CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
The warm up ring was empty because everyone else was still walking the course but I already knew what I was going to do when I got in there. What I didn’t know was if Socks could handle it. I asked him to canter, pressing my legs against his sides to see just how fast he would go. His ears flicked back and forth as he opened up his stride and took off. I left the reins slack, a trick I’d learned from riding Fury. She didn’t like it when you hung on her mouth either and I’d learned to use my legs and body weight to control her as I did now with Socks.
Without the watchful eye of my father, I was able to really get to know the horse without feeling self-conscious. It was going well and I was starting to feel more comfortable on him so I took him over the warm up vertical and then circled around for the oxer that we hadn’t jumped before. He tensed up, stretched over it and then took off at a gallop. I didn’t do anything except use my weight and legs to turn him back to the vertical. He seemed confused. He gave a little skip and a hop, kicking up his heels, his ears flicking back and forth. I could tell he was wondering why I wasn’t pulling on his mouth or freaking out and I knew then that this wasn’t a horse that was scared or frightened or sick of jumping and trying to tell people like Fury. He was a joker. A character who wanted to play.
“You really want to play?” I asked him. “Well come on then.”
We flew over the vertical and then back to the oxer. Back and forth we circled, cutting in close and jumping across the diagonal. He seemed to like this game better. His ears were pricked and he wasn’t trying to run away with me anymore because he didn’t have time to think about it. If I asked him to jump from a difficult angle, then getting over the jump was the only thing that filled his brain and this was a far better challenge than trying to run away with his rider. I could tell that he liked it and I was pretty confident that now I knew what he was all about, I stood a good chance of placing in the speed class. Until I heard my father yelling.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
“What on earth do you think you are doing?”
We were busted. My father had seen us and stormed over. He was standing there with his hands on his hips and a look of thunder on his face but he didn’t scare me. After all, he didn’t know what I’d had to put up with living with Derek all this time.
“I was warming him up,” I said. “Properly this time and now that I know him a little bit better, we actually have a shot at winning this class.”
Socks was dancing about beneath me all excited after our jumping game. I let him fidget about, almost running my father over in the process.
“Yes, you look exactly like you’re ready,” he said sarcastically.
“Well maybe if you’d told me all about his little running out of the ring problem then I would have understood him a little better,” I said.
“You don’t need to know everything,” he snapped back. “You should be able to figure things out for yourself.”
“Like I figured out that you left us because you didn’t love us anymore? Like I’ve figured out that you’re trying to weasel your way back into my life without even so much as an explanation? And like I figured out that Missy is having your baby? Because if you’re getting a new child then I don’t see why you need me.”
Dad was standing there, his face red and mouth open. He didn’t know what to say and I wasn’t even sure why I’d said all those things but I knew that they’d been bubbling up inside me like a can of soda that someone had shaken before opening it. Besides, it wasn’t healthy to keep all your emotions bottled up inside, at least that’s what Mickey always said. The only trouble was that once the words were out there, you couldn’t take them back.
They called my number to the ring and I rode off, leaving him standing there. I wasn’t really sure what he expected from me. I was a kid not a horse. He couldn’t corner me and train me to be what he wanted. I was like Socks, sometimes I wanted to do things my own way.
“Come on.” I patted the bay horse on the neck as we went into the ring. “I’m going to give you the ride of your life.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
It was just me and Socks against the world. Well, against my father anyway. I tried to ignore all the girls crowding on the rail, watching to see if I screwed up because while everyone knew who Socks was, no one really knew who I was or that Rob was my father. I circled Socks at the canter, not looking to see if my father was watching because it was going to be easier to do this if he wasn’t watching and I especially didn’t want to know where he was in case he was right and I was wrong and Socks bolted out of the ring with me anyway.
The bell rang out and I nudged Socks into a gallop. There wasn’t time to take it easy. This was basically like a jump off course only we hadn’t had a first round to warm up. But after our little game out in the warm up ring, Socks knew what I wanted. He galloped over the first jump, a black and white vertical and I turned him in midair so that we could jump the next jump, a yellow plank on an angle. I already knew it was sitting on shallow cups but Socks sprung right over it.
There was a flat out gallop down to the other end of the ring where I set him up for a blue double combination and then cut inside two jumps to take him over the white triple bar. He only had a couple of strides to set up for it but he reached across the spread easily. Then we swung inside a rather ugly pot of flowers, his steel shoe clipping the metal vase and ringing out across the quiet crowd. We flew down the rail and over the triple combination. I didn’t even check him. He knew what he was doing and he thought this game was fun. The tighter the turns and the more difficult the angles I placed him at in front of the jumps, the more he loved it. There were only two jumps left, a red wall and a blue vertical. The wall was narrow and there was a long gallop to the last fence. This time there were no more turns or angles. This was just going to be a flat out gallop to the end and as long as Socks jumped them then it didn’t really matter if he bolted out of the ring as long as we went through the finish line.
