by Stacy Gregg
Avery shook his head in amazement. “So Oliver Tucker took the horse back off his own daughter and offered the ride to you? Good gravy! That man would sell his grandmother if there was cash in it.”
Issie looked at her instructor. “So what do you think? Are we taking him up on it?”
“I don’t know,” Avery said. “Getting involved with Oliver Tucker is a risky business…”
“But it’s worth the risk, isn’t it? If it means that Issie can ride Victory at Burghley,” Stella said.
“I don’t trust Tucker either,” Issie agreed. “But I don’t see how he can wiggle out of it once the deal is done. The names of the riders for Burghley have to be confirmed tomorrow.”
Avery considered this.
“I still think Tucker is as dodgy as a three-pound note… but it’s too good an opportunity to pass up.”
“You’re right,” Issie agreed.
“Well, that settles it.” Stella stood up from the table. “I guess I’ll go and get a stable ready for Victory!”
“Are you sure you want to do this, Issie?” Avery looked worried.
Issie nodded. “Make the phone call, Tom. Tell Tucker that we’re in.”
As soon as she was alone Issie realised the enormity of what she had just agreed to. Victory was coming home. And now she would be riding two horses at Burghley after all.
Oliver Tucker didn’t return to The Laurels again. He sent a couple of his minions to drop the horse off the next morning in the Ravenshead Park truck. As the men unloaded the brown gelding, Issie’s heart leapt. It was so good to have him back!
Avery, however, wasn’t smiling at the sight of the horse. Instead, he was casting a critical eye over Victory. He looked to be in fair health – but to be ready for Burghley in four weeks his condition had to be assessed and perfected as if he were an Olympic athlete.
“He’s carrying too much weight,” Avery said. “Look at the barrel on him! He looks more like a show pony than a three-day eventer!”
Stella agreed. “I’ll put him on a new feed regime straight away. He needs to drop twenty kilos or he’ll never make it around the track at Burghley under the time.”
Avery watched his wife as she ran her hands over the horse, checking for injuries. “Any problems, Francoise?”
Francoise spent a little longer examining Victory’s legs. “He seems sound enough, no scrapes or splints, but look here on his rump how he has lost muscle tone! He’s obviously been spending all his time in the dressage arena. We need to start doing more hill training and gallops to build his stamina,” Francoise frowned. “It worries me, Tom, he has lost so much fitness I am not certain that I can get him ready for Burghley…”
Issie looked on as her team discussed Victory’s conditioning schedule. It was at moments like this that she realised just how incredibly lucky she was to have these three people on her side. Francoise had the most amazing intuition when it came to choosing the training format for each individual horse. It was almost like she was a horse herself, the way she understood their needs and their bodies so perfectly. And when it came to stabling and feeding, there was no one in the game better than Stella. Issie’s best friend might act goofy and silly but she was deadly serious about her professional work and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of horse feeds and supplements.
And then there was Tom. Even after all these years, Issie still found herself in awe at the depth of his knowledge and experience. In the final weeks before Burghley, Avery’s own experiences as a professional rider would be invaluable. He knew exactly what the challenges would be and how to prepare Issie and her horses to tackle them.
“The chief factor that separates Burghley from Badminton is the cross-country course,” Avery told Issie as they walked Victory towards the stables. “Burghley is a tougher course in many ways. The terrain is undulating, with lots of hills and valleys, so it’s very demanding on the horses. Nightstorm is recovering well from his leg injury and I’m confident we can get him back to peak fitness, but it will be touch-and-go whether Victory will be ready to tackle it.”
He turned to Issie. “You’ll need to be at peak fitness too, if you’re going to be riding two horses around the course. I think a little bit of extra training might be required.”
Issie had assumed that he meant galloping – or maybe cross-country training. But Avery explained that the sort of work he had in mind didn’t involve horses at all.
