Winter Blues (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 3)

by Claire Svendsen

  “She must have checked a book out of the library,” Mickey said.

  “Yeah, one on how to ride courses badly,” Ethan agreed.

  But despite the fact that they were both doing poorly, Bluebird and I had taken to Helga’s courses like a duck to water. And because Bluebird was nimble and quick on his feet, we were taking inside lines and turns that I had never practiced before.

  “Your horse is head,” Helga told Mickey as she pulled up after managing to keep at least half the jumps up.

  “Excuse me?” she said.

  “He think with head. Not heart. You’re heart have to do both.”

  “Okay then,” Mickey said, then turned and whispered, “She might as well be speaking Chinese because I have no idea what she is talking about.”

  “You,” she pointed to Ethan. “Boy on big stud. Go jump.”

  Ethan’s face turned bright red and he flattened the first jump but left the rest up, Wendell working overtime as he grunted his way over the fences.

  “Better,” Helga cried.

  “Show off,” Mickey sulked.

  But Bluebird and I once again stole the schooling session, blazing over the course in record time with a clear round. Helga jumped up and down and clapped her hands.

  “You win,” she cried. “You win big cup very soon.”

  “I hope so,” I said but I felt tired.

  All the barn work was already starting to get to me. Every night I fell into bed exhausted, my muscles burning from all the mucking and sweeping and grooming.

  “I don’t know how Esther does this every day, week after week,” I’d complained to Mickey.

  “Now you know why she doesn’t ride anymore,” she’d replied.

  And she was right. Saffron had been sitting idle since our beach ride over the summer. The paint mare she bought as her next great jumper sitting fat and happy in her stall. The realization that you couldn’t have it all was not a happy one. I’d always dreamed of my own stable with rows of stalls full of horses waiting for me to ride them and take care of them. The truth was far less glamorous, unless I somehow became rich enough to have an army of grooms to take care of them for me.

  “Show is tomorrow,” Helga said on Friday. “I drive big rig and you all arrive saved.”

  “You’re sure you know how to pull a horse trailer?” I asked.

  “Pieces of cake,” she grinned.

  But when we got to the barn just as the sun was starting to peak over the horizon, it didn’t look promising. There were tire tracks and deep ridges in the sand where Helga had tried and failed to connect the truck to the trailer. We found her slumped over the steering wheel, sobbing.

  “Truck no work for me,” she cried. “Why everything so hard in this country?”

  “What are we going to do?” Mickey looked at me with wide eyes.

  “Get the horses ready,” I said. “We don’t have much time.”

  We’d already planned to arrive at the show as late as possible because after the last disaster, I wasn’t going to risk leaving Bluebird tied to the trailer for hours on end.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is,” Ethan had said. “Faith isn’t coming to this show anyway.”

  But I knew what Jess had planned and I knew that if she got another chance, she’d try it again. And if Bluebird didn’t have a stomach full of ice cream, perhaps we’d beat Jess and Stardust today.

  So I pulled the only strings I had left. I called Uncle Carl, who was still sleeping on our couch despite my mother’s constant groaning that he really needed to go home.

  “You can’t be there already,” he said. He’d planned to meet us at the show later to watch me ride.

  “We need your help,” I said and with no questions asked, he was there in fifteen minutes.

  “Do you know how to hook this thing up?” I asked hopefully.

  “Of course,” he said. “Have one just like it for my bikes. Well, maybe not quite as big but the principle is the same.”

  “And you can pull the trailer with the horses inside and get us to the show in one piece?”

  “I should hope so,” he said. “Besides, if I didn’t, your mother would kill me.”

  So we loaded the horses into the trailer and I hoped that Uncle Carl was true to his word.

  “Chicken legs,” Helga pointed at Wendell and laughed.

  The big chestnut was walking like a foal, picking his legs up and down with an alarmed look on his face like he’d never worn shipping boots before.

  “What can I say,” Ethan shrugged. “He’s a ham.”

  “A ham who is going to win his classes today, right?” I said.

  “Probably,” Ethan grinned.

  Despite Helga’s unorthodox teaching methods, I knew that we had all improved over the last week. I didn’t know if it was because we were being forced to smarten up to stay alive and not crash and burn through the fences or whether Helga secretly knew what she was doing. But either way, we pulled out of the parking lot with our hopes high and game faces on.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The second show of the Blizzard Challenge was being held at Green Acres, a facility that I’d heard about but never been to. Esther had said it was small but until we got there, I had no idea how small she really meant. There were only two rings, the large show ring and a smaller warm up ring. Hunter classes were being held before lunch and the jumper classes after.

  “With the eliminations, there shouldn’t be too many people here,” Mickey said as we finally arrived.

  But it didn’t seem like there was less people there. In fact it seemed like there were more.

  “Where do you want it?” Uncle Carl asked, pulling the trailer onto the grounds.

  I stuck my head out the window, scouring for a good spot and found one in the corner, away from most of the chaos.

  “There,” I pointed and luckily Uncle Carl knew exactly what he was doing, backing the large rig into the space with ease.

