Show Barn Blues

by Natalie Keller Reinert

“She’s been in training with me,” I amended. “I bought her from the agency that imported her, and sold her to Gayle, but I showed her for the first year, and I still do from time to time.”

  “Why do you show her?” We were trotting three-abreast now, the old white road wide enough for all of us. “If she’s Gayle’s horse?”

  I rolled my eyes. Kennedy was messing with me, right? The reason was obvious. “Because the horse has the potential to go Grand Prix,” I said. “Of course Gayle doesn’t want to waste that potential, just because she isn’t that advanced a rider.”

  “So why would Gayle buy a horse that’s more advanced than she is?”

  Oh-ho, Kennedy didn’t think my sales were ethical, did she? And what business was it of hers? I took a steadying breath so I wouldn’t sound sharp and gave Kennedy some schooling. “Why wouldn’t she? Maxine was an excellent investment. If we win money in big classes, Gayle gets a portion. The wins increase her sales value as a broodmare later in life or if Gayle wants to do embryo transfer and get a foal to keep or sell while Maxine is still competing. And Gayle gets a quality horse to learn on — Maxine was less expensive and younger than what she’d get with a schoolmaster. She’s a much better investment than a sixteen or seventeen-year-old gelding that knows the ropes but won’t have any future value. A schoolmaster is depreciating every day. A young horse like Maxine, with good temper and huge athletic ability, is just a win-win for all of us. And I’m not sure why you’re trying to imply otherwise.”

  Kennedy smiled at me, attempting, I suppose, to assure me she wasn’t suggesting anything… improper… about the way I ran my business or advised my students. That girl should really be trying harder to make an ally out of me, I thought.

  “I just thought maybe Maxine had turned out to be more horse than Gayle needs,” Kennedy said innocently.

  Of course Maxine was more horse than Gayle needed, but that wasn’t the point. “She’s a good investment,” I repeated. “If you’re going to put all this money into a horse, you might as well get one that stands a chance to pay you back at least some of it.”

  Kennedy just smiled again, and nodded, and looked straight ahead with a bemused kind of look on her face, as if she wasn’t convinced by my arguments but she was too nice to say so. Consequently, as we rounded the last curve and slowed the horses to a walk to leave the woods and step back onto the asphalt of the parking lot, the sun finally sinking below the barn and arena ahead of us, I was in a decidedly less than triumphant mood.

  I was definitely feeling less forgiving.

  Kennedy was going to have to go. Things had gone too far.

  Unfortunately, it was too late tonight to tell Kennedy she was getting an eviction notice. Not to mention, there were too many spectators. Gayle, face still strewn with dirty tears, was running up to catch the wide-eyed Maxine, who was spooking her way across the parking lot as if she hadn’t just spent the past half-hour cantering and trotting through the palmetto scrub and pine plantations and was still fresh as a spring filly. Anna was right behind her, snatching one of the broken reins just as Maxine managed to pull loose from Kennedy, and brought the crazed mare down to a trembling halt.

  I looked past Anna and Maxine and saw we had an audience. The peanut gallery in the barn aisle were silhouetted against the bright interior lights. I could swear every boarder I had was watching, arms wrapped around themselves to ward off the autumn chill, unwilling to go home for the night without seeing an end to the drama.

  I decided not to give them any. A good barn owner didn’t air her dirty laundry in front of all her boarders, she kept it behind closed doors. “Kennedy,” I said, turning to her as she dismounted Sailor. “Thanks for helping bring Maxine home. Nice job catching her.”

  I hopped down from Ivor and walked him into the barn, as the boarders parted ranks to let us pass.

  After it all shook out, everything and everyone appeared to be fine.

  Gayle was shaky but fine, Maxine was tired but fine, Kennedy was apologetic, Ivor was bright-eyed and hungry for his dinner, Sailor was his usual quiet self. The barn was chattering, and from the sound of things, the boarders were ready to swear off trail-riding once and for all and go back to concentrating on showing. Everything was as I could have wished it, if only it wasn’t so far past closing time.