“Be at the stables at six a.m. tomorrow,” he told her. “And wear your trainers and a track suit. We’re going jogging.”
Issie had always considered herself to be pretty athletic. After all, she was in the saddle for at least three or four hours every day. She’d never had any trouble bringing a horse home on the cross-country course before. But with the very last phase of the Grand Slam looming Avery wasn’t taking any chances with her fitness levels.
“This will be your new routine in the lead-up to Burghley. You’re going to be running ten kilometres every morning from now until the competition begins,” Avery told her when they met up at the stables that morning.
“Ten kilometres!” Issie was shocked. “That’ll take forever!”
Avery looked at the watch on his wrist. “No, it won’t,” he said firmly. “Because I’ll be riding alongside and timing you. I expect you to complete ten kilometres in under an hour.”
“This isn’t fair! Why do you get to ride?” Issie groaned as they set off down the driveway of The Laurels with Avery on Bonaparte.
Avery ignored her complaints and began to talk tactics as Issie puffed away alongside him. For the hour that she ran, he walked and trotted the horse steadily to keep pace with her, all the while telling her about the things she would need to know to master the cross-country course at Burghley.
“Delaney Swift is the course designer this year,” Avery reminded her, “and she’s bound to include lots of corners – she always does. We’ll have to practise those at home. Delaney is also famous for her dramatic water jumps so I expect the water complex to be tough this year. You’ll be fine in the water on Victory but you’ll have to keep a tight hold on Nightstorm. He’s too brave for his own good and tends to rush his jumps. If he charges into the lake you’ll end up splashing, which can be blinding for both of you…”
This one-sided conversation became a regular part of their morning schedule over the next few weeks. At first, Issie found the morning jogs utterly unbearable and felt like her lungs would burst or her legs would give out. But within a fortnight she discovered what joggers refer to as a ‘runner’s high’. After the first two or three kilometres she would feel a surge of adrenalin and from there she would begin to power into the run, really pumping her arms and legs so that Avery would be forced to raise the pace of Bonaparte’s trot to keep up. Very soon Issie found that she could modulate her breathing so that she could actually speak comfortably to Avery as she ran, and with this newfound skill she began asking crucial questions about the best way to ride both of her horses.
The theory she learnt on the morning runs was tested each day on the cross-country course. Avery had constructed a series of fences around the perimeter of The Laurels. Here they would practise various combinations of ditches, coffins, staircases and banks, preparing Issie for any eventuality and showing her the pitfalls and possible mistakes she might make. During these sessions Issie began to understand just how much she still had to learn – and how much Avery could still teach her.
“Do you think I’ll still be having lessons with you when I’m, like, fifty?” Issie asked with a grin.
“I hope so,” Avery replied. “The best riders keep on improving. Only the foolish ones think that they have nothing left to learn.”
Each afternoon, after exhausting herself over fences under Avery’s tuition, Issie would mount up on her alternate ride and head into the dressage arena for schooling with Francoise.
Issie honestly couldn’t figure out how Natasha had managed to do so badly in her dressage tests since Victory
was a dream ride who never put a hoof wrong. Nightstorm, on the other hand, continued to be erratic. The stallion’s schooling sessions usually went brilliantly during the warm-up phase and then after the first fifteen or twenty minutes he would begin a petulant bucking fit right in the middle of a flying change or a passage.
“He is fine until he decides that he has done enough for one day, and then he explodes,” Francoise summed up. She was forced to admit that she still didn’t know what to do about it.
Adding further to their training issues, Francoise seemed to have succumbed to the flu. It was only one week to the horse trials now, but Francoise felt so ill that she had to stay in bed, leaving Issie to school Nightstorm on her own.