I found my distance and closed my legs around him. He saw it and reached up and over the wall, springing like a stag with his long, lanky legs. Then I urged him on. He flat out galloped to the last fence and I didn’t bother and check him. I knew to do so would lose precious time and only make him mad. He was athletic and talented. He could jump much higher than these fences were set. I let him go all out, saw the spot when he did and let him take it. We flew past the finish line and I circled him around the ring but he wasn’t out of control, not even close. My reins were loose as he came sweetly back to a walk and then stopped and turned his head around, nudging my boot like he was looking for a treat. I pulled a sticky mint out of my pocket and gave it to him. Then we walked out to the loudest round of applause I’d ever heard in my whole life.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
I didn’t see my father anywhere and I didn’t really care. We walked past all the girls who were reaching out to pat Socks on the neck. He sidestepped them, still pumped up on adrenaline and the rush of jumping and so was I.
Jess flashed past on Hashtag. She was obviously next to go. I hung back, needing to walk Socks out to cool him off but wanting to see if walking the course with my father had done her any good or not.
Hashtag burst into the ring, pumped up on I didn’t know what. He was usually pretty level headed but today he was wild, his neck lathered with foam and tail flagged. I spotted my father by the gate, shouting out last minute instructions only I couldn’t hear what they were. Not that it mattered. There was no way that Jess was going to be able to do any of them.
When the bell rang, Jess dug her spurs into her horse’s sides and he did a little rear before taking off at an out of control gallop. They flew over the first fence and turned back to the plank. Hashtag was caught off guard and clipped it. The top plank fell but they kept on. Down to the double combination where they sent poles scattering all over the place and then she was circling him and looking confused. I could tell she’d forgotten which jum
p was next. She had that blank look on her face. The one you get when you simply can’t recall what you are supposed to jump next. A rider’s worst nightmare. Hashtag was galloping in the direction of the next jump and then at the last minute she swung him away and over the wall. She was off course.
The buzzer rang out. The embarrassing sound that lets you and everyone else know that you’ve been eliminated. Jess was furious. Her face was red and she yanked on the reins to get Hashtag to stop, which he did with a skidding slide. My father threw his hands up in the air and walked away before Jess even came out of the ring. Both his students obviously hadn’t listened to his instructions at all and while it hadn’t worked out so well for Jess, he couldn’t exactly say that I didn’t know what I was doing.
Socks and I slipped quietly away before anyone noticed. I didn’t need to be anywhere near Jess because she was bad enough when she was in a good mood but when she was in a bad one? Well, let’s just say I pitied the groom she was going to hand her horse off to.
We found a quiet spot under the trees and walked around. I left the reins loose and my feet were out of the stirrups and hanging down. Socks stretched his head low and sighed and I patted his neck and told him what a good boy he’d been because he was a sweet horse and I really liked him, although I would have given anything to be able to take Bluebird over that course because I knew we could have shaved seconds off the time I’d done it in with Socks.
One of the Fox Run grooms came over with a cooler.
“Thanks,” I said, taking it from him.
“Nice ride,” the groom said. “I haven’t seen him go that well since Missy had to stop riding him.”
I felt my face flush red, embarrassed that I’d drawn attention to myself but at least this time it was in a good way.
“Do you ride at Fox Run?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you around.”
“No,” I said. “Sand Hill.”
“I heard that barn is closing,” he said.
“That’s right.” I nodded, feeling bad for Esther all over again.
“Too bad.” He shook his head. “Where are you going to go?”
“I don’t know.”
He left me to walk Socks around, the buzz from my clear round extinguished thanks to his questions about Sand Hill because the truth was that I was still no closer to figuring out what I was going to do than I had been before. And it was clear that my father wasn’t going to be all warm hugs and ice cream cones. If he was trying to make things up to me, he wasn’t doing a very good job.
In the end I got off Socks and let him graze. He’d earned it and there was no one around to yell at me for letting him eat grass while he still had his bridle on. I listened to the crowds, cheering when someone did well and groaning after the deadening thud of a rail falling. I couldn’t tell if we were still in the lead or not and it didn’t really matter. I’d done my best and so had Socks. He hadn’t bolted from the ring with me like I suspected my father thought he would so as far as I was concerned it was a job well done.
It was getting late and there was a damp chill in the air. I needed to check on Bluebird and figure out how I was going to get him home. After all, I couldn’t ride him all the way back to Sand Hill with his sore butt. Perhaps I could bum a ride off someone. I was walking Socks back to the stalls when the girl who had been holding him earlier came running up.
“They are calling your number,” she said breathlessly. “Didn’t you hear?”
“No.” I shrugged. “We really placed?”
