Show Barn Blues

by Natalie Keller Reinert

  I picked up the rains again and gave him a poke with the spurs to remind him that Arena Time was My Time, and we trotted off down the rail, business as usual. When you gave a horse a job he was good at, he did it with pleasure, and asking anything more of him was really asking for the moon.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sunday’s cancellation came from Colleen, who had decided Bailey would benefit from Kennedy’s Magical Trail Ride Therapy. I was already furious, since Missy Ormond showed up for her riding lesson in a pair of jeans, which was strongly discouraged — I liked my students to have a professional appearance at all times. I nearly spit nails when, while wiping off her tack after her rescheduled riding lesson, Stacy blithely suggested that we all have a group trail ride in a few weeks.

  I had been mulling over a new cancellation fee for all riding lessons. “What’s that?” I snapped, but Stacy didn’t pay me any mind.

  “With a barbecue,” she went on enthusiastically. “We could use that old fire-pit, and roast marshmallows. Or make s’mores. It’ll be like we’re kids again.”

  “What old fire-pit?” I knew exactly where my grandfather’s fire-pit had been dug and bricked, but nobody else knew about it. Rather, nobody else had known about it, and that was the way I liked it. Was Kennedy going to dig out all of my skeletons and parade them around in front of me? I put things deep into closets for a reason.

  “It’s out by the lake,” Colleen explained. “We could all ride to the lake and maybe the grooms or anyone who doesn’t want to ride can take out supplies and wait for us with the Gator. Kennedy and I rode out there yesterday. There’s practically a road. Did you know there’s a road out there?”

  “It’s an old Indian trail,” I muttered, and everyone in the tack room started clamoring to see it, unable to believe I had denied them the opportunity to ride on a real live Indian trail. “That lake has gators in it,” I added. “And water moccasins.”

  “So does all the water in Florida,” Colleen said. I guessed she was feeling cocky after such a good ride. She’d gotten Bailey around a three-foot-nine course without any dirty stops at all, and Bailey was known for dropping his shoulder when he did not feel that his rider was paying sufficient attention, sending said rider tumbling into the fence while he went the other way. It was one of the things I liked about it. “I might not have lived here my whole life like you, but I know that. Have you ever been to Gatorland Zoo? I held a baby gator there. It had its mouth taped shut.”

  I had, but when I was ten or eleven, not when I was forty-four years old and the mother of three. “The gators out at the pond will not have their jaws taped shut,” I reminded her. “And horses don’t like them.”

  “Oh, they’ll swim away when we come,” Colleen laughed derisively. “Little old gators! Kennedy says they’re afraid of horses.”

  “Sometimes horses are afraid of gators,” I said coldly. “Did you ever think of that?”

  The tack room went silent, as if everyone sensed there was a story behind my warning. Well, they weren’t going to get it. I went out and found Missy, who was warming up in the arena, and shouted at her for the next thirty minutes until I felt that she was satisfactorily punished for wearing jeans for her lesson.

  It should have improved my mood, all that hollering, but I was still annoyed afterwards. Maybe it was the jeans, mocking me as I followed her into the barn. Donner’s shoes rang on the concrete pathway, the sidewalk I’d had constructed over a perfectly good pathway of sand so that the boarders could keep their boots clean. I’d gone to insane lengths to provide affluent equestrians with a picture-perfect equine utopia, and now all they wanted to do was mess around in the woods and look at alligators. One had to wonder what the point of anything was.

  I wanted to gather all of them together and give them the facts: that water moccasins do not swim away, unlike alligators — they were aggressive, venomous snakes, and my grandfather had shot them on sight — that horses see things before riders do, and react as they see fit, that sometimes that means injuries and death — but it just seemed like harping at this point. Everyone was getting the impression I was a total downer, the mom waving her finger and saying “no” when all the kids wanted to do was have a little fun, and I was going to have to let them work through this new obsession on their own.

  Hopefully, no one would get hurt.

  But there were still lines one had to draw… “Missy?”

