“No, I told you. She didn’t know if this was the place or not but it’s the only lead we’ve got,” I said.
“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Dad said as we gave the rusty gate a wide berth. “If I get shot because of you, you’re grounded. Okay?”
“Yes Dad,” I said.
There wasn’t much point in arguing with him. I was worried too. I was starting to think that going after Four was a bad idea after all but as we rounded a corner and broke out of the tree lined driveway, I knew that it wasn’t because right there in front of us were two gray horses in a muddy ring. They were hooked up to a broken down cart, their heads strapped tight and eyes full of fright. Two teenage boys were sitting in the cart, whipping the horses and laughing.
“Dad,” I cried. “It’s him. It’s Four. I’d recognize him anywhere.”
But I recognized the other horse too. Both were muddy, their gray coats dirty and covered in sand and manure stains but I knew them both. Only it couldn’t be. The other horse was supposed to be in a fancy barn next door to my house recovering from an injury, not strapped to a cart being tortured by two horrible boys.
Bluebird let out a soft nicker and Four looked over, straining his head to see us. He replied with a throaty neigh but the other horse didn’t. He tripped and fell to his knees.
“Dad.” I sobbed. “The other horse. It’s Harlow.”
THE END
COMING SOON
SHOW JUMPING DREAMS #31 SUMMER RIDER
The heat has settled over Florida like a blanket with endless hot and humid days. The Paris trip is off since the Junior Jumper team didn’t qualify to go and Emily can’t go on the training trip to Europe that she won because they don’t have enough money for a plane ticket. They hardly have enough money to feed their own horses so it’s not exactly like she can complain. Emily knows that this is how the horse business works. You can be on top of the world one minute and come crashing down the next. Dry spells are real and so is the summer slump. They just have to buckle down and get back to work building up their farm again.
But Duncan has big plans for Emily. Just because she can’t go to Europe, that doesn’t mean he still doesn’t want to get her the experience she desperately needs. So when he arranges for her to spend a whole month as a working student for a top show jumper, Emily is thrilled. She’s not so thrilled when she finds out that he’s arranged for Hanna to go too because even though the girls are friends, Emily doesn’t exactly need another rival trying to steal her thunder.
So the two girls will pack up their bags and take their horses on the road, travelling from show to show with an up and coming rider and their entourage. Sleeping in trailers and barns. Seeing the summer show circuit and getting a chance to compete. Its everything that Emily has dreamed of but it’s also more work than she’s ever done in her whole life. But she’s having to leave her other horses behind. Can she trust her father not to sell them while she is gone? And will a whole month of hard work on the road cement her Olympic dreams once and for all? Or will it put her off chasing that elusive gold medal for good?
SUMMER RIDER: CHAPTER ONE
The team show was over. We hadn’t done well enough to earn a chance to compete in Paris but I didn’t even care about that anymore. All I cared about was finding Four, the horse that belonged to me. He’d been on a free lease to Dakota, a girl from Texas who lost her own horses when her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
I thought I’d been doing her a favor. I thought I could trust her to take care of him and while he was at Fox Run and I thought that Missy would be taking care of him too. But it turned out that Missy didn’t have my back at all. She’d turned a blind eye when Four left and now we’d tracked him down to a shamble of a farm at the end of a dirt road where two teenage boys had him hooked up to a cart and were beating him into submission. Only Four wasn’t the only horse hooked up to the cart. There was another gray horse. One that I knew and loved and had been trying to get back even longer than I’d been looking for Four. Harlow.
“Boys,” Dad yelled at the teenagers. “What do you think you are doing?”
Harlow had fallen to his knees in the mud and was scrambling to get back on his feet again. Four was tipping up on his hind legs, trying to get away from the long whip that was snapping against his rump. The boys turned to see us standing there. Dad with his arms crossed and me on my pony, hand clutching my cell phone in case things turned south and I had to call the cops.
“What are you doing?” the older of the two boys shouted back. “No one invited you.”
For a moment I thought that Dad was going to get into a shouting match with the boys. All of them escalating the situation until it turned ugly and we never got our horses back but instead he walked over to them and began talking in the soothing tone that he used on wayward horses.
At first the boys were resistant, especially the older one. He didn’t want to look stupid in front of his friend. He even waved the whip in front of my father then snapped it around his heels. Dad didn’t even flinch. I longed to rush over there and tend to the two grays who were both now standing quietly. Harlow was shaking. Four still looked mad. But I had to think of my pony as well. I was sitting on his back because we couldn’t leave him in the trailer and the trailer wouldn’t get down the flooded road. All I could do was watch and hope that my father was saying things that would persuade the boys to give up the horses. Only I knew that they didn’t really have a say. It would be whoever owned the place and just as it looked like Dad was getting through to the teenagers, a burly man came waddling out of a shack by the side of the ring, smoking a cigar and pulling up his pants as he came towards us.
“What do you lot want then?” he said.
Dad walked towards him and stuck out his hand. He ignored my father. I could hear Dad trying to explain about the two horses. That Four belonged to us. That we had legal proof, papers that would show that whoever sold him didn’t have the right to. He also explained that we’d like to buy Harlow. A package deal. Take them both off his hands. The man listened and then laughed. It was the sort of laugh that was cruel and sinister. It sent a shiver down my spine.
“Look, I’m just trying to do you a favor,” Dad said.
The man laughed again and then spat on the ground. The glob of spit landed on my father’s muddy boot.
“A favor?” the man said. “I’ll do you a favor.”
Then he punched my dad in the face.
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.
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COLLECT THEM ALL
Other books in the Show Jumping Dreams series by Claire Svendsen
#1 Secret Rider
#2 Pony Jumpers
#3 Winter Blues
#4 Star Pupil
#5 Sale Horse
#6 Last Chance
#7 Hunter Pace
/> #8 Turf Wars
#9 Beach Ride
#10 White Horses
#11 Trick Pony
#12 Off Course
#13 Winter Wonderland
#14 Gift Horse
#15 Half Halt
#16 Young Riders
#17 Show Time
#18 Beginner’s Luck
#19 Chasing Ribbons
#20 Double Standards
#21 Stable Vices
#22 Jump Off
# 23 Dark Horse
#24 Boot Camp
#25 Second Chances
#26 Barn Sour
#27 Heart Horse
#28 Catch Rider
#29 Lead Change
#30 Two Strides
(COMING SOON) #31 Summer Rider
Two Strides (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 30) Page 11