  I let out the breath I’d been holding.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s get to work. Ethan, go and make sure we are registered and pick up our numbers. Mickey, help me unload these guys and Helga, go with Ethan and make sure the stalls are fit for Wendell and Hampton.”

  The three of them looked at me and then saluted seriously.

  “Hey,” I said as they started to laugh. “I’m just trying to be organized.”

  “I think the word you are looking for is bossy,” Mickey teased.

  But for once we settled into a show without anyone losing their tack or their show clothes and the horses seemed all the happier for it. Bluebird was tied to the trailer munching his hay, Wendell was in his stall and Hampton was in the warm up ring with Mickey. Her classes were in twenty minutes.

  I could see the warm up ring from where I stood next to Bluebird in the weak winter sun.

  “Not head,” I heard Helga cry. “Heart.”

  I felt kind of bad for Mickey. Last minute instructions usually wigged her out and I could see her now, getting flustered with Hampton and fussing with the reins.

  “Come on boy,” I untied Bluebird. “Let’s go and cheer her on. She’s never going to pull it together.”

  “Want me to watch him for you?” Uncle Carl asked.

  “Thanks but no thanks,” I said. “After last time, I’m not letting him out of my sight.”

  Mickey walked Hampton into the ring, her face set and focused. I didn’t call out and wish her luck, even though I wanted to. I knew she needed to try and keep it together. She was sitting on a trained and professional hunter but when she went in the ring, she was one of the most nervous people I knew.

  “Heart,” I heard Helga cry out from somewhere in the crowd.

  I willed her to be quiet, knowing the distraction would only cause Mickey to become more flustered but then something amazing happened. Mickey relaxed. She circled Hampton calmly and quietly, not interfering with him at all and they proceeded to execute the course in a textbook fashion. It was a beau
tiful thing to watch. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to jump up and scream when she finished but instead I just clapped and rushed over to see her as she came out of the ring with a big grin on her face.

  “That was amazing,” I cried. “What happened in there?”

  “I know, right?” she jumped off Hampton and hugged him tight. “I took one look at the course and it was so simple after all the horrible things Helga has had us jumping that I just knew I could do it.”

  Mickey placed first in her classes, winning her division and she wasn’t the only one who had benefitted from Helga’s lessons. Ethan came second in his hunter class and first in his jumper class, beating out some of the horses who had won at the last show.

  “I hope this means you two are going to stop picking on Helga now?” I said.

  We were sitting out in the sunshine by the trailer, eating the tuna sandwiches that Mickey’s mom had made.

  “I’ll never say a bad thing about her again,” Mickey said. “In fact I don’t care if Esther ever comes back.”

  “Don’t say that,” I said.

  “You know I didn’t mean it,” she said. “But you know what I mean. I bet you’ll do better too.”

  I didn’t want to jinx it but I was secretly hoping the same thing. Unlike the others, I already knew that I had benefited from Helga’s training. Bluebird was faster and tighter and if everything went right and no ice cream was involved then I knew that we did have a good chance of not only qualifying for the final competition and winning the Snowball Cup but also winning today’s class.

  “See, told you,” Helga said as she came to sit with us. “I know how teach good.”

  “Yes, you do,” I smiled.

  But then I saw her out of the corner of my eye, striding towards us in her Tailored Sportsman breeches without a speck of dirt on them. The bane of my existence.

  “What? You got another one already?” she said. “Where did you go? Rentaforeignsuckytrainer.com?”

  “You should know,” I said. “Isn’t that where you got Andre from?”

  I hated myself for falling into her trap but I was so mad at her. I knew that she was the reason Esther had to leave the country and now here she was, rubbing it in my face. But Esther’s words hung in my head. The ones she had used when I rescued Bluebird from Jess’s abuse. She told me that the best revenge was to beat Jess in the show ring and prove to her that she was wrong. Wrong to throw away ponies just because they wouldn’t win for her and wrong to toss trainers out of the country just so that she could get ahead.

  “Well, I’d love to stay and chat,” I said, standing up. “But I have to go and get ready for my class now. Good luck to you Jess.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just good luck to you and Stardust.”

  Her mouth opened and closed a few times like a fish out of water and then she spun on her thousand dollar boots and stormed off.

  “Nice one,” Mickey said.

  “Yeah, you’ve really rattled her now,” Ethan nodded. “I don’t think she knows what to do with sarcasm.”

  “It wasn’t sarcasm,” I said, taking a body brush to Bluebird’s already gleaming coat. “I do wish her well.”

  “Why?” Mickey said.

  “Because I don’t want to go into that ring with a guilty conscience. I’m going to beat her the old fashioned way, through hard work and perseverance. Not through silly head games. And I want her to know that taking Esther out of the equation isn’t enough to increase her odds of winning.”

  “Hear, hear,” Uncle Carl said and started to clap.

  Our warm up was uneventful and Jess was nowhere to be seen. As we stood at the in gate, the sun came out and I had that feeling, the good one you get in your stomach when you just know that everything is going to work out great.

  “You got this in the pocket,” Helga said.

  “In the bag?” I laughed.

  “Yes, in the big bag,” she grinned. “Now go knock them over.”

  “Knock them dead,” I said as we trotted into the ring.

