Winny didn’t seem to enjoy the suspense. “Get moving,” she grumbled, unaware that the jump was still standing. I didn’t care if she was grumpy now. When we crossed the finish, she’d see I hadn’t totally messed up our chances of winning.
I shuddered when we came to the fourth obstacle. To the side of the poles were jagged, mountainous cutouts that looked more like a beast’s teeth than something horses were supposed to brave. Still, I summoned the courage and leaped.
It’d only been about twenty seconds since we started but we were already past the fourth jump. The fifth and sixth jump were tricky. They weren’t lined up well enough to take both head on so the horse needed to be flexible and the rider needed to set the approach up correctly or there was bound to be a run out. Winny pressed me over as far as she dared and mid-air, she pushed me further to the left to line up with the sixth. She had set me up perfectly for success.
Tearing around the course, we found ourselves at the seventh jump—a triple combination with evergreen tendrils wafting gently in the breeze. Of course, they looked like gnarled fingers but their distinct pine scent gave away their harmlessness.
“Jump, bounce, jump, two strides, jump!” Winny told me. I obeyed. The first jump was a high vertical, followed by an even higher vertical. The space between the two was tight, so I bunched up my hindquarters and pushed, snapping my forelegs tight to my chest. I expertly skimmed over the jump. Two strides later, rather than focusing on pushing up, it was stretch—the oxer was an impressive stair step that seemed to spread forever. A few feet away, I could hear the clicking shutter from the press as we jumped along the spectator’s fence line.
Ms. Diederich and Danika stood with a seriousness that only experienced trainers felt as they watched their trainees compete. It was more than entertainment to them—it was a culmination of their teaching, and they watched for the promise of a win from their pupil that validated their life’s work. They could count the strides between jumps at a glance and instinctively knew the best line to approach. Though Ms. Diederich hadn’t been on a horse recently, her natural talent hadn’t waned one bit. A lifetime of intensely training herself and in turn, training others, kept the equestrian spirit alive and well.
Mike leaned on the rail next to them, his beautiful blue eyes trained on us. His lips were moving as we cantered past, and as I focused on them, I realized what he was muttering.
“Left turn, thirteen strides to the wine barrel,” he mouthed.
He had memorized the course. He knew the distances. What meant the world to me meant the same to him. Why had I ever doubted marriage to him would be anything other than our own version of happily ever after? I had barely tried to comprehend the complexities of his college coursework, selfishly focused on myself and developing my own talents, and there he was, not only watching but investing everything into our go at the Regalia. He shoveled manure and slung hay without complaint. He broke his back shoeing horses for complete strangers who were desperate for help and had heard through word-of-mouth that he was honest and hard-working. He gave up his spot to little old ladies who couldn’t see over his broad shoulders as he stood at the warm up ring, focused on our every move. Whenever he walked with Winny and I, he took the reins and laced his fingers with hers, thinking they were mine. Mike was my Prince Charming and I’d taken it for granted.
“Wake up!” Winny snapped with a brisk tug on the reins to slow me down as I barreled recklessly over the sand. I’d only been daydreaming a fraction of a second but the eighth jump was upon us. I scrambled to get my bearings, and in a panic, propelled myself over the jump before I should’ve. Winny bounced back into the saddle with my effort and held tight to the reins to keep from tumbling backwards head over heels. The strain on my bit kept me from being able to bascule over the poles properly, and when I landed, Winny crashed hard on my back, ramming her sternum into the crest of my neck, not unlike Gretchen had done on Isis when her stirrup broke. Without a protective vest, Winny felt the full force of the blow. The mass of spectators groaned along with Winny who sputtered desperately for air.
She gasped helplessly. I’d unintentionally knocked the breath right out of her. She sucked in tiny gulps but fear was setting in. I felt her weight tipping in the saddle so I swerved carefully to keep her from tumbling off. In my effort to keep her on my back, I slowed from my breakneck speed to a milder canter. Valuable seconds were ticking by and we both knew it.
