Pony Jumpers 5- Five Stride Line

by Kate Lattey

  Susannah was at the gate now, next to go on Skip, and she reached over and scratched Buck behind the ears while the rider in the ring smashed the way through the treble, taking rails at the first two fences before sliding to a stop and demolishing the oxer at the back.

  “At least the rain seems to be easing off,” I said idly as the ring crew took their time about resetting the jumps, unwilling to do anything in much of a hurry in this weather.

  Susannah turned to me with a frown just as the heavens opened and the rain became torrential once more. She swatted me on the head with a gloved hand, looking annoyed.

  “What’d you have to say that for?” she demanded. “You jinxed it!”

  Unfortunately, it seemed as though I had. The rain only got worse and worse as the class continued, and by the time Susannah was due out on Buck as the last to go, it was coming down in sheets that seriously limited visibility. I didn’t know how the judges could even tell whether or not the rails had fallen, but when Buck had a bad miss at the triple bar and landed in the middle of it, Susannah retired him from the class.

  In the end only twelve riders completed the course, with two entries retiring and four others being eliminated. I was soaked through and more than ready to return to the shelter of the truck when the rain finally eased again, and the announcer picked up his microphone.

  “That concludes today’s Premier Pony Grand Prix,” he said, sounding relieved that it was over. “Placings will be as follows. In first place, with the only clear round of the day - Tessa Maxwell and Misty Magic.”

  Nobody had ever looked more astonished to win a class. Tess rode into the ring on her muddy grey pony, patting him profusely and shooting amazed looks back over her shoulder at us as the rest of the placings were announced. Susannah finished third on Skip with only the back rail of the treble down, and Katy was sixth on Molly, having taken the first and last rails on course but finishing as the fastest eight-faulter.

  Jonty stood next to me with a wide grin splitting his face as Tess rode her victory lap, struggling to keep Misty from bolting or bucking her off. The light cotton winner’s rug billowed out over Misty’s hindquarters as he performed a series of gymnastics on his way around the ring, delighting in being the centre of attention. Not that there were many spectators here to see his efforts, but I clapped as loud as I could as Tess came past us, leaning back in the saddle as she struggled to bring the feisty grey back under control.

  “Now you have to stay for the Derby,” Katy told her as we headed back to the covered yards, all of us looking forward to being out of the rain. “He’s jumping awesome!”

  Tess shook her head, her smile fading quickly. “Mum wants to go home. As soon as I’ve got Misty untacked we’re heading out.”

  “But you’re doing so well!” Katy argued, unwilling to take no for an answer. “Can’t you change her mind? I thought she’d been waiting for this moment her whole life.”

  I walked faster to catch up with Katy, putting myself on the opposite side to Tess. I tapped my best friend on the knee and shook my head, warning her to leave it alone. She frowned down at me, but she stopped nagging Tess, and we rode the rest of the way back to the yards in silence.

  I don’t think I got properly dry at any point that day. By the time the ponies were settled in their yards again, we’d barely had time to grab a quick lunch in Katy’s truck before the Mini Prix was due to start. Both of my friends had scratched from the class, and they stayed sitting in Katy’s truck as I headed out to get Squib tacked up, my show clothes pulled on over still damp skin. I could feel the goosebumps rising on my arms, and I swung them as I walked, trying to warm myself up.

  I had Squib groomed and was buckling on his tendon boots when Katy and Susannah finally dragged themselves out of the truck and came to see how I was getting on.

  “You’re going to have to be careful out there,” Katy warned me yet again, giving Squib a doubtful look. “Just go real slow on the turns, and don’t even worry about riding for time…”

  “Would you shut up for five seconds?” I snapped as I lifted Squib’s saddle onto his broad back. He laid his ears back at me, deeply affronted by my intention to ride in this kind of weather. I was hoping that when he saw the jumps he’d rise to the occasion, but I knew my warm-up was likely to be a bit rough.

  “Is that your saddle?” Susannah asked me, staring at my Wintec in thinly veiled horror.