“You didn’t just place, you came in first,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
People who went first in speed classes didn’t win. There was always someone that came later who was willing to go faster and take more risks and somehow manage to get lucky at the same time and keep all the rails up. Only it seemed that Socks and I had intimidated the competition and even though there had been other clear rounds, they hadn’t been willing to take the risks we had and their times had been a lot slower.
I rode Socks over to the ring, handing his cooler off to one of the Fox Run grooms. It turned out that it was convenient that they all wore the same colored shirts because they were easy to spot in the crowd. I didn’t see my father anywhere. He was probably mad that his plan had backfired. He hadn’t made me look like a fool in front of everyone. I hadn’t been carted from the ring on an out of control horse or gone off course like his precious student Jess but it turned out that winning wasn’t the victory I was hoping for. Instead I just felt tired and sore and I wanted to take my injured pony home so that he could get some rest in his own stall.
I lined up with the other girls and one boy who’d come in third. His horse was a flashy gray and it made me think of the hurricane horse and how I hadn’t been able to find out what had happened to him. Esther had even called a couple of times but no one seemed to know where he had gone or maybe they were just lying and didn’t want to admit that he’d already been sold off to some meat buyer. I pushed the awful thoughts out of my head as the judge came and pinned the blue ribbon on our bridle. I recognized him from a few other shows, an older gentleman with a kind smile.
“I’ve seen you around before, haven’t I?” he said, patting Socks on the neck as I nodded. “Weren’t you the one whose pony was injured on the way here?”
“Yes,” I said. “But he’s going to be okay.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I’ve been following your progress with the little guy. He’s really quite talented.” He lowered his voice so that no one else could hear. “Don’t let anyone tell you that ponies can’t do as well as horses because their hearts are bigger and they can do anything they set their minds to if you just believe in them.”
“Thanks,” I said, my heart swelling with pride.
He stood back with a smile. “I’ve owned ponies all my life. Wouldn’t have it any other way. Have a driving pair now. You should come by my farm sometime, if you are interested.”
He handed me a card and I slipped it into my pocket. His words meant so much more to me than anything anyone had said in a long time. Why couldn’t my father have said something like that? I looked longingly after the old man as he went down the line patting horses and pinning ribbons and wished that he was my grandfather or even my father because the one I had wasn’t turning out to be so great after all, even if he did give me a ride on a talented horse because for all he knew, Socks could have very easily killed me.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Back at the stalls one of the Fox Run grooms took Socks from me. I wanted to take care of him but I needed to check on Bluebird so I didn’t protest when he was whisked away and taken care of just like the rest of the Fox Run horses were. I heard Jess down the row of stalls complaining loudly that this was the worst show she had ever been to and that she wouldn’t come here again in a million years. I felt a small swell of satisfaction that I’d been able to beat her when I wasn’t even on my own pony. Beat her when I was riding a horse that I hadn’t even ridden before. Maybe a career as a catch rider wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Now that I’d proven myself, perhaps I’d be able to pick up some more rides on other horses at shows that I took Bluebird to. Difficult horses that no one else wanted to ride.
I slipped into his stall where he was napping in the corner. He still had on the cooler that belonged to another pony. It said Rechargeable Batteries on the side in fancy monogrammed thread. I thought that was a pretty cool name for a pony and wondered who it belonged to.
“How are you doing?” I slipped my arms around Bluebird’s neck. “Is your butt okay?”
I pulled back the cooler, glad to see that there was minimal swelling but when I pressed gently around the tiny wound he flinched so I knew it was still sore.
“How are we going to get you home?” I asked him. “Do you think maybe Esther will come and get us?”
But I wasn’t too keen to call Esther and hear all about whether or not the buyers liked Sand Hill and I especially wasn’t too keen to h
ear her views on boys who shot ponies with pellet guns and girls who rode off to shows alone when they should have been using the buddy system.
“You know lately I’ve just been getting myself into one scrape after another.” I sat down in the corner of the stall. “I need to get my act together.”
Bluebird came over and nudged me with his nose, looking for treats in my pockets.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I gave the last one to Socks.”
He didn’t believe me and sniffled around until he finally gave up with a sigh.
“Socks did deserve it,” I said. “He was really great out there. Not as good as you of course but he was still fun to ride.”
The crowd over by the ring was cheering as the final class wrapped up. Soon people would be packing up their trailers and going home. I supposed that if the worst came to the worst I could lead Bluebird all the way back but it was a long way and what if we ran into those stupid boys again? Just the thought of it gave me the chills. I stood up, brushing the shavings off my legs.
“Guess I’ll have to call Esther,” I told Bluebird.
I was pulling my phone out of my pocket when a girl stuck her head into the stall.
“Hey,” she said. “Your pony is wearing my cooler.”
“Sorry.” I unbuckled it and pulled it off Bluebird.
“Wait, you’re that girl whose pony got shot on the way here, aren’t you?”
Off Course (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 12) Page 7