fingers as my pony lifted his head again and sighed, resting a hind leg.

  “Well I suggest that you start,” he said eventually. “I don’t know how much land you have here, but there’s a big farm down the end of your road. I know the owners, and if you got in touch and asked nicely, I’m sure they’d let you ride through their place. Some hills would do him the world of good, get him thinking forward again.”

  I couldn’t look at him, so I just kept staring down at Forbes’ neck.

  “Are you listening, or ignoring me?” Bruce asked irritably.

  “I’m not allowed to ride on the road,” I explained. “And the Cumberlands would never let me ride through their place.”

  Bruce frowned at me, opened his mouth in rebuttal, then stopped. I looked down at my pony again, at his sweat-soaked neck, and nudged him back into walk.

  “Your old man pick a fight with them?”

  I nodded. “Just like he does with everyone. We’re only on speaking terms with one of our neighbours.” And only because she was a nosy old cow who loved gossip as much as Mum did. Not out of any great love for any of us.

  “Well, see if you can get your dad to truck you down to the beach once or twice at least,” Bruce said, sounding slightly defeated. “Or ride this one around what land you do have. You can’t school him all the time. He needs a change of scenery at least once, preferably twice a week, or he’ll just turn sour and quit on you entirely.”

  “Okay.”

  “Shows don’t count,” Bruce warned me.

  “Got it.”

  He walked towards me, and I halted Forbes again as Bruce pushed his sunglasses up onto his head and looked at me.

  “Sorry about Ireland. I know you were hoping to be picked for the squad. You made first reserve, if that’s any consolation.”

  I shrugged, but my heart lifted a little with that news. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Well, there wasn’t really any choice. It was very close between the top three candidates.”

  I wondered whether he was just saying that to make me feel better. Bruce looked over at the gate, where Dad would normally stand and watch. But he’d forgone my lesson today, citing a complicated case at work as his excuse. It had been a lot easier to concentrate without having him on the sidelines, picking holes in my riding and repeating Bruce’s instructions whenever I came within earshot of him. I just hoped it wasn’t a sign that he was still too angry with Bruce over the selections to talk to him. He’d refused to mention my coach’s name in the house since the team announcement, and every time I brought him up, Dad’s face clouded over.

  I was tired of beating around the bush. “Was it because of my dad?”

  Bruce looked startled by my direct approach, but he was never anything if not honest. “He can be, uh…”

  “A pain in the arse,” I finished for him.

  Bruce cracked a small smile. “I was going to go with liability, but that’s the gist of it, yeah.”

  “And Lily did so well at Nationals,” I said, trying to give credit where it was due.

  He shrugged. “She has a pair of very good ponies. We’re going to have to hope she draws something very rideable overseas.”

  The look on his face didn’t make it appear that he rated her chances, and my spirits lifted. I wondered if he’d voted for me, but I didn’t want to ask.

  “What happened to you down there?” Bruce asked, pushing his sunglasses back onto his head and scrutinising me. “You started out well, then fell apart in the last round.”

  I looked away from him. “I don’t know. Had a bad night, I guess.”

  Bruce looked sceptical, but he accepted my answer. “Shame. You had a good lead going into that round. I heard you were looking at the Campbells’ horse,” he segued fluently as he started towards the arena gate.

  I nudged Forbes into a walk and followed him. “I tried her, but it didn’t work out.”

  “Good.” Surprised, I glanced at Bruce as he opened the gate and swung it wide. “Too damn sensitive, that horse. It was never any use in Aussie either.”

  “Tha
t’s not what they said.”

  “Course they didn’t,” Bruce scoffed. “Trying to sell her, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah, but…I saw videos.” Well, I’d seen part of them. I refused to let myself think too much about that.

  “I saw those videos too,” Bruce replied. “And if that mare wasn’t dosed to the eyeballs on calmers that day, I’ll eat my hat.”

  Forbes’ hooves crunched on the gravel as I rode him along the path towards the stables, thinking about what he’d just said.

  “Poor Stacey,” I said eventually.

  Bruce grunted. “Poor Stacey nothing, I told her not to buy it and she wouldn’t listen. That girl’s either thick as two short planks, or just too bloody stubborn for her own good.”

  He stopped at his car, and hit the fob on the keyring that unlocked it. It bleeped, the lights flashing once, and Forbes jumped.