One day the session without Francoise was particularly disastrous. Things started out OK. In fact, Nightstorm was totally brilliant for the first fifteen minutes. But when Issie attempted to run through the dressage test, it all came unstuck. When Nightstorm began to fuss over doing the flying changes across the arena, Issie became insistent, and that was when the stallion’s temper flared. Nightstorm dumped her on the sand surface of the arena not once, but twice! In the end, they finished the schooling session with Issie in tears of rage, and Nightstorm resembling a dragon more than a horse, red-eyed with nostrils wide and ears flat back in anger.
Issie and the stallion weren’t on speaking terms as she led him back to his stable. This was a nightmare! She had always imagined that she had a special relationship with Storm. She had been through so much with this horse to get this far. She had travelled to the other side of the world to win him back in a Spanish street race. She had put herself through the rigours of learning the haute école from El Caballo Danza Magnifico to win their approval and take him home. Under her care, the colt had grown and blossomed into an incredible horse. And yet, even though Storm adored her, he still fought against her. She knew that he had the talent to win at Burghley. So why was it that instead of bringing the best out in her horse in the dressage arena, she always seemed to lock horns with him? She felt like it was her fault that they kept fighting but she had no idea how to stop the stallion’s temper tantrums.
Back at the stables, still in a black mood, she unsaddled Storm and went to put away his tack. By the time she came back to the box Stella was there, brushing the stallion down.
“I’ve got his feed ready,” Stella said. “I’ll just rug him up and…” Then she saw the tears in Issie’s eyes, and the miserable expression on her best friend’s face.
“Issie? What’s wrong?”
“He bucked me off again,” Issie admitted. “Twice.”
“Oh.” Stella put down the brushes. “Are you OK?”
Issie brushed the tears away angrily with her hand. She was a professional rider – it was stupid to be crying about this! But with only a week to go she was feeling totally desperate and she had run out of ideas and excuses.
“There was no reason for it,” Issie shook her head. “He was perfect when we were warming up. And then about twenty minutes into the ride he just threw a fit and I ended up on the ground.”
Issie looked at Storm. “He hates the dressage arena – and sometimes I think he hates me for making him go in there.”
“Well, he doesn’t totally hate it,” Stella said. “He likes the first fifteen minutes. It’s a shame that you’re not riding a warm-up at Burghley – then he’d be fantastic!”
“Ohmygod!” Issie froze.
“What?” Stella said. “Is something wrong?”
“No!” Issie squealed. “You’re totally right! That’s it! That’s the solution. Ohmygod! Stella, you are a total genius!”
“I am?” Stella looked even more confused. “Uhhh, are you going to tell me why?”
“Come on!” Issie could barely contain her excitement. “Give Storm his feed and then we’ll go and find Tom and Francoise – they need to hear this!”
Stella had just given Issie the answer she had been looking for. Suddenly, she knew exactly what to do to get the best performance out of her stallion in the dressage arena at Burghley. With just one week to go until the three-day event began, she finally had a plan.
Chapter 10
In the final week of the lead-up to Burghley, preparations were intense.
There was so much to organise. The tack and equipment had to be prepped and packed in the truck by Wednesday ready for the trip to Lincolnshire. With so many details to organise, Avery called a planning meeting in the kitchen on Sunday morning and that was when Stella dropped her bombshell.
“I think you should hire another groom,” she told them.
Issie couldn’t believe it. “You’re quitting?”
“No!” Stella rolled her eyes. “Of course not! But I don’t think I can handle two different horses on the day. I know you’re the one who’s actually riding, but there’s so much to organise behind the scenes and I don’t want to make a mistake. I feel like I’ll be spreading myself too thin if I look after Storm and now Victory as well. We need a second back-up groom to take over one of your mounts.”
“Well, it’s a bit late to think of it now!” Avery pointed out. “We’ve got less than a week before Burghley begins – all the best grooms in the UK will already be locked in with other stables. How are we possibly going to get someone we can trust to do the job at such short notice?”
Issie and Stella looked at each other and smiled. They both had exactly the same idea.
“The best grooms in the UK might have jobs already,” Issie replied, “but there’s one in New Zealand who might be available.”