  She didn’t turn her head. “Yeah?”

  Rude. “Please don’t wear jeans for your riding lesson next time. There is no point in training if you’re not using the same equipment you’ll be using at a show. The grip that you get in a pair of jeans is entirely different from the grip you get in breeches and boots.”

  She turned Donner into the nearest wash-stall and walked him around until he was facing the aisle. She looked at me then. “Jeans are more comfortable,” she said flatly. “Won’t we do a better job if we’re comfortable?”

  I shook my head. “So when you go to a show you’re trying to perform the same movements, but now you’re uncomfortable and in unfamiliar gear? That doesn’t make much sense, does it? There’s a reason we wear correct riding attire here, Missy. It’s part of reaching our goals.”

  Missy busied herself unbuckling Donner’s throat-latch and nose-bands. “I guess every now and then I’d just like to be comfy and have a little fun when I’m riding,” she snapped, not facing me once again. It was probably easier to rebel against Mom when you weren’t making eye-contact, I reflected.

  “Are you not having fun?” I enquired, leaning against the wall as casually as possible. Because if you aren’t, I’m in big trouble, I thought. “Aren’t you looking forward to the show season?”

  “Oh… I mean… yes…” Missy backpedaled rapidly. “I just meant… sometimes it seems like all hard work and no play.”

  That’s exactly what it is, I thought. Very good, head of the class. “Well, if you want we can sit down and reassess your goals. If you want to take some showing off the schedule to allow for a little more fun time, we can do that. Of course, you won’t be able to progress up the levels as quickly as you wanted to. But we can put Marshall & Sterling classes on hold for another year —”

  “Oh no!” Missy had been talking about qualifying for the Marshall & Sterling classes since her first horse show, two years ago. She’d ridden as a child at a big hunter/jumper barn in Virginia, and still talked about the fabled Barn Nights at the Washington International Horse Show, when she and all her little friends had dressed up in their farm jackets and run around the convention center buying up horsey trinkets and watching the show-jumping from box seats. But Missy’s parents hadn’t been able to afford an A-circuit level horse when she was a kid. Missy’s husband, twenty-five years later, could. Missy, like so many of my students, was just trying to capture her childhood dreams of showing and stardom. “No, I don’t want to put it off — you said this year was going to be the year…”

  “And I still think it is, if we stick to our training schedule,” I said gently. “If you want to take Donner on a few gentle walks on the trail, maybe to cool him out, and you’re going with someone else, and you feel totally confident that no one will spook or get hurt or run away in any way, shape, or form, that’s one thing. You can add a tiny bit to your training, but you definitely can’t take anything away, or you won’t be ready. And you have to understand that there are risks to riding out there. If Donner gets hurt, that’s going to be a big set-back for you, whether you meant to take some time off or not.”

  By now Missy had stopped untacking altogether and was just staring at me, Donner’s reins in her hands, his bridle hanging loosely with all its straps undone. He shook his head and the throat-latch popped her in the ear. She jumped. “Ow!”

  “You okay?” I didn’t straighten from where I was leaning against the wall.

  “I’m fine, fine.” She went back to work, pulling the bridle over his ears and slipping his halter on in its place. The brass nam
eplate with his complicated German show name gleamed against the buttery leather. “I just never thought about Donner spooking or getting hurt. I guess he could, right? I guess he might get scared out there. I should have thought about that.”

  “It’s okay,” I said reassuringly. “It’s my job to think about those things. That’s what I’m here for.”

  “Have you had horses get hurt out on the trail? Is that why you don’t ride out there?”

  I closed my eyes briefly against the sting, then nodded. Would it ever stop hurting? “I have,” I said without elaboration. “I have, yes.”

  “Was it at this barn?”

  “No.” I pushed off from the wall. This barn hadn’t been built yet. “Different barn. But it was enough to teach me my lesson. I lost my pony.”

  Missy’s eyes were round as platters. “Oh, Grace, sounds like it was awful.”