I cursed myself for letting my mind wander while in the middle of the most important event of my life to date. Couldn’t I wait a lousy minute before indulging in a girlish daydream? The selectors for the Olympic team surely weren’t impressed with our inconsistent performance in the ring so far. Sure, we were clear to this point, but it wasn’t particularly pretty.
“Hang on, Winny,” I pleaded as she continued to struggle to catch her breath. I looked around the winding course for jump nine but couldn’t find it. Looking around in desperation, I realized the cluster of hoof prints followed a very certain path after the wine barrels. I curved around to match, picking up speed and eventually saw a small flag over a faux stone wall. Jump nine. Winny seemed to understand what I was doing and went with it. She still leaned slightly to the left where she had a stitch in her side so I compensated as best as I could.
By the tenth, Winny was breathing more deeply and evenly. Asking for a lead change, I obliged and followed a shallow arch to flashy vertical, held up by enormous butterfly wings. She croaked. “We need to kick it in to beat Chaos’ time.” I ignored the photographer sneaking shots next to the brightly painted wooden wings and leapt.
Though the spectators sat silently in their seats, everybody was on edge and the excitement was thrilling. As a novice, the pressure would have gotten to me. I’d have been distracted by all the eyes intently watching and evaluating my every effort. With dozens of shows under my belt, I’d realized that I still didn’t care for the attention, but I could feed off the energy of the crowd. As a horse with instincts and senses even more fine-tuned, that energy was palpable. A surge of adrenaline pumped through my veins and gave me the motivation to power it into the finish.
I dug into the footing and with her wits about her, Winny took control again. I picked up the correct lead after the eleventh jump then made a tight turn to a skinny three rung that was the final obstacle.
The rails were petite and as plain but I wasn’t lulled into their false sense of security. Once we were clear, I whipped my tail in excitement and Winny held on as I charged for the finish.
“We did it!” Winny cried and slapped my neck in congratulations. “Nicely done!”
The crowd was on their feet, shouting and clapping congratulations for our turn. I swore I could hear my mother’s voice over the collective roar and when I glanced up, I found her stomping on her seat again. “Yay, Nadia!” Dad was whistling shrilly and clapping alongside her.
Winny dropped my reins and waved with both hands to the crowd while I huffed and walked back to my people in a long-strided gait. The brisk morning had turned to a sunny, warm spring day and it suddenly registered how sweaty I was. I couldn’t help but twitch my skin as droplets of sweat weaved their way through my glistening coat.
Skylar clutched Chaos’ reins and clapped politely along with the crowd. We were light-years away from even the most fledgling form of friendship but Winny had gone out of her way to be civil. Except of course when she’d found out about Skylar’s attempts to lure Mike away. Then she’d defended our relationship like a junkyard pit bull. Winny noted Skylar’s gracious gesture and nodded in return.
Not far away, Chuck clapped from Boy’s back. Totally unruffled by the noisy applause, Boy had his left hind leg cocked while he half dozed in the sunlight. Gloria stood next to Quarter horse and something in her face unsettled me. It wasn’t that she hadn’t raised her hands to clap—I’d have died of shock if she had been so congratulatory. Her dark eyes narrowed into slits and she showed pearly white teeth as she smirk
ed. What was she so happy about?
Winny tipped forward in the saddle and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Thanks for the wild ride. You did as well as I would’ve. Almost,” she snorted. “You make a good horse, Nadia.”
Almost as an afterthought, she turned in the saddle to look at the clock. I knew something was wrong when her mouth dropped open in disbelief. “What was Gloria’s time?” she asked in a quivering voice.
My thoughts were in a jumble. No, it can’t be… My lungs felt like they were filled with iron. The announcer interrupted as I tried to come to a conclusion. “Well, folks, that was a spectacular effort from Nadia Wells and Headed for the Win. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to wrestle first place away from Gloria Reed and her mount, Chaos.” Each of his words was a knife in my chest. “Just waiting for the judge to confirm it, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll have the results momentarily.”