  I was ready for my bottle of wine and my bed. Maybe a romance novel, maybe even a hot bath, I reflected, feeling a bit of chill in the night air. I pulled a hoodie from the tack room over my polo shirt. The white logo on the back was bright and cheerful against the navy blue: Seabreeze Equestrian Center: Hunters, Jumpers, Dressage with a jumping horse soaring over an ocean wave. I rubbed my fingers over the logo before I put the hoodie on, a little ritual of mine. Sometimes I couldn’t believe this was all real, even on nights like tonight when the barn was more a pain in the ass than anything, and I was out late settling down the clients and horses after a completely avoidable upset.

  But for once, I thought, walking through the barn after everyone had quieted down, after our horses were cooled out and fed, after I had managed to get the boarders to go home to their families and sent the grooms home with my apologies and promises of overtime, for once I didn’t mind being out so late. The evening had been so wild and beautiful, and I had seen all of it. Instead of riding in a covered arena, the sky blacked out by the steel roof, or working in the barn, surrounded by walls and stalls and their barred windows and doors, I had been out with only the heavens as a roof, only the palmettos as walls. The charm of it was hard to escape.

  So was Sailor. I leaned against the new Sailor’s stall door for a moment. The stocky little horse looked at me with his quiet, impassive eyes, and stopped pulling at his dinner hay long enough to come over to give me a whuff of hot breath, his nose tickling my palm when I placed my hand against the stall bars. Hay-scented, sweet pony breath, like my own Sailor. My pony, whom I shouldn’t have taken out alone. I hadn’t thought anything bad would happen — it was before I understood mortality, and chance, and bad things happening to good people and better ponies. I hadn’t understood that to a horse, one rabbit was not always like another rabbit. I hadn’t expected the spook, I hadn’t expected to fall off, I hadn’t expected him to run away and leave me there. I hadn’t expected to feel so abandoned.

  I hadn’t realized that sometimes leather reins broke when a leg was caught up in them, and sometimes they did not.

  I learned a lot that day. I’d learned lessons I was too young for, and now I could never stop teaching, for fear other people would learn them the hard way as well.

  Sailor went back to his hay, giving his tail a little swish as he went, as if telling me to be on my way, to turn off the lights, to move on with my night, to let old sorrows lie. Maybe I exaggerated that last bit. He probably didn’t worry too much about my emotions, or the deep knowledge of the game of chance and danger we played with our horses that I had come into that day. He just wanted me to leave him alone to be a horse for the rest of the night. He was right. Horses were often right about these things.

  I hung around a few minutes more, somehow not quite ready to go back to the house. There had been something special in the day, and going home would spell its end. I went upstairs instead, to sit and think, surrounded by my memories.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I leaned back in my chair and counted my ribbons.

  The office walls were festooned with decades’ worth of horse show ribbons. Ribbons and so much more: trophies with mock-brass horse statuettes atop them; giant rosettes with sashes, meant to hang around a horse’s neck; glass plaques, etched with the date and the championship won; silver picture-frames, with the horse’s name under a photo of a perfect jump or the winning presentation. The prizes hung from the wood-paneled walls, leaned against books, teetered on top of shelves, a glorious display of red and gold and blue, the rainbow hues of victory. Blue for first, red for second, yellow for third, and all of them combined into one starburst for the championships. Satin with
gold letters stamped into its shimmering cloth — such was the reward for winning a class with an entry fee of one hundred dollars or more, the prize for giving your life over to training and riding.

  The oldest, smallest, most dog-eared ribbons, fly-specked and faded, hung in the shadow of the bookcase next to the door. In this corner, the colors were mostly green, or white, with one spectacularly pretty purple ribbon, awarded for ninth place in a particularly large class. Those were my childhood ribbons, at least the ones still suitable for display. After so many years of hanging on stalls, on my bedroom walls, of being crushed in tack trunks and suitcases and cardboard boxes in storage units throughout the country, some had simply dissolved into a colorful pile of dust.