  The course was simple and small with tight turns designed to eliminate people who cut them short and didn’t have enough power to get over the jumps. Bluebird cleared them just like I knew he would and his jump off round was the fastest of the day so far.

  I didn’t bother and watch Jess and Stardust go. I stood by the trailer and rubbed liniment on Bluebird’s legs as I listened to the crowd. From the sound of it, she made it to the jump off by the skin of her teeth but Stardust couldn’t turn on a dime like Bluebird could and she couldn’t jump as high, at least not with Jess on her back.

  Later, as we stood in the ring and the blue ribbon was pinned on Bluebird’s bridle, I looked down the line and didn’t see Jess. She didn’t place but we’d have to wait and see if she’d made it through to the final round.

  “What a great show,” Mickey sighed.

  We were laying over each other in the truck, our legs tangled together as we all relived our favorite parts of the day.

  “I liked the part best where you wished Jess luck,” Ethan laughed.

  “Yeah,” Mickey grinned. “It was just like when you told her to break a leg.”

  “But it wasn’t like that,” I said. “I really did want to wish her luck. Why won’t you believe me?”

  “If you say so,” Mickey said. “But I know for a fact that Jess didn’t believe you and you know she’s going to have it in for you even more than she did before.”

  “How is that even possible?” I laughed. “What more could she possibly do to make things any worse?”

  But even as I said the words, I knew that it was stupid to think that. Of course things could always get worse. That was just the way the world was. I, of all people, knew that better than anyone else sitting in the truck and as we pulled up to the barn gate just as the sun was setting, I had a taste of just how bad things could get and it didn’t taste good at all. In fact, it tasted rather like vomit.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The gate was closed but there were loose horses everywhere. Saffron was chasing Princess across the front field with her ears pinned. The other lesson ponies looked like they were playing tag in the arena, a cloud of dust being kicked up into the air. And there was Harlow, who was supposed to be on limited walking exercise only since he was recovering from a suspensory injury, galloping across the front field with his gray tail flagged over his back like an Arabian.

  We sat there for a moment in shock.

  “How? Why? How?” Mickey stuttered.

  “It doesn’t matter how,” I said. “But we can’t open the gate until we catch them all. If one of them gets loose on the highway, we’ve had it.”

  We climbed over the gate and ran to the barn to get buckets of grain and halters. Thank goodness the feed room door was still locked but all the stall doors were open.

  “I know your horses are smart,” Uncle Carl said. “But there is no way that they did this all on their own.”

  “I know,” I said. “But we don’t have time to think about that now. Let’s just catch them and make sure no one is horribly injured.”

  All I could think about was Harlow, galloping about on his bad leg while his ligaments tore. So far he’d only been allowed out in Bluebird’s old paddock where there wasn’t enough room to run around and of course the freedom had gone to his head. He was high on adrenaline and not willing to go back to his stall without a fight.

  “Come on boy,” I shook the bucket of grain. “Harlow, come here boy.”

  He stopped for a moment, his sides bellowing in and out and sweat flecked down his neck, then he snorted and took off again. I trailed after him, knowing it was going to be impossible to catch him like this. Every few minutes he would stop, look around with wild eyes and let out a whinny. The other horses would answer and then he would take off again, great sods of earth flying into the air as his hooves dug into the wet ground.

  His wraps were
soaked through with mud, standing wraps that were meant for standing in a stall, not flying about the pasture like a fool. If his jumping career hadn’t been over before, I knew it would be over now. There was no way that he would come out of this without permanent damage being done to his leg and I knew who I had to thank for it. Jess. She may have been at the show but I knew without a doubt that this was her dirty work. It appeared she was going to take us down one way or another.

  The others were catching the horses and ponies one by one and taking them back to the barn but Harlow was having none of it. Eventually I just closed the field gate and left him. We still had to unload the horses from the trailer and check everyone to make sure they hadn’t been hurt in the great escape, especially the horses belonging to boarders who only thought Esther was on vacation and didn’t know that it could end up being a permanent one.

  “Let’s pull the trailer in and unload,” I shouted to Uncle Carl.

  “What about Harlow?” Mickey came over, wiping her forehead.

  She had mud streaks down her shirt and a twig tangled in her hair.

  “He won’t come,” I said. “I can’t catch him.”

  “Want me to try?” she asked.

  “No, let’s just leave him. Maybe he’ll calm down when he sees that everyone else has gone inside.”

  “But what about his leg?”

  “There is nothing I can do about it,” I sighed. “The damage has probably already been done anyway.”

  We unloaded Wendell, Hampton and Bluebird who were all a little hyped up after hearing galloping hooves and people calling horses for the last half hour. When they were safely put away we went stall to stall, checking legs for heat and swelling and bodies for cuts and abrasions.

  “Princess has a cut on her butt,” Mickey called out.

  “Teeth marks?” I called back.

  “Looks like it.”

  “That would be Saffron,” I said. “Better check her for hoof prints. You know how Princess likes to get her own back.”

  There was lots of salve passed around the barn. The horses all had a careful turnout schedule. They only went out in fields with other horses that they got along with but this had been a free for all. It was a recipe for disaster, one that never should have happened.