I turned and lifted my head to the judge’s gazebo. He stood at the center of the group, checking notes, typing on a tablet, radioing in to the upper tower.
With an optimum time of sixty-six seconds, we finished in sixty-four point two seconds. Chaos had carried Gloria around the course in sixty three seconds, flat. The realization of our amazing yet ultimately slower time sank in.
We’d lost.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“No,” Winny gasped almost inaudibly. “I can’t believe it.” she began to tremble and sob into her leather gloves.
Mike was at her side in an instant and pulled her from the saddle, wrapping her tightly in a secure embrace. I dropped my head, still catching my breath, wishing I could cry along with her.
A few nosy photographers stood in the background, documenting every moment of heartbreak. I swung my haunches toward them, trying to give us privacy but it was like trying to keep vultures from a carcass. I bumped Winny a few times on her back with my muzzle, trying to comfort her the only way I could.
She wrenched herself from Mike and turned to me. Her face—my face—blotchy and red. Winny’s mouth was pulled down into a pronounced frown, her chin pinched and trembling. “I’m sorry,” she sniffed. “This is all my fault. I should have ridden better. I should have been more aggressive. I shouldn’t have let myself shut down when I got the wind knocked out of me.” She wept and swung her clenched fists at my neck, not in anger at me but in frustration that our efforts hadn’t been good enough. It didn’t hurt one bit.
I pulled her in for a hug with my jaw. I could smell the scent of sweet pea shampoo in her hair. It was Mike’s favorite and I’d been using it ever since he mentioned he liked it on one of our first dates. He’d draped his arm across my shoulders while we waited for a movie to start and I’d willingly leaned in. I could still feel his warm breath on my scalp that caused a shiver to dance up and down my body.
Winny restrained herself and instead of pounding her fists into my thick neck, she weakly wrapped her arms around me and pressed her face into my smooth coat. I rested my heavy head on her shoulder and pinched my eyes closed.
There was nothing spectacular about it. No twinkling stars or heavenly chorus and certainly no lightning strikes. While lost in my own self-pitying, I snapped out of it when the weight of Winny’s jawbone on my shoulder suddenly registered. Fresh tears streaked my face when a moment ago, I’d only wished I could release my anguish in a good cry. Still warm and slick with perspiration, my body experienced the sensation differently. Rather than a sleek coat of fur that kept the sweat pressed next to my body, there were patches of my blouse that were damp and chilled, even under my show coat and necktie. Before opening my eyes and stepping back to see if our out-of-body experience had truly come to an end, I drew in a deep breath. I pulled in a lungful of Winny’s familiar scent. It was the same mixture of sweat, coat conditioner and sweet grass that always attended her after a heavy workout. I wriggled my fingers and toes, no longer hardened, undexterous hooves. I was human again.
I stepped back and took a good look at Winny. Her eyes were kind but at the same time, soulful and melancholy. I wiped the back of my glove under my eyes to dry my tears and rested an open hand on her solid shoulder. We were sharing the same experience and now that we were back in the bodies we were born in, we could express ourselves fully, even though no words were uttered.
Danika stepped forward, her hand outstretched with a tissue. “Here,” she said, trying to be cheerful. “You need to clean up before they call you out for a victory lap.”
She tried to smile happily but it was the sort of effort that somehow only made her look more unhappy. Danika wasn’t sad at our effort. She never even been upset when we’d come in dangerously close to last place a few times as we worked our way up the ranks. Her emotions were a reflection of our own disappointment—that we’d come so close to a fairytale ending to our first four star but had fallen short. So close, but not good enough.
Ms. Diederich betrayed no emotion in her stern face. She had been quietly observing Winny’s breakdown and my slow recovery without words. After I’d blown my nose and checked myself in a pocket mirror Kally had suddenly appeared with, she began to teach.
“Crying is over with,” she said curtly. “You have released it and now it is time to finish.”
“I know,” I agreed. “I feel better. Sorry for losing control.”
