Winter Blues (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 3)
Page 12
“He’s rich, I bet he has maids and a chef and a brilliant mansion with marble floors and crystal chandeliers.”
“You watch too much television,” I told her. “I’m sure the only thing Miguel Rodriguez cares about is that his horses stalls are cleaned properly and all his grooms are doing their jobs. You know, kind of like maids but for horses.”
We were sitting in the barn cleaning tack which I actually didn’t mind but Mickey kind of hated. The soggy bridle sat in her lap and her sponge had rolled half way down the aisle as she went on and on about Miguel and the clinic.
“You’re so lucky,” she said. “I’d give anything to go.”
“No you wouldn’t.” I put down the girth I’d finished with and picked up her abandoned bridle. “It’s going to be work, really hard work. We’ll probably be riding eight hours a day and the rest of the time we’ll be learning lots and it will be super tiring.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I’d rather just stay in his mansion.”
At the end of the winter circuit, Bluebird and I had won the Snowball Cup and a place in renowned show jumper Miguel Rodriguez’s clinic. Well, technically I’d tied for first place when another girl, Becka Williamson and her pony Topaz, had managed to complete the jump off in the exact same time I had. Thanks to the polar vortex and the freak Florida snow flurry, that really only lasted ten minutes, they decided not to have us jump off again but to split the prizes.
“Becka said that Miguel is scouring the nation to find talented riders for his new junior jumper team,” I said.
“Great,” Mickey mumbled, her face falling. “You can all be BFF’s on the team then.”
“It’s not like that,” I said.
But it kind of was. Becka and I had been emailing back and forth about the clinic. She was easy to talk to and she’d been doing the jumper circuit a lot longer than I had. She’d even given me advice about what to take to the clinic and how to impress Miguel.
“She’s probably just trying to sabotage your chances of getting on the team,” Mickey had said when I told her.
“Why would she do that?” I asked defensively.
“Duh, because she wants to win,” Mickey had said before stomping off.
I knew that she was jealous of my new found friend but Mickey wasn’t going to the clinic and Becka was. It was going to be nice to have a friendly face there.
“You girls want a lesson later?” Esther stuck her head out of the office.
“No,” Mickey said. “I have to go. My mom has some family dinner thing planned.”
“What about you Emily? Want to get in a few more pointers before you go off to your clinic and become a big star?”
“Yes please,” I grinned.
“Suck up,” Mickey whispered under her breath.
But the brewing uneasiness between me and Mickey was long forgotten as I sat on Bluebird an hour later in the arena. It was a cold February day and he was feeling his oats. He’d already spooked at a bucket and then snorted at a crop lying on the ground by the gate.
“You’d better not let that pony embarrass me,” Esther said. “Don’t forget, you’re representing Sand Hill Stables as well as yourself.”
“I know,” I said. “I won’t let you down.”
“Good. Now let’s get to work.”
Bluebird could jump like a cricket. His turns were tight and his transitions were clean. Other than the head tossing, the only other thing he seemed to suffer from was pony ADHD. Lately it had been worse than ever. One minute we’d be working great in the ring and the next he’d see some invisible monster off in the fields and completely lose his mind.
“Do you think he’s too fit?” I asked Esther.
“Too fit?” she laughed. “Hardly. You want to ride in the big competitions, you need a fit pony. You just need to ride him more.”
But I was riding him six days a week with only one day off and that was only because my mom had this new thing about Friday night being family time. She called it Friday fun day but it was more like a Friday freak show and mostly consisted of her trying to build some sort of bridge between me and my new stepfather. It wasn’t working. There was nothing she could do or say that would make me love Derek or even like him. As it was we got by with limited eye contact and some non-committal grunts every now and then. It was kind of working for me. I wished she would just leave us alone.
Bluebird, taking advantage of my wandering mind, gave a dirty cow hop and I landed face down in the dirt. He took off bucking and farting and galloped around the ring twice before Esther could catch him.
“That happens at the clinic, you think you’ll make the team?” Esther asked, her face set in a frown.
“No,” I said, brushing dirt off my shirt. “Sorry, it was my fault. I was distracted.”
“It wasn’t only your fault,” Esther said, feeling Bluebird’s withers. “I think this pony may need a new saddle.”
“Great,” I sighed. “Something else I can’t afford.”