  I’d hung everything up here when the barn was still half-finished, the stalls not yet installed in the cavernous space below, the arenas still grass marked with spray-paint while I dreamed it all up. The walls hadn’t been filled yet, but that was good — it meant there was plenty of room to add in my victories as a trainer, as a barn owner at last. It had been the first time I’d felt safe, like there wasn’t another midnight move in my future, and so it was the first time I’d unpacked all those boxes and seen my life’s work in a wall of silver and gold and blue and red. Horse training for hire was perilous work — you seemed to find the craziest people in the country one by one, barn by barn, one tiny spider-infested barn apartment or mobile home or travel trailer at a time. I’d worked at million-dollar barns training million-dollar horses, only to have to leave after three months because the million-dollar owner “couldn’t” pay my promised salary. (More like wouldn’t.) I’d bolted doors against male bosses and coworkers who thought that my training contract included certain extras I wasn’t willing to give; I’d left under the cover of darkness to avoid run-ins with bosses who weren’t willing to uphold their ends of contracts.

  It wasn’t a business for the faint of heart.

  It had been a rough road, but it had all led to this office with my name on the door and my ribbons on the walls. Just behind me, through the window, I could see the stalls of my boarders, the horses left in my care, the students who trusted me to put their training goals and their safety first.

  I spun the chair and looked down at the quiet barn floor below. The horses munching at their hay, or sprawled out asleep on their thick beds of shavings. I’d turned out half the lights, so that it was dim but not yet dark. The massive lamps hung high above the barn from distant, shadowy rafters, illuminating the horses and the aisles and the empty wash-stalls with a pale whiteness. It was the sort of light that showcased every flaw, every missed wisp of hay or horseshoe-shaped clod of clay tracked in the from the arena. I loved it, because I could see the barn was kept perfect, as I wanted it, all the time.

  Perfection was why people loved to come here — for the peace of mind that came with perfection. This was a haven for horse owners, just as I had always dreamed it would be. Even on days like today, full of drama, the barn ended up in its natural state again. Quiet, dreaming, peaceful.

  My farm was everything I’d ever wanted.

  I smiled down at the dozing horses. Everything felt right. The farm would endure. Business was tight, sure, so I’d diversify a little. The boarders were taken in by a fad; they’d get over it. Kennedy Phillips thought she had the magic key to horsemanship, and it didn’t look like mine. All I had to offer was a Grand Prix jumping arena with perfectly blended footing, and a covered arena to keep the sun at bay. She had a lot of scrubland and the constant possibility of a hospital stay. Boarders who paid the money my barn commanded weren’t going to use their priceless horses for trail rides. It was just a phase, and Maxine’s misadventures tonight would help its end come that much more quickly.

  There was a tap at my door and my smile froze. Everyone was long gone. I fingered my cell phone in my pocket, ready to dial 911, reflecting that I really needed a large dog with a deep bark. A hybrid wolf, maybe.

  “Yes?” I called. Don’t be a murderer.

  The door swung open gently. “Grace?”

  I relaxed. It was just Anna. Of course it was only Anna. “Hey honey, come in,” I said, my voice a little breathless with relief.

  Anna came in, pushing honey-colored hair behind her ears, looking fragile as a fawn. She was a little pixie of a thing, with a perfect seat and gentle hands, and big dreams I recognized from my youth. Anna reminded me of myself twenty-five years ago, give or take — earnest, trusting, and willing to do anything her trainers told her in order to follow her dreams. I was just thankful she’d come to me. That sort of naivety could get a sweet girl into trouble.

  “What’s up, honey?” I asked as she slid into the spare chair. “It’s late, you ought to be in bed.” Her hair was damp and her clothes were clean; there was a fresh smell of soap. She’d already gone up to her apartment over the tack room and showered for the night, washing away the sweat for a few sweet hours of cleanliness before she started all over again in the morning.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” Anna said hesitantly, her eyes fluttering from ribbon to ribbon, landing anywhere but my face. “About a couple of things. And I couldn’t find the right time in the barn.”

