by Stacy Gregg
“Her heartbreak will not last long,” Santi reassures her. “Horses are luckier than us. They live in the now. They cannot cling to memories as we do.”
Sure enough, two days later, Bree is quite content in her box on her own, and she is eating alfalfa and barley just like the grown-up polo mares.
Weaned off milk and on to hard feed, Bree grows quickly. Haya is growing too. At the stables she smiles and laughs with the grooms, singing songs as she helps them with the chores.
“What happened to our quiet girl?” Santi teases her. “Now we cannot get you to stop talking!”
*
On the first day when snow falls, Haya leads Bree out into the yard and watches to see what the filly will do. She remembers the way that Amina used to hate the feeling of the snowflakes on her face, how the mare would try and bury her head in Haya’s coat to wipe them off. In contrast, Bree steps out eagerly, snorting and stamping at the snow flurries, as if she is trying to crush them beneath her hooves.
Haya takes her down to the polo training grounds to let her loose to stretch her legs. When she unclips the lead rope, Bree trots out into the middle of the field and then stops abruptly to give the snow a sniff, then digs a little hole with her front hoof before dropping to her knees to roll. Haya watches the filly grunting with delight as she merrily flings her legs in the air and rolls back and forth, relishing the feeling of the cold snow on her back. Although Bree may look like her mother, they are not the same horse at all.
Bree’s coat has grown thick and shaggy like a teddy bear over the cold months, but as the snow melts, her fur begins to shed. And just like Amina, every time Haya grooms her, great clumps come out on the brushes to reveal a glossy bay summer coat underneath. Haya can see just how muscled and powerful her filly has become. Already at nearly two Bree is built like a showjumper, with well-rounded haunches and strong shoulders. Haya desperately wants to sit astride Bree, to ride with the wind in her hair, galloping across the desert sands.
“Bree is still not ready to break in,” Santi tells her. “Why not ride one of the other horses?”
“I don’t want to ride another horse, I want my horse.”
“I understand, Titch,” Santi nods. “But your filly must be given time to mature. It will be another year before you can break her in to the saddle. Use that time and become a rider. Then you will be ready for her.”
“Who will I ride instead?” Haya asks.
Santi says, “We will put you on one of the Tanks.”
The Tanks, two of them, live at the stables at Al Hummar. They are golden Palominos, sent to the King as a gift from America.
The Tanks came to Jordan by sea, many years ago, arriving at the port of Aqaba. When their ship dropped anchor, the horses had been standing in their crates on deck for so long they could barely move their legs and so Santi decided the best way to bring them ashore was to crane them over the railings and let them swim.
In the salt water, the horses’ limbs loosened up and they snorted and churned their way through the waves. As they stepped out of the sea on to the pale sands, the grooms gathered round in amazement. They had never seen horses like these before. The Palominos were stocky and solid, with thick legs and barrel-bodies. Compared to the delicate, fine-boned Arabians of Al Hummar, they were enormous.
“These are not horses!” one of the grooms exclaimed. “They are tanks!” And so the nickname stuck.
The Tanks have a loose box each prepared for them at the polo stables. One Tank is for Haya and the other for Prince Hassan’s daughter, Princess Badiya. It is decided that Ali can ride Dandy the Shetland and he is moved here too. Now the only thing missing is a teacher.
“Her name is Mrs Goddard,” Prince Hassan tells the King. “She is an Englishwoman who has recently moved to Jordan with her husband. By all accounts she is an expert horsewoman and has volunteered her services.”
The morning of their first riding lesson, Haya and Badiya and Ali all saddle up their horses with help from Prince Hassan’s polo grooms.
The same age as Haya, Badiya is a delicate girl with wide eyes and thick jet-black hair to her waist. A beautiful and gracious child, she is every inch the Princess. As they stand and wait, Badiya makes pretty braids in her pony’s mane and when she giggles Haya thinks how even Badiya’s laugh is perfect, like the clear, crystal tinkle of a brook.
“Where is Mrs Goddard then?” Haya sighs. She is tired of waiting. She wants to ride.