“Nobody can have control all of the time,” she said in her ever-present German accent.
“I know,” I repeated, wiping the tissue under my nose once more. “I was just hoping to be able to accept defeat a bit more graciously. I think I’m not a good loser, especially when I’m so close to winning it all.”
“Graciously losing certainly is something most people have to cultivate,” Ms. Diederich pointed out.
“I need to figure out how to reconcile losing with being positive,” I sniffled. “It’s hard to find the good in being beaten.” I tried forcing a laugh.
Ms. Diederich was silent for a moment, then offered, “One way or another, the experience is valuable. The accumulation of our efforts results in a win and if we do not win, we learn something.”
Pinching my nose between the tissue, I blew and took one more refreshing breath. “I’m done,” I announced. I turned to stroke Winny’s long face and saw Katie and Bullet strolling towards us.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” she said before wrapping her arms around my neck.
Yeah, it does. But it’s alright. Not bad for my first attempt at this level.”
“That’s very true. My first Regalia, I was in the bottom five on my old horse, Roger, who was capable of jumping the height but was slow as molasses in wintertime. I was just happy to finish then.”
“Bullet’s such a good horse,” I reached over and stroked his nose and he met my hand eagerly. “He’s always watching out for you.”
“He’s going to take us far,” Katie agreed. “Having the right horse and the right skill level and physical ability but the wrong timing or lack of luck or whatever it is, makes losing rougher. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
“I’m still hoping for a shot at the Olympics next year, though,” I said, holding up crossed fingers for luck. “Something about winning a gold medal would make everything alright,” I laughed.
“I’d love to be on your team. Of course, I’ll be riding for that individual gold.”
I grinned. “Me too.”
The clicking of men’s dress shoes interrupted us. Carlos marched briskly in our direction with a fake smile plastered on his face. He removed his ever-present hat and ran a hand through his hair. Over the week, he’d tanned a deeper mocha even though he constantly had the brim of his hat casting a shadow over his face.
“Congratulations on your placings,” he said a little too cheerfully. “If you’d please mount your horses, the judges have approved the final standings and we’ll be having the victor’s lap and awards ceremony for you two and Gloria shortly.”
Katie thanked him and turned Bullet toward t
he arena before jumping into the saddle. I turned back to Carlos and quietly unleashed the inferno that’d been burning in my chest.
“Surprised to see us here, Carlos?” I seethed. “I’d think after covering Gloria’s tracks last night, you of all people would be shocked to see us still competing. She was able to knock just about everyone else out of the competition that she targeted. But not us.”
He drew in a sharp breath and was knocked back a step by my words. He glared at me. “I afraid I don’t know to what you are referring.”
“Oh, I think you do,” I smiled, toying with him. “You’ve been erasing security tapes of her sneaking in the barn at night. I heard you say it.”
“How did you—”
I smirked haughtily. “I have my ways.”
Carlos got his sense back and made some threats of his own. “I’d be careful what you’re saying, Ms. Wells. I have the power to destroy your career.”
“But you won’t,” I said with fake confidence, my mouth feeling dry and my heartbeat palpitating from his threat. “It’d be interesting for people to know that you and Gloria have been cohorts. Isn’t that a conflict of interest? Besides, I’m sure you two are too interested to see who can really pull off a win the next time we face each other.”
Winny swatted her tail and stomped on the paved walkway. She was without a doubt on my side.
I met Carlos’ dark eyes in a stare-down, interrupted by Kally’s approach. “Nadia? Let’s get you back on Winny. I need to do some touchups before you go back out.
Carlos returned his hat to his head and coldly bid us good day. He disappeared back into the arena for the awards ceremony without another word.
Kally watched him walk away while wiping the foam from the corners of Winny’s mouth. “He’s a real charmer, isn’t he?” she said sarcastically.
“Part of the psychological game of horse showing,” I pointed out.
“He gives me the creeps,” Kally said frankly.
Road to the Regalia (Nadia and Winny Book 2) Page 18