  “It was a hell of an evening,” I agreed. “What’s up?” Maybe she’d finally realized that Mason wasn’t going to cut it as a Grand Prix horse. Somehow, I hoped not. I wasn’t ready for that particular conversation tonight. Selling the girlhood teen dream horse when you realized loving your horse and working towards your career goals weren’t necessarily compatible… it wasn’t pleasant.

  “Do we do enough fun stuff with our horses?”

  I opened my mouth and closed it again. What. Was. Happening.

  “I mean —,” Anna cast her eyes about the room again, as if looking for words. “Like, every day is a training session. We never do anything to let the horses relax, or chill out. They’re in the arena every day. And Kennedy says, you know, they should be able to go out and have fun, go on trail rides, look around at nature…”

  “Anna, what do horses do for fun?”

  “Um…” Anna giggled nervously. “Eat?”

  “That’s it.” I have you now, Kennedy. Simple horse sense. “Horses eat for fun. Horses sleep for fun. Horses groom one another for fun. Have you ever seen a horse, without a rider, go on a long walk through the woods, looking around at nature?”

  “No,” Anna said, catching on. “I haven’t.”

  “If you take a horse out to the arena and let him go, what will he do? Will he jump the fences in the arena, will he leave and go on a long relaxing trail ride, or will he run back to his stall and start eating as quickly as possible?”

  “He’ll go to his stall.”

  “Obviously, right?”

  Anna nodded.

  “If a horse is out in unknown territory, surrounded by potential predators, is he having a good time?”

  “Oh my gosh, no.”

  “So would your horse rather be in the arena for an hour and know exactly where he is, what his job is, and how to get safely home, or would he rather go on a long ride into the woods, where he has to watch out for predators and doesn’t know what’s coming next?”

  “Definitely the arena.” Anna was nodding away. She was a good student, I thought. I really liked this girl.

  “And if he’s a trail horse and he’s out with his buddies, he knows that’s his job, and he’s okay with it. He knows how to do it, he knows what to expect, he knows how it starts and ends and begins. A horse is like a person, he can be really really good at one thing, or just okay at a bunch of things. Our show horses are really, really good at their one job. There’s no reason to pile on extra things and worry them — then they’ll just be mediocre show horses, mediocre trail horses, and confused all the time.”

  Anna went on nodding. “I see, I see.”

  “Feel better now?”

  Anna leaned back in her chair. “I never thought about it that way. It’s almost mean to take a show horse out there an
d act like they’re having a good time when they’re really just confused and nervous.”

  “It is,” I said resolutely. “It’s mean. And if we get those trail horses, I wouldn’t ask them to jump a grand prix course, either.”

  “Are you going to get them?”

  “I don’t know.” I looked at the legal pad on my desk, criss-crossed with numbers, names, question marks. Rodney had promised me his connections at the nearby resorts, swore it was instant money in my pocket. Taking on trail horses would be a big step in a completely different direction, though, and it would mean I couldn’t take on any new boarders, should those mythical creatures appear wanting stalls. I had six… no, seven stalls open at the minute. There were six trail horses.

  Then there were the school horses. Did I take them on, bite the bullet, start teaching kids? If I took the trail horses, I had room for one school horse. I’d have to stick the others in a paddock. Lord knew Rodney’s horses all got along, since they lived together in one unsegregated field. That was something.

  Trail horses and junior riding lessons together might make up for the loss of potential boarders. It might even cover losing a few current boarders. It might pay the bills.

  Might.

  Just looking at all the numbers and squiggled lines and crossed out notes made my head ache.

  “I don’t know,” I said again.

  “I could take out trail rides,” Anna offered. “I think it’s a fun idea.”

  “What about kids?”

  “Kids on trail rides? Sure.”

  “Kids in riding lessons.”

  Anna looked doubtful. “Me teach kids?”

  “I know… sounds awful.” We shared a chuckle. “But seriously… what if we looked into getting a nice show pony or two and pushing some of Rodney’s 4-H’rs into the show circuit? I’m sure a couple of them must be talented enough. I was hoping you might like the idea.”

  “I don’t have any experience. I guess I could learn. Probably should, right?”