“Why don’t we get on?” she suggests to Badiya. “I’ll leg you up if you like.”
“OK,” Badiya agrees.
Haya takes the Palomino’s reins and puts them over the horse’s neck. Then she grabs Badiya by the leg and flings her up into the saddle. Unfortunately she has grabbed the wrong leg and somehow Badiya ends up back to front, facing the tail.
“Climb back down!” Haya tells her.
“I can’t!” Badiya squeaks.
“Jump down then!” Ali entreats.
This is the state that Mrs Goddard finds them in when she arrives. There is a lot of tutting and head-shaking as Mrs Goddard lifts Badiya back to earth. “Our first lesson today will be mounting the horse.”
Despite the desert heat, Mrs Goddard is dressed in a tweed hacking jacket and banana yellow riding breeches that balloon over her thighs. She has a back like a ramrod and wears her coiffed hair like the Queen of England with a neat scarf tied under her chin. She wears a pair of spotless cream leather gloves and she carries a smart brown leather cane with a silver tip. The cane, Haya soon discovers, is an extension of Mrs Goddard’s right hand – she uses it to gesticulate as she talks, thwacking it loudly against the side of her long leather boots.
“Riding,” Mrs Goddard says as she marches up and down the yard in front of her young charges, “is a discipline that takes a lifetime to master.”
“It feels like a lifetime already,” Haya mutters under her breath to Badiya. Beside them, Ali stifles a giggle.
Haya cannot understand Mrs Goddard. She is supposed to be a riding instructor, but spends half an hour explaining the correct way to mount, before they are even allowed on to their ponies! Once they are actually onboard, things get even worse.
“Let us discuss the correct position in the saddle. There must be a straight line directly down through the shoulder, the hips and the ankle and another straight line from the elbow to the wrist and all the way to the bit on the bridle. Your reins are held between the ring finger and the little finger just so. Let me see your reins, Princess Haya. That’s right.”
“Mrs Goddard, when are we going to gallop?”
“Well, I can tell you it won’t be today!”
“Mrs Goddard?”
“Yes, Princess Haya?”
“Can we ride like the Indians do in cowboy movies?”
“Cowboys and Indians?” Mrs Goddard is horrified. “Princess Haya, I am a certified British Horse Society instructor. This is not the Wild West!”
There are no more questions allowed during the lesson. The next hour is spent mounting and dismounting and checking their positions, and there is barely time to walk the ponies once round the arena before Mrs Goddard announces that is all for the day.
“I hope you appreciate this,” Haya complains to Bree in her loose box once the instructor is gone. “I am doing this for you!”
She strokes the filly’s muzzle. “I’m going to become a real rider, Bree,” Haya whispers. “Then we will gallop across the desert together, you and me. And just let Mrs Goddard try to catch us!”
Haya’s father has to go to London for a meeting and when he returns he brings presents for Haya, Ali and Badiya. The gifts are wrapped in paper from Harrods and when Haya unwraps hers she is delighted to own her first pair of proper jodhpurs. There is also a tweed hacking jacket and a velvet hard hat. Badiya is thrilled with her outfit and parades it in front of the mirror, but Haya just pulls on the jodhpurs and leaves the rest in the tissue paper.
“Do I have to wear these for lessons?�
�� she asks her father. It is a bit much having a hacking jacket on in the hot sun and no one else in the yards wears a helmet.
“Mrs Goddard insists,” the King says.
“Mrs Goddard is no fun. I shall be ninety years old by the time she lets me canter.”
After her lessons with Mrs Goddard, Haya always lingers at the yards. She watches her uncle cantering his polo ponies in wide circles round the big arena at the bottom of the hill. Why can’t she ride like that?
Most of the polo ponies in Prince Hassan’s stables are mares, but there is one gelding. His name is Solomon and he is a deep, rich chestnut colour with a white blaze and two white socks. Solomon is quite tall for a polo pony, but he has deep brown eyes that are kind and gentle. He would be lovely to ride. One day, after the lesson with Mrs Goddard is over and the yards are quiet for once, Haya goes to the tack room and lifts down Solomon’s bridle from its hook and heaves the saddle over her arm.