  “It was,” I said, and headed down the aisle, leaving her to finish untacking her horse. “That was a good ride. Wear breeches next time.”

  I caught up with the Spirit of Adventure herself the following Thursday, as an endless fall rainstorm drummed industriously on the steel roof.

  I was sitting on the mounting block in the center of the covered arena, trying to recover from an evening of shouting myself hoarse over the din during riding lessons. The rains, though desperately needed after a strangely dry summer, made life more difficult than usual. Storms snarled rush hour traffic all over town, which in turn made everyone late to their riding lessons, and it was nearly eight o’clock when the last student finally led her horse back to the barn. I leaned my elbows on my knees and looked down at the hoof prints swirling through the orange clay, trying to summon the energy to go back into the barn and do night-check. If I went into the barn, the last student, Laura, would still be there, untacking her horse and wanting to chatter about her lesson and her hopes and her dreams. It was a conversation I wasn’t up to tonight. Other people’s dreams were very tiring after a long afternoon of teaching riding lessons, walking the tightrope between stroking egos and barking commands.

  Maybe I’d just wait out here until Laura had finished putting up her horse and left for the night, I decided. Nights like this, I was just itching to flip out the lights and leave the horses to their own devices for the distressingly few hours until the grooms arrived for morning feeding, but that was impossible. Water buckets had to be checked, priceless horses had to be assessed for any signs of illness, stall door latches had to be jiggled for security. Skipping any of my evening routine was a recipe for disaster — the first time I did would be the one night a door wasn’t completely closed and someone ended up on the highway or in the hay shed, working his way through an alfalfa bale and cruising for a colic. I’d go inside in a few minutes, get the job done, and finally make my wet way across the property to my little house and my large bottle of wine, which was waiting on top of the fridge for a hard day exactly like this.

  I rubbed my forehead with my fingers and waited for Laura’s car headlights to switch on and disappear into the darkness. It was too cool, with all the rain pouring down all evening, for her horse to need a shower. All she had to do was strip the tack, rub him with a towel, and put him away. I’d be out of here in ten minutes. The thought was soothing… I closed my eyes…

  And then I heard the sound of horseshoes ringing on the walkway, coming towards the arena. I lifted my head and saw Kennedy Phillips for the first time all week. She’d been M.I.A. ever since the weekend before and her first round of guided trail rides, and all the while, I’d been waiting for her. I wasn’t sure what the show-down was going to be, but I knew I wanted to have it out with her. I had to make her understand she was in the wrong, without actually telling her she was in the wrong. After all, there was no rule that said boarders couldn’t go out on the trails. I was going to have to wait for something to actually go wrong before we had that particular confrontation.

  There was a rule about being here after eight o’clock without a scheduled lesson, though. I tightened my jaw and waited for her to notice me.

  Kennedy paused, flung the reins over Sailor’s neck, mounted from the ground, and rode into the arena just as pretty as you please — never you mind it was ten minutes past the barn’s posted closing time. When she noticed me sitting in the ring, she waved and pointed the Quarter Horse in my direction. He came striding over with the good-natured head-bob I associated with his breed. Just a nice horse, uncomplicated, undemanding. It had been a long time since I’d been on a horse like that.

  I waited until she was close enough to hear me over the pounding rain. “You’re here late,” I announced, standing. I stalked over to meet her with my head up, my eyes narrowed, and my jaw jutting. Ready for battle.

  Kennedy pulled up Sailor, her own eyes widening. She hadn’t expected such a hostile welcome, huh? Well, surprise! She started to say hello, or something, but I interrupted her before she could get the words out.

  “Is this why I haven’t seen you all week? You come after closing time now?”

  Kennedy’s bright smile never wavered. “Oh, no, sometimes I come early,” she said brightly. “Around five, before the grooms are even here! My job is kind of crazy but I wouldn’t want to go a day without hopping on Sailor for at least a little walk. I couldn’t make it early this morning so I just thought I’d pop out tonight. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

  This was why I needed a dog, I thought. A dog would have barked when Miss Early Riser drove by at five o’clock in the morning, two hours before the grooms arrived. None of this sneaking around would be going on.