It was nine in the evening in Chevalier Point when the phone rang at Kate Knight’s house. She assumed the call would be one of her pony-club kids calling to ask about the rally tomorrow. The last thing she’d been expecting was a job offer from an old friend on the other side of the world.
“Kate,” Issie said, “I know it’s, like, super-short notice and everything, but I somehow ended up with another horse to ride at Burghley and Stella can’t cope and…”
“Hey! Issie!” Kate interrupted her friend in mid-babble. “You don’t have to explain. If you need me then I’m totally there. Just tell me what flight to catch and I’ll start packing my bags.”
It was a typical Kate reaction and Issie realised just how much they needed her. Always the calm, collected one – Kate was the best possible person to have on your team when the pressure was on.
Issie remembered so clearly that day at Pony Club when she had met Kate for the first time. Kate had a horse called Toby, a full-sized hack that towered over Stella and Issie’s ponies. Kate towered over them too – she was a year older than Stella and Issie and had a leggy physique and Nordic blonde hair.
The three girls were so different physically. Alongside cool, blonde Kate there was no way that Stella with her out-of-control red curls and Issie with her long, dark hair could ever have been mistaken for sisters. But they certainly felt like a family. As Issie’s mum had often pointed out, deep down they were all cut from the same cloth – totally horse-mad.
Years had passed and distance had separated the girls but their mutual love of horses had never faded. When Issie and Stella had moved to England to focus on riding the international eventing circuit, Kate had chosen to stay in Chevalier Point where she had taken over Avery’s old job as the head instructor at the Pony Club, while studying full-time to become a vet.
Kate had never been to The Laurels before now. But from the moment she arrived, jet-lagged, off the flight from New Zealand, it was as if she had been a part of the team there forever.
There was little time for emotional reunions and the girls got straight down to business. It was already Tuesday. The horse truck was pre-loaded with their kit and the girls and Avery planned to rise at five and depart by six the next morning for Burghley.
“You’re being assigned Victory and I’ll take care of Storm,” Stella told Kate. “Come down to the stables and I’ll explain the feeding schedules and his tack. We’ll work toge
ther to prepare both the horses for competition. The first trot-up is early on Thursday morning – the day after tomorrow. Then the dressage begins on Friday…”
“Wow,” Kate took a deep breath. “Thrown straight in at the deep end! I haven’t groomed for anyone in years, you do realise?”
“You’ll be fine!” Issie insisted. “Stella is totally organised and she’ll show you the ropes.”
“We’re glad to have you aboard,” Avery confirmed. “It will be good to have a vet on the team.”
“Hey!” Kate said. “I’m only in my second year! I’m not a qualified vet yet!”
“Come on,” Stella told her, “I’ll take you down to the stables now and you can meet Victory.”
At 5.45 the next morning the girls loaded the two horses into their individual bays in the back of the horse truck and then they piled into the cabin in the mid-section ready to depart for Lincolnshire.
“Where’s Avery?” Stella said looking at her watch anxiously.
“He’s saying goodbye to Francoise,” Issie said.
There was too much going on at The Laurels for the Frenchwoman to abandon the farm and come along too. It was foaling season, and they were expecting a very special new addition to the stables at The Laurels as part of their new sporthorse breeding programme. A year ago Francoise had purchased a stunning broodmare, a pretty chestnut called Mirabelle. The mare was now heavily in foal to a famous warmblood stallion called Miracle Maker and she was expected to give birth that week.
Plus there were three up-and-coming young eventers who were currently in work being prepared for a novice competition next month. And Francoise was still under the weather. Her flu appeared to be lingering and she was frequently feeling queasy in the mornings.
Issie was reluctant to leave Francoise behind, but the dressage trainer had dismissed her fears. “When you told me your plan for handling Nightstorm at Burghley I knew that you understood this horse better than anyone,” Francoise told Issie. “You are ready to do this on your own.”