It is not easy for her to get the bridle on the big chestnut; she has to reach up very high to slip it over his ears. It is even harder to get the saddle on, but she manages somehow. She gets the girth good and tight round Solomon’s belly and then leads him out into the yard and, using the box once more, she flings herself lightly into the saddle.
It is like being up a tall tower! Solomon is so much bigger than the Tanks and yet he’s so skinny there is nothing to grasp between her legs. He has a long neck and it stretches in front of her like a giraffe.
“Good boy, Solly.” Haya clucks the gelding on and he moves forward obediently. They walk down the rutted track that leads to the training field. Solomon has realised now that the lightweight on his back is not Prince Hassan, but he is a good-natured horse and he steps out willingly as Haya walks him back and forth across the sandy surface of the polo field.
“Good boy, Solomon, shall we try a trot?” Haya puts her legs on tight against Solomon’s sides, as Mrs Goddard has taught her.
But Solomon is trained to break straight into a canter.
As the big chestnut surges forward, Haya gets the shock of her life. She is cantering! It feels so fast it is almost like they are flying across the field, and so smooth – not at all bouncy like a trot, but fluid, like riding a rocking horse. This is what she always dreamed it would be like, with the wind in her hair and a horse beneath her. It is magical.
When Haya takes a pull on the reins, the enchantment comes abruptly to an end. Solomon gives a sudden pivot on his hindquarters. Haya lets out a shriek as she is flung forward on to his neck. She clings on for all she is worth, but it does no good and she is thrown out of the saddle. Solomon comes to a halt, but it is too late to save her. Haya slides in an undignified heap, landing on her bottom on the soft loam of the polo field.
She sits there panting with shock. She has never fallen off a horse before. The ground came up at her a lot faster than she expected! Once she gets her breath back though, she realises that falling isn’t so bad. She isn’t hurt at all. She gets up and dusts off her jodhpurs.
Solomon seems genuinely sorry that his overenthusiastic turn has thrown her off. He lowers his head to give her a sniff with nostrils open wide, as if to say, “Hey, what are you doing down there?”
“Good Solomon.” Haya leads the big chestnut over to the railing, climbing up so that she can reach the stirrup with her foot and mount up again.
This time she doesn’t pull at the reins with so much gusto. She turns Solomon gently, circling the field, getting a feel for the big horse’s strides. Haya does not know it, but she rides exactly as Mrs Goddard would wish her to. She has perfect posture in the saddle, with her back straight, and her hands steady and poised in front of her.
She canters like this for almost an hour. When at last she rides Solomon back up the rutted track from the arena, she sees Prince Hassan looking down at her from the yards. She realises he has been standing there watching her the whole time.
As she rides Solomon back up the hill to join her uncle, Haya can feel her heart racing. Solomon is his favourite polo pony. She will be in big trouble for taking him.
“That was quite a fall you took,” her uncle says. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, uncle.”
“Are you sure?”
Haya nods.
“Good,” Prince Hassan says. “You have only six more to go.”
“Six more?” Haya asks.
“They say it takes seven falls before you can call yourself a rider,” Hassan says. “I have fallen more than seven times myself, too many to count.”
He smiles at Haya. “You had better ride Solomon again tomorrow, eh?”
This is how Haya develops her skills, spending hours and hours cantering the big chestnut polo pony round and round the field. As the weeks go by, Hassan will occasionally come down to the fields and show her his polo tricks, how to use her reins to steer the horse by holding them against his neck, pushing him from side to side. Soon she can pull Solomon this way and that without ever losing a beat. She can canter like polo players do, rising up into the air on every second stride.
“No, no, no!” Mrs Goddard nearly has kittens when Haya tries the same thing in her riding lessons. “We are not in Argentina herding cattle like gauchos! I will not have you neck-reining your pony in my class. For heaven’s sake, will you please sit down properly and stop using your stirrups to stand when you are cantering! This is not a polo chukka!”