  “It isn’t okay. We have hours,” I insisted. “The barn is closed from 8 PM to 7 AM. You signed off on this stuff with your boarding contract.” I narrowed my eyes at her, suddenly suspicious. If she was breaking one rule, who was to say she wasn’t breaking all the others? “Were you here Monday, too? The barn is closed on Monday. As you know.”

  “I never heard of a barn being closed one day a week,” Kennedy said petulantly, her smile slipping. “I thought you just meant there were no riding lessons.”

  “It’s plenty common in show barns,” I snapped. It wasn’t so much anymore — but there had been a time, back when half this countryside was horse farms and not subdivisions, when it had been the common practice, and trainers would get together for lunch and gossip about their students. I missed those days. Now I just sat on the couch with a book or ran errands. The community had dispersed, and I was the only one left to hold down the fort — and the old ways, maybe. “Mondays we are closed to give the horses a break after a busy show weekend.” Me, too. Not to mention the grooms — one came in the morning to bring horses in and feed, two came back in the afternoon to feed, turn out, and clean the barn, all on a rotating schedule, so that every so often, someone got a full day off.

  Kennedy looked cagey. “We don’t show on weekends, so Sailor doesn’t need a break. I don’t bother anyone.”

  “That’s because there’s no one here!”

  “Well, what’s wrong with that? I’m riding my own horse, using my own tack, I clean up my own messes — I fail to see the problem.” Her tone got snippier, which got my back even stiffer.

  “That’s because you don’t pay my insurance premiums.” I folded my arms over my chest, my now-you-listen-to-me-young-lady stance. “We have hours. We have rules. You signed off on them. You agreed to follow the barn rules in your boarding contract, which is legally binding. To find out you’re breaking my rules on top of everything else —”

  I shut up really fast then, but I couldn’t unsay it.

  “On top of everything else?” Kennedy cocked her head. “What else have I done?”

  “Nothing,” I said hastily. “Forget it. But you can’t stay after hours. I’m tired and I want to go home.” Thunder rumbled and the hammering rain picked up. It sounded like a crashing waterfall on the roof, and made it impossible to speak normally. That was just as well, because this conversation was headed into dangerous water
s. At least I could actually get on her case about being here late. “Back to the barn!” I shouted over the din.

  Kennedy looked ready to argue, but she must have realized there was no way to sound rational when one had to shout over a raging storm. She picked up her reins and turned Sailor back to the barn, and I followed, face grim. By the time I finished night-check, she had put Sailor and her tack away, and was gone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was the evening before the fall dressage show, and here I was in the arena past closing time again, schooling my youngster sales horse, Hope, on flying lead changes. He seemed to have conveniently forgotten how to do them earlier in the week. There were still boarders in the barn as well, polishing tack and gossiping anxiously, trying to settle horse show nerves. Their anxiety seemed to grow worse with age and the decades-long horse gaps most of them had taken. While they’d been pursuing degrees and careers, though, I’d been showing and showing and showing, and now I slept as soundly on show nights as any other night — if I ever made it to my bed…

  Hope flubbed another lead change and I gave him a fairly heavy gouge with the blunt tip of a Prince of Wales spur. I wasn’t trying to be mean, but I was sick of his nonsense. He knew this stuff. The horse swished his tail in response and swapped leads at last, but such a move in a judged test would get us a two or a three on the movement, torpedoing any chance of a good score. I wanted him to score in the low seventies. I was asking a pretty penny for this horse — it would be nice if he would act like he was worth it. I wouldn’t get anything like his asking price with this nonsense. Why did I ride horses for a living again? Nothing but disappointment in this game.

  “I don’t know why I even bother with this,” I grumbled, dropping Hope to a walk and slipping the reins through my fingers. He dropped his nose to the ground instantly. We both needed a moment to stretch and regroup.