  “Sorry mate.” Bruce reached over and patted my pony’s neck, crusty with dried sweat. “Same time next week?”

  “Okay.”

  “Remember,” he said, as he opened the front door of his car and leaned on it. “Variety is the spice of life.” He pointed the key towards Forbes, who still had his ears fixed forward and was watching the vehicle with great suspicion in case it beeped at him again. “Take him out, let him see the world.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  Bruce nodded, sliding into his car and pulling a face as he fired up the air conditioning. The sun was still baking down on us, and I could feel the skin on my arms starting to sizzle. As my coach drove away, Forbes relaxed, resting a hind leg and swishing his tail at the flies buzzing around us. I glanced over at the welcoming shade of the stables, then back up the driveway towards the road.

  “Do you want to go on an adventure?”

  I hadn’t been lying when I’d told Bruce that I wasn’t allowed to ride on the road, but there was no real reason for that rule other than my parents had decreed years ago that it wasn’t safe. I had a vague memory of Pete having come off one of his ponies on the roadside years ago. He’d picked up a mild gravel rash and the pony had returned home unscathed, but it had frightened Mum and she’d refused to let him ride out on the roads again. Dad hadn’t argued, except to tell Pete that he should’ve held onto the reins because he’d spent too much money on that pony for it to get hit by a car just because Pete couldn’t hang onto it when he fell off. It wasn’t a rule my parents had ever had to enforce, because I’d just taken it as read and never challenged it. But now I wondered. We lived on a quiet road with wide grass verges, and Forbes would benefit from another ten minutes or so of walking to stretch him out after his lesson. Besides, all the better to ride him out in strange territory when he was already tired. Much lower chance of being bucked off.

  I clicked my tongue and rode Forbes forward and up the driveway. He baulked at first, spooking at the rose bushes and trying more than once to spin around and head for home, but I was insistent.

  “We’re expanding your horizons,” I told the reluctant pony. “You’ll thank me later, I promise.”

  Forbes was unconvinced until we reached the end of the driveway and turned left. Then his head came up and his ears pricked forward at the sight of the wide, flat grass verge laid out ahead of us. I kept the reins as loose as I could without relinquishing control, letting him swing his head to each side to take in the lay of the land. He took it in eagerly, watching the cows grazing in the neighbours’ paddocks, flinching at the flapping washing line on the other side of the road, baulking at a yellow letterbox and going past it sideways with much eye-rolling, then stopping and snorting at the alpacas in the Hendersons’ front paddock.

  “Weird, huh?” I asked him, bracing myself for the possibility that he would spin on his haunches and bolt home, hopefully not throwing me off in the process. Forbes had led a quiet, sheltered life since he came to me, and his increasingly difficult behaviour was probably as much due to boredom as it was to a dislike of hard work.

  After a couple of minutes of staring, Forbes crept forward, taking a few rushed steps before his courage failed him and he halted again, his eyes bugging out in alarm. The alpacas, for their part, merely glanced at him before resuming grazing. I relaxed into the saddle, stroking Forbes with one hand and holding the reins in the other. Cicadas whirred incessantly in the trees, punctuated occasionally by the warbles and croaks of tui. Beads of sweat trickled down my back as the sun baked down, its heat making the tarmac road shimmer ahead of us.

  Forbes looked away from the alpacas for a moment, then swung his head back towards them, as though checking whether they were still there, and wouldn’t just vanish if he wasn’t looking directly at them. A car appeared in the distance, the sunlight glinting off the windshield as it flickered in and out of sight through the haze. Forbes spared it a quick glance, then returned his attention to the far more threatening gang of alpacas.

  The car was moving fast, and as it came closer, I saw that it was a black SUV. My heart started beating faster as I wondered what Dad was going to say when he saw me out on the road, blatantly disobeying his instructions. I braced myself for a confrontation, but the car didn’t slow down as it approached us, and I realised that it wasn’t Dad after all. It was someone I didn’t know, and they zoomed past us with their eyes fixed forward on the road ahead. Forbes flinched, but the car’s safe passage apparently convinced him that it was safe to go past the alpacas without fear of certain death, although he insisted on doing so at a sideways trot. As I shortened my reins and tried to get him to at least go in a straight line, I couldn’t help smiling. We’d spend nearly an hour in the arena this afternoon trying to convince Forbes to trot slowly, but with cadence. He’d sworn black and blue that he just couldn’t do any such thing, that it was physically impossible for a pony to even do that, and that I was being completely unreasonable.