  “Yeah,” I muttered, slipping the running martingale over Squib’s head and threading it through the girth. “At least it won’t matter if it gets wet,” I told her, trying for a smile.

  But she was still frowning. “How do you jump in that? It’s completely the wrong shape.”

  I was grumpy from all the rain and my own doubts, and I lost my temper for a moment. “Well not all of us have parents willing to spend thousands of dollars on us at the drop of a hat,” I said snarkily, then felt bad. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

  Susannah looked a little hurt, but she shrugged. “Well, it is true.” She stepped to the side, looking at Squib appraisingly. “Hang on, I’ve got an idea. Don’t go anywhere.” Turning on her heel she hurried away, leaving me and Katy shrugging at each other.

  “As if you’re going anywhere in this,” Katy said, leaning on the railing and staring morosely out at the rain. “I wish it would just stop already.”

  Squib went over to chew on her hair while I extracted his bridle from my grooming bucket, and then Susannah reappeared, hurrying up the aisle with a gorgeous tan leather jumping saddle over one arm.

  “Try this on him.”

  “What?” I stared at my friend. The saddle in her arms must’ve cost at least as much as Squib himself, if not more. It looked fancy and European, and from the way that Katy was cooing jealously over it, I knew that my impressions were correct. “I can’t borrow your saddle.”

  “Why not? I’m not using it.” She ducked into Squib’s yard and unbuckled his girth with one hand. “Are you going to help me see if it fits?”

  Five minutes later, I was leading my pony down the aisle of the covered yards with the most exquisite jumping saddle I’d ever seen on his back.

  “It’s going to get soaked,” I warned her again as I stopped at the end of the row.

  “It’s been wet before, it won’t kill it,” she shrugged. “It’s not made of glass, you know.”

  “Give him a ride around, see how it feels,” Katy said as she legged me into the saddle. “He’ll let you know pretty quickly if it doesn’t fit, but it looks good to me.”

  “Like a glove,” Susannah said assuredly. “We bought it for Buck, but it was too wide for him. So it’s just been sitting around in our truck for the last year or so, gathering dust. Dad was hoping it would fit Forbes too, but no go. It drives him crazy. He tried to get me interested in a seriously average Junior Rider horse last weekend and I swear it was only because it would’ve fit this saddle.”

  She rolled her eyes and we laughed as I finished adjusting the stirrups, then clucked to my pony. Squib surged forward eagerly until he felt the rain on his face and sucked back in displeasure.

  “Come on Squibward, you have to suck it up,” I told him. “We’ll be as wet and muddy as each other soon enough. But we get to jump big fences, if that makes you feel any better!”

  It didn’t. My pony was furious at the rain coming into his face and crabbed his way around the warm-up area with his head turned aside, refusing to look where he was going and almost crashing into other ponies as a result.

  “Trot him over the cross, then pick up a canter and come again,” Katy called to me, and I followed her instructions.

  Squib squelched his way up to the crossbar in apparent disbelief that I expected him to jump in these conditions, then flung himself into the air with a snort, landing on all fours on the other side. Usually that kind of jump would have left me sprawling on his neck or face down in the mud, but the knee and thigh blocks on Susannah’s saddle held me so securely in place that I h
ardly moved.

  I turned to look at Katy in amazement as I pushed Squib forward into canter. He struck off, took three strides, then returned to trot. I had to kick him on to get him to canter, and he jumped back over the crossbar in much the same way as he’d done the first time. I could see Katy giving me a worried look as she set the fence to a low vertical, and I dug my heels into Squib’s wet sides as I rode him back around to it.

  “I know it’s slippery, but it’s not that bad,” I told my pony. He shook his head furiously, clearly disagreeing with me, and propped over the low fence, landing awkwardly once more.

  “I don’t know about this,” Katy said warningly. “He’s really not happy about the ground.”

  “He’ll be okay,” I insisted. I was having a few doubts of my own, but I wanted to prove to her that Squib could do it. Only last week I’d watched a video of a barefoot pony carving up a speed class in the rain in Ireland, and that had been jumped on grass. That pony hadn’t slipped at all, and if he could do it, Squib could too – I was sure of it.