So far I’d managed to get by on my winnings and Esther let me pay a reduced rate for board because Bluebird didn’t have a stall. I worked off my lessons and kept my fingers crossed that no big expenses would come up, like saddles.
“And I thought I had problems when he needed a winter blanket,” I said. “You don’t happen to have a nice saddle lying around, do you?” I joked.
“I’ve got plenty of saddles but they are all pretty beat up,” she said. “Come on, let’s go and see what we can find in the tack room.”
But an hour later and we’d tried every pony saddle on Bluebird and none of them seemed quite right. They were either too narrow or too wide and the only one that even came close to fitting him didn’t fit me at all.
“What am I going to do?” I said. “The clinic is in two weeks. If I show up there with a saddle that doesn’t fit right, what is Miguel going to say?”
“He’s going to say that you don’t know what you are doing,” she shook her head. “And that your trainer doesn’t know what she is doing either.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I said.
I wanted to cry. It was like fate was somehow conspiring against me. Every time I made it one step forward, I was shoved two steps back.
“Let’s try some different saddle pads and see if we can at least make him comfortable,” Esther said.
She tried out several different combinations before she finally seemed like she was satisfied and when we went back out to the ring, Bluebird was certainly less distracted. He didn’t lose his focus like he had been doing lately and he didn’t kick out when I asked him to move off my leg.
“That was better,” I smiled, relieved.
“Yes,” she said. “But it’s a temporary fix.”
“Great,” I said. “He always needs something.”
“Welcome to the world of horses,” Esther grinned. “They’re way worse than kids.”
When I put Bluebird in his field for the night, I told him that he’d better toughen up and stop keep acting out.
“I don’t act all foolish when I need a new pair of shoes,” I told him.
He snatched the last carrot from my hand and ran off with it sticking out of his mouth like a cigar. The pony was a ham and no matter what he did or what he needed, I was so lucky that I had found him.
I held on to that thought later as Mom, Derek and I sat around the kitchen table eating dinner. The conversation was, as usual, stilted.
“Did you have a good ride?” Mom asked, trying to draw me out of the shell I’d put up.
“Yes,” I said. “But Bluebird needs a new saddle.”
“How much does one of those things cost?” Derek grunted.
“Not as much as your cars,” I told him.
I still hadn’t figured out why he had so many of them sitting out there in the driveway. The least he could do was rent them out or something and make some money off them. As it was he was living off my mother because as she put it, he was between jobs
. I knew better. He wasn’t between anything. He was just lazy.
“Now Emily,” Mom said diplomatically. “That’s not exactly fair. How is Derek supposed to know how much a saddle costs?”
I answered with a shrug. To be honest even I didn’t know how much one was going to cost. There was new and used and custom fitted, all with a price range of hundreds to thousands. Just thinking about it put me off my food.
“So this pony of yours,” Derek said, putting down his knife and fork and wiping his ugly moustache. “He costs a lot of money, right?”
“I’ve never asked you for anything,” I said. “And I’m not asking for anything now. I’m just saying that Bluebird needs a new saddle, that’s all.”
The words came jumbling out and I was already on my feet, my chair and back against the wall. We’d been down this road before. One minute Derek was happy because he found out that jumpers actually won real prize money and the next he was pouting because he found out that he wasn’t going to get his sticky fingers on any of it. I lived in a perpetual state of anxiety, wondering when the rug was going to be pulled out from under me for good and I was going to be told that I had to sell my pony.
“Emily,” Mom said sternly. “Sit down. There are some things we need to talk about.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Claire Svendsen fell in love with horses at age two when she got her first pony. The only trouble was that it wasn’t a real horse, it was a rocking horse. From that day on she begged, pleaded and bribed for lessons, riding clothes and a horse of her own. She had to wait and work really hard to finally get her first real horse but when she did, it was a dream come true. Over the years she has trained horses, given lessons and even run her own stable.
No longer able to ride due to injury, Claire lives vicariously through the characters in her books. When she’s not busy writing, you’ll find her hanging out at the barn with her retired Thoroughbred Merlin who loves carrots, apples and bowing on command.
STAY CONNECTED
To keep up to date on all the Show Jumping Dreams news and to learn about horse and pony care, you can follow my horse Merlin on Facebook. He is the only one with the inside scoop. Plus he’s really cute!
https://www.facebook.com/showjumpingdreams
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
COMING SOON
STAR PUPIL: CHAPTER ONE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
STAY CONNECTED