  Now, out on the side of the road and with nobody in sight, Forbes performed the most gorgeously springy, cadenced trot I’d ever had the privilege to sit on.

  So Bruce told me today that Im first reserve for Ireland

  I sent the message to Katy, then cracked another egg into the frying pan. Dad still wasn’t home, and neither was Mum. I’d done the ponies, then sat in the house for half an hour with a rumbling stomach until I’d realised that there was nothing actually stopping me from making my own dinner. My whole life I’d grown up with dinner on the table at seven, but those rules didn’t seem to apply to anyone else anymore, so why should they apply to me?

  I hope you asked him why you werent in the team!!

  I did, I typed back. Dads fault. No surprise.

  I could almost see Katy’s eye roll. Bloody hell theyre thick. Like hes a pain (no offense) but surely they could keep him under control. Or you couldve just come with me and mum and left your dad at home! #betterplan

  I snorted as I added mushrooms to the pan. Good luck with that he wouldn’t have missed it for the world. well at least i know he didn’t just buy me a place in the team… #silverlining ?

  Hah bet lilys parents did. Oh well first reserve is good though, now we just have to make sure lily doesn’t make it and plenty of time for something to happen mwahaha ;)

  I knew she was joking, but it still made my stomach twist to see that comment.

  Not funny, I wrote back quickly.

  You know I didn’t mean anything like THAT. Ugh well I can only hope that she’ll break her arm or something. I’ll pray for it every night lol. so hows buck doing?

  Good! I typed back with one hand as I flipped my fried egg over in the pan. New meds are working great and breathing is back to normal for now. Hes gonna have the winter off then we will reassess in the spring but I don’t really care whether he comes back or not, i’m happy to retire him as long as hes comfortable and happy

  Just as I hit send, Buck’s plaintive whinny reached me from the paddock outside. I’d put the other two into the barn to eat their feeds, and was hoping I could leave them in overnight, but Buck was feeling their abse
nce, and the last thing I needed was to stress him out and have him start running around. I turned the gas hob off and went to the front door as Katy’s reply buzzed in my hand.

  That’s so good! Yay buckles maybe he was just impatient to retire haha

  I sent her a response as I stepped into my gumboots.

  Idk about that he’s having a meltdown bc the other two are in the barn tonight, so annoying he cant be stabled bc dust but wont let the others go in without freaking out arghh

  The sun was setting behind me, bathing the barn in a pink glow. I walked around behind it to see Buck standing at the gate of his paddock, his head high and nostrils flared wide. He whinnied frantically when he noticed me, desperate to join his friends. I couldn’t put him inside, but I couldn’t leave him stressing like this either.

  Fortunately the other two had finished their feeds, so I slipped a halter onto Forbes and led him out, opening Skip’s stable as I passed it and letting him follow us back out to the paddock. He strode happily along behind us, stopping at the gate to Buck’s small paddock to greet him. I debated letting Skip have a sleepover in his buddy’s paddock, but I was worried that they’d start running around, and Buck still needed to be kept quiet. I let Forbes go in the bigger paddock and came back for Skip, who was now grooming Buck’s withers in the embrace of a long-lost friend.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and took a photo, then sent it to Katy, followed by a tearful emoji. The ponies broke apart and looked at me, and I felt like a monster as I took hold of Skip’s neck rug and reluctantly separated them.

  “Sorry to break up the bromance of the century, but it’s for your own good.”

  Buck tossed his head, not believing me, loudly voicing his protest as I led Skip into the other paddock. The two ponies had been fast friends from the day Skip had arrived, and they had always had a bit of separation anxiety, although they were both well-mannered enough for it not to show when I was riding. But the recent changes to Buck’s routine and the stress of being sick was telling on him, and I just knew that if I let Skip stay with him for even one night, he would have a full-blown meltdown tomorrow. I didn’t want him to be stressing himself out every time I took Skip out of his company, which would have to happen on a daily basis with Skip still in full work. And I had no clue what I was going to do with Buck when we went to Horse of the Year.