  I kicked my pony back into a canter and rode him down to the oxer, and he flew over it like a bird. Shooting a look of triumph over my shoulder at Katy, I motioned to her to raise the vertical. She did it begrudgingly, but Squib jumped that super as well.

  “He’s getting used to it,” I told her confidently, then beamed at Susannah. “This saddle is amazing, by the way. It’s like, holding me in place, and even when he jumps weird I can stay with him.”

  “That’s how jump saddles are supposed to work,” she said with a laugh. “I have no idea how you’ve been jumping in that GP you have. If you want to do the big classes, you’re going to need a better saddle than that one.”

  I sighed, feeling deflated. When I’d set my sights on jumping in the Pony Grand Prix, I hadn’t realised how many things would have to change. Did I really need a new saddle, or to put studs in my pony’s shoes? We’d won our class yesterday, despite being barefoot and having inferior tack, I reminded myself. And that was only a few centimetres off Grand Prix height. Maybe we would be the ones to prove everyone else wrong.

  “Okay, let’s get this class started. Who’s up first?” The gate steward was holding a clipboard of names and trying to establish an order of go. “Anna Harcourt, Flamethrower. You’re up first, wherever you are.”

  “She scratched,” said a rider on a flighty-looking bay as she trotted past, and the steward rolled her eyes and moved her finger down the list to the next name.

  “Okay, Brooke Hastings. Is Brooke here?”

  “Where am I in the order?” I asked Katy as the steward gave up on finding Brooke and moved down to the next name.

  “Ninth, I think,” Katy said. “No need to panic.”

  But she was wrong. There were so many scratchings that I ended up second to go, and the rider ahead of me only got as far as the third fence before she fell off and eliminated herself.

  I waited for her to get up and catch her pony, then rode Squib into the ring. He spooked at the jumps, pretending he’d never seen anything like them before in his life, and it took a sincere effort to coerce him over to the judge’s truck to let them know I was riding out of order.

  “When you’re ready. Be careful out there,” the judge warned before ringing the start bell.

  I wished I’d asked her to wait until Squib was further away and less likely to hear it ring, but I was distracted, and I didn’t. We’d had to take the borrowed ear mufflers off him because once they’d started irritating him once they were wet, and the black dye had leaked through onto his ears, turning them a blotchy gunmetal grey. On hearing the bell, Squib launched himself forward into a series of excited bucks, and I was once again grateful for the loan of Susannah’s saddle as I dug my knees in and forced my heels down, struggling to stay on.

  “Let’s get this over with,” I told my pony and turned him through the start flags towards the first fence.

  Squib baulked, then shot forward and flung himself into the air, pogo-sticking over it as he had over the practice fence. He landed on all four hooves, jarring my spine and making my teeth clack together. I grumbled at him as I shortened my reins and rode him forward to fence two, which he jumped a little more smoothly. I went wide on the turn towards fence three as Katy had instructed me, and although Squib backed off, he jumped it cleanly. Fences four and five disappeared behind us, and then we were at the one-stride double. Squib hesitated, weaving to the side as we approached, and I drove him on with my legs, determined that he would go over. I’d never known my pony to refuse a jump, and I wasn’t about to let him start now.

  Squib cantered right up to the first fence and got there short, jumping right from the base and screwing his body through the air as he cleared it. Another bone-jarring landing, and I lost focus for a moment as Squib took the single canter stride between the jumps. But he’d landed short and he was coming to the oxer out on a long distance. Long spots never bothered him – he’d always preferred to go long than short – and I clicked my tongue and leaned forward, not wanting to get left behind.

  But Squib had a different plan. For the first time in his life he decided to chip in on a half-stride into the base, then jump from a close distance. That was unexpected, and I was off balance and unprepared for it. I kicked on as Squib sank down onto his hindquarters, getting ready to jump. It’s too big, I thought suddenly. He’ll never make it!

  They say horses can tell what you’re thinking. I don’t know if that’s true, or whether it happened because I took my leg off in that second of doubt, or maybeI tensed up through my body, but the upshot of it all was that Squib didn’t jump. For