“What the hell, hold back, hold back!” one of them shouted, holding up his hands. “You have to get out of here! We have a rider down!”
I ignored his protests and looked past him to see the cluster of paramedics, the empty stretcher, Pete on the ground in his green and blue colors, splayed on his back. Just beyond Regina was standing, another jump judge holding her reins. A scared little Pony Clubber with a walkie-talkie and a nicer horse than she’d ever touched before, hanging on to Regina’s reins, too confused to remember to always walk a hot horse. I jogged Dynamo right past the EMT and did the unthinkable without thinking.
I slid right off his back and abandoned him.
A dismount on the course was the same as a fall — elimination.
I didn’t care.
I shoved past a paramedic, who looked at me as if I had produced a jar of leeches and started chanting, and knelt down next to Pete. His face was bloodless, smeared with a streak of blood and dirt where he had scraped along the gravel of the hill — he must have been dragged for a stride, I thought desperately, to have ended up down here. I glanced back at the hillside and saw the broken stirrup leather in the scuffed gravel and my stomach lurched. I didn’t look at his leg. I was too thankful that his head seemed to be intact to wonder too much what had happened to the rest of him.
I laid my lips along his cheek, close to his ear, my hard hat rapping against his, and his eyes opened abruptly, wide and unfocused. I drew back so that he could see me. “Pete,” I whispered. “Goddammit, Pete, you can’t be hurt.”
“Miss,” the paramedic said impatiently. “Miss, I need you to give him some room. We need to make sure he can be moved without risking further injury.”
Pete’s eyes roved around my face and slowly focused. I waited, breathless, for anything to happen. Anything at all — he could say something, do something, just to let me know he was okay —
He groaned and closed his eyes again.
I shook my head, a million terrors crowding out any sense in my mind, and I leaned forward, shoving away the interfering paramedic with one horse-strong arm, and pressed my lips to Pete’s dry ones. What was I doing? True love’s kiss? Playing at fairy tales?
Wasn’t a girl who lived only for her horses living in a fairy tale every day, anyway?
Which was why I didn’t faint dead away when I felt him lift his hand and slowly, gently, stroke my arm, the only part of me that wasn’t covered by a body protector or a hard hat. There was some mystical part of me that had never grown up, through all the bitterness and all the brittleness that the struggle to get here had imparted upon my spirit. And I knew then that the place I had wanted to get to, the place that I had fought for my entire life, had abruptly changed addresses.
People came and cleaned up after us, and got the show back on the road. Pete was loaded into the ambulance, a lingering smile on his lips as he waved good-bye to me, just before the scowling paramedic slammed the door. The jump judge offered to take Regina back to the barn for me, another Pony Clubber arrived on the back of a four-wheeler and took over her post. The broken stirrup leather was retrieved, the scary scuffs in the gravel where Pete had been dragged and ultimately fallen were hastily raked over. We started walking through the woods to find the trail that cut back towards the starting-box and the stabling area. The show must go on.
But it would go on without us. This time, anyway.
For the first time in my life, I’d found something more important than an event.
I withdrew all the horses from the event, and Becky and Lacey helped pack up the tack and the horses.
“You could still show Mickey.” Becky caught my arm as I started for the show office. “You’re only eliminated on Dynamo. And that was a good dressage test. I mean — you really pulled him together when he was getting ready to pull his little leaping stunt. Whatever that trick was, it worked. The cross-country course would be great practice for him.”
“Becky,” I said, suddenly curious. “Have you ever seen Pete do that before?”
“Fall off?”
“No — back a horse up like he did Mickey.”
“Oh.” She thought. “No. I’ve never even really seen him hit a horse with a stick. Not the way he hit Mickey to get him started. It startled me, I have to tell you. But Pete wouldn’t abuse a horse. He had a reason.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” I agreed. “But I just don’t know why he thought to do it.”
“I guess just to shake him up,” she suggested. “Just to make him stop thinking about himself for a second and start thinking about the people around him. Pete says that horses replay old situations in their heads. They get upset, they go back to the last time they got scared, and they replay that scene over again. Like a stuck tape. They don’t always realize that things have changed, that it’s not so bad anymore.”
I nodded, chewing at my lip.
“So he had the pain issue, right?” Becky went on, warming to her subject. “The farrier said it probably went way back. So maybe when he was racing, his feet hurt. And he arrived at a new place, thought race, and panicked. And so it continued, even after his feet stopped hurting him. And he had to be reminded, hey, wake up, it doesn’t hurt anymore. He was too far into his own head, worrying about problems that weren’t even real anymore. He needed a big shock to help him snap out of it.” She gazed out at horizon, clearly taken with her theory.
And it was a good one. Shock therapy, without the electrodes. Wake up, there are real problems and this isn’t one of them!
“I have to withdraw him,” I told her. “I need to be with Pete. Can you girls get them home all right?”