Mrs Goddard might lose her temper, but she cannot deny that Haya is her star pupil. With each day, her balance and skill are growing. By the time winter has been and gone and the spring is in bloom she is able to ride Solomon at a gallop bareback and coax the horse into twists and turns on the polo field, barely touching the reins. Solomon is too tall for her to practise vaulting tricks so when she wants to play cowboys and Indians and leap onboard at a gallop she rides the Tank.
She is learning to jump too – Mrs Goddard makes her stick to trotting poles and cavaletti in her lessons, but when her instructor’s back is turned, she jumps everything and anything in her path. Old forty-four-gallon drums, sacks of barley and packing crates all become show jumps to ride the Tank over. Haya imagines that she is showjumping at the Horse of the Year Show with the roar of the crowd in her ears just like she has seen on the TV.
She rides other horses in the stables too, and is learning how to be sensitive as a rider and accommodate their quirks. Santi tells her it is good training to ride as many horses as possible to develop your instinct and feel. Haya knows this is important because the horse that she plans to ride is not Solomon or the Tank. Her heart remains set on the pretty bay filly with one white sock and a white star on her forehead, who whinnies when Haya comes to visit her loose box each morning.
Bree is well past three years old now and she has yet to feel the weight of a rider on her back. She has never had a bit between her teeth or felt the girth tighten round her as the saddle is strapped on.
All that is about to change. It is time to break her in.
rincess Haya, would you please pass me the oyster fork?”
Haya sighs and looks down at the table. Laid out in front of her is the Royal Jordanian dinner service, each plate adorned with the crest and initials of the King, and beside it a long row of exquisite silver cutlery. It is just like a state dinner – except there is no food being served, and there are no guests in the room, just Haya and Frances.
The Princess looks at the six forks in front of her. She takes a guess and picks up the skinniest one with two pointy prongs.
“That is a snail fork,” Frances says with an air of despair. “The oyster fork is to the left of it. It has the three tines, do you see? The wide one at the side severs the oyster from its shell and then you use the slender tines to spear the oyster and carry it to your mouth …”
“But I don’t like oysters,” Haya says.
“That,” Frances replies, “is not the point. What if you are invited to a state dinner where oysters are served and you do not know which fork
to use?”
“It won’t matter because I won’t be eating them.” Haya feels as if Frances is missing the point here.
“You mother Queen Alia had the most noble manners.” Frances busies herself rearranging the cutlery. “But then I suppose some apples do not fall so close to the tree.”
Frances smooths down the tablecloth primly and then clasps both hands together and looks up gravely at the young Princess. “Now tell me. Which piece of cutlery would one use for eating strawberries?”
There was a time at Al Nadwa palace when Haya could practise her cartwheels up and down the corridors and get muddy running around on the lawn playing football with Ali and no one said anything about having to be proper and ladylike. But now she is ten she is being given cutlery classes.
“It’s ridiculous,” Haya grumbles to Ali as she rifles through the cutlery drawers in the royal kitchen. “Frances acts as if the kingdom will rise and fall on my ability to recognise forks!” She grasps two spoons and passes one to Ali and then opens the freezer and scans the shelves. Finally she sees the tub of strawberry ice cream. Ismail must have shoved it to the back of the shelf to hide it from her. She takes the tub and digs out two big servings of it, one for her and one for Ali. Then she gets out the chocolate sprinkles.
“I’ve tried to explain.” Haya is shaking the sprinkles a little too vigorously and they fly all over the bench. Ali reaches out to grasp his bowl of ice cream, but Haya is not finished yet. “I told her that Bree is ready to be broken in now. She needs me. I should be at the stables – not stuck here!”
Haya absent-mindedly passes Ali his bowl. “Well, I don’t care what Frances says. I am going to be a champion showjumper and I will live with my horses and I won’t have a governess and no one will tell me what to do!”
Ali takes his bowl of ice cream and climbs up next to Haya on the kitchen bench. “I’m going to be a footballer,” he tells her. “And a soldier.”
“You might end up being a King,” Haya points out. “Like Baba.”
“Nah,” Ali says, swinging his legs over the edge of the bench. “Abdullah will be King.”