Becky nodded, and in her eyes I read something that might have been respect. “Go.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Spring was always a fleeting thing in Florida, and despite the optimistic name of the event, the Lochloosa Spring Fling was already feeling more like the July event we’d nicknamed the Lochloosa Hellfire Inferno. The April sun was fierce, and the fluffy white clouds dotting the north Florida sky were just pale imitations of their UV-blocking summer cousins, providing next to no shade. But it was the last big event before the season ended and the migration to Virginia, Maryland, and New England began in earnest. Just us Floridians would stay behind, whether we were native, like myself, or adopted, like Pete and Lacey. Sticking it out in the heat and the humidity, the rain and the thunder, hoping for a break from the hurricanes, planting our roots deep in the shifting sandy soil.
They’d be back in the fall, and we’d be waiting for them. Tougher and tanner and ready to go. Mickey pulled at the reins, yearning and yearning to eat a palmetto bush a few steps away, and I straightened him out so that I could see the dressage arena a short distance away. Pete was riding his new filly in her first test, and she was skipping her way around the arena with nervous energy. Pete sat still, right in the middle of the action, refusing to argue with her.
My phone buzzed and I pulled it from the holster wrapped around my boot. A text from Lacey. She was bringing Dynamo over to the stadium jumping warm-up. We had our jumping round right after my Novice dressage test on Mickey. His last one, I hoped. We had been schooling Training level cross-country jumps back at the farm, and I was ready to move him up. But during our phone consultation last month, Carrie and Eileen had reminded me to take it slowly, waiting until he was absolutely ready. And then added that they were sending me another young horse. I couldn’t ask for better owners. “Taking it slow” was new to me, but I thought I could learn to enjoy it.
The gray horse shifted beneath me, cocking one hind leg to rest it. His nostrils fluttered in a little sigh, and he shook his head to dislodge a fly. All the tiny twitches and movements that are naturally part and parcel of a horse “standing still,” barely noticeable anymore after years in the saddle. I could still remember, if I tried, the feeling of terror, the shriek that escaped me, the first time five-year-old me sat on a pony and it shook off a fly. Now, all those twitches were part of my second
skin, an extension of me.
Pete came riding up, smiling broadly. He was evidently pleased with his ride. He’d picked up the little bay filly for free over the winter, from a breeding farm that was closing down suddenly. We both had a few new prospects we’d acquired this way — free young horses were a dime a dozen in Ocala these days, and not just unsound ones who needed a lay-off or veterinary work before they could be put back into training. The recovery from the hurricane was barely a recovery at all, it must be admitted. The mark of the hurricane had been left everywhere. Foreclosures — my own farm among them — were so common there was no shame in admitting it, and trainers who had once proudly run their own properties were banding together, sharing barns and houses, much as Pete and I had done.
Although admittedly, not everyone shacked up quite as thoroughly as we had.
“How was she?” I asked, eyeing the wide-eyed filly, who was snorting at a palmetto frond lying in the sandy path. She had never been to a show before, and she was certain that Lochloosa’s sun-scorched fields and oak-shrouded dressage arena were hiding monsters.
“Fantastic,” Pete said, even as she wheeled and threatened to rear. He slackened the reins and gave her a good kick in the ribs, which sent her ducking into Mickey for reassurance. His bulk absorbed the impact of her little frame without complaint, and he nudged her with his big head, nearly knocking the slight filly over. “I mean, before that,” he went on, grinning. “Keeping Mickey away from the ring was the way to go. She was able to concentrate on her work. Even got her leads.” He patted her on the neck and she sighed, chewing at her bit. “You did a nice job starting her.” Pete flexed his wrist, which still ached from the fracture he’d sustained at Sunshine State back in the fall. He was lucky that was all that he’d broken.
“She’s a good girl,” I agreed, ignoring the compliment and focusing on the horse. I still wasn’t good at taking compliments. Or advice. But I was working on it — when the compliments or advice came from Pete, anyway. “She’s getting way too attached to Mickey, though.”
“One thing at a time,” Pete replied placidly. “There’s no rush. If she can go around the ring without him, she’ll figure out the rest in time.”
In time. There’s no rush.
Learning to slow down, appreciate our time together… That was another lesson I was working at every day.
We sat quietly together, our horses napping, our knees touching. The dressage tests in the distant arena wore on with an unendingly hilarious lack of finesse or precision. A pigtailed girl with hunter-ring ribbons bouncing on her shoulders went slogging earnestly through her own version of Novice Test A on a bored schoolhorse, ending with a proud salute to the judge, who maintained a straight face with a prowess that spoke of many years’ practice. He knew: everyone has to start somewhere.
“You’re on in ten minutes,” Pete said eventually, checking his watch. “After the next ride, take him and jog around the arena while the rider before you goes. Just loosen him up, don’t ask for anything precise. Once you hear the bell, take him in at the same easy trot — don’t change a thing. Pick him up after the salute. As soon as you salute, it’s all business, okay?”
“I really appreciate you explaining that to me. Is that how dressage tests work? We trot around the arena while the other rider is in the ring? Are you sure? I don’t want to get in trouble. If only I’d done this before!”
Pete stuck out his tongue at me. “You have one last chance to win a Novice championship on this horse. Try not to screw it up.”
I grinned.
The next rider entered the arena, a middle-aged woman bouncing along on a broom-tailed Appaloosa who bore a happy disregard for the basic tenets of dressage, his nose straight in front of him as if there was a carrot dangling before it.
I leaned over and kissed Pete. He sat back on his little filly and smiled at me. “Go get ‘em, love,” he said. “Or I’ll have to do it for you.”
“Always a competition,” I scowled.
“You started it.” Pete quirked an eyebrow, his blue eyes twinkling with mischief.
I picked up the reins and awakened my drowsy gray horse with a little squeeze of my calves. He picked up his head willingly and we stepped off for the dressage arena. We’d do our test, and I’d hop off and ride Dynamo in the stadium-jumping. Then I’d get on Virtuoso for one last dressage round before his new owner took him home tomorrow night, ride my new project horse in her first dressage test, and, finally, watch Lacey ride Margot in her test. It had been a long, hot morning, and there was a long, hot afternoon ahead of me. But I was ready for it. This was what life was all about. These horses, this land, this brilliant blue sky. And that man sitting back there behind me, believing in me as I believed in him, while we strove to be the very best. We were ambitious as hell, and there was not a thing wrong with that.
The bell rang.
Rising trot, halt at X, salute the judge.
About the Author
Natalie Keller Reinert grew up with horses: first riding hunters, then discovering her true love, eventing, with a green off-track Thoroughbred named Amarillo. But never one to turn down an experience, she has also started future racehorses under saddle, groomed for eventer Ralph Hill, bred Thoroughbreds, and galloped racehorses at Aqueduct Racetrack. She also spent a year with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, as a groom and rider with their Mounted Enforcement Patrol, riding on patrol in Central Park and other NYC parks.
In 2011, she released her first novel, The Head and Not The Heart. In 2014, Book 2 of the Alex and Alexander series, Other People’s Horses, was named a semi-finalist for the prestigious Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award, recognizing full-length books on horse racing.
Also in 2014, Reinert released Claiming Christmas, an Alex and Alexander novella, as well as her first historical romance novels.
Reinert lives in Brooklyn, New York with her family.
For more information and to keep up with new projects, visit NatalieKReinert.com. You can also follow Reinert on Twitter at @nataliekreinert and on Facebook at facebook.com/NatalieKellerReinert.
Keep reading with Natalie Keller Reinert’s equestrian fiction and historical romance novels.
The Alex and Alexander Series:
The Head and Not The Heart
Alex's life looks pretty wonderful to the casual observer. She's in a committed relationship with a master racehorse trainer. Surrounded by hundreds of horses in the green hills of Ocala, Florida, it's a dream life for any equestrian. But suddenly she's tired of hitting the ground when a flighty racehorse decides to spook, tired of fending off biting and kicking foals, tired of 2 AM calls for veterinary emergencies. And Alex is starting to wonder if she's made the right choices in life. When their racing stable suffers a loss, she and Alexander slowly begin to fall apart. A chance find of a long-lost horse sends Alex alone to New York City, and she wonders if this is the sign she's been waiting for. Is it time to leave it all behind and start fresh?
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Other People’s Horses
Semi-finalist for the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award.
Six horses and Saratoga. It's a young trainer's dream come true, and it's happening for Alex at last: Alexander is entrusting the farm's racing string to her while he heads Down Under to help run his sick brother's farm. But Saratoga isn't interested in Alex without Alexander. Unproven and decidedly female in a man's world, Alex finds herself the target of old-school racetrackers certain she married her way into training good horses. At the same time, her naïve assistant, Kerri, is far too interested in the less-than-scrupulous trainer who shares their barn. But running a racing stable doesn't leave much time for petty fights and stable rivalries. Horses need to be worked, races need to be run. And Alex has her eye on something besides the winner's circle: a funny-faced filly, a chestnut nobody with a spotty blaze and a decided lack of brakes. Saratoga thinks the filly has a screw loose. But Alex knows better.
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Claiming Christmas
All Alex wants for Christmas is a little peace and quiet. After all the drama of her summer in Saratoga, she's been taking it easy around the farm, enjoying the horses (and baiting Alexander). But a phone call from a local charity changes all that. When Alex meets Wendy, a young girl with a tragic past, she finds herself going to surprising lengths to brighten Wendy's life – and visiting some surprising places. A filly named Christmas, a horse-crazy kid, and a trainer who never thought much about holidays or children – Claiming Christmas celebrates the bond between horse and human, and between a trainer and student.
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Short Stories:
Horse-Famous: Stories
Three short stories by literary writer Natalie Keller Reinert, exploring the culture of horse racing and English riding. Set on the backside of a racetrack, "Expendable" was previously published by Bushwick Daily, and is described in one review as "A well-executed short. Natalie Reinert displays a rare knack for providing a ton of insider's info with grit, yet at an effortless pace."
"Horse-Famous" delves into the obsessive, traditional culture of British horsemanship. After half-a-life on the run from the horse business, Holly has spent six months pouring all her energy into renovating an old farm into a model equestrian center, according to the strict rules of the English Equestrian Council Manual, a book she knows by heart. But the white-glove inspection will uncover more than cobwebs in the tack room: in Holly's tumultuous youth, she was a famous rider.
Ambition: (The Eventing Series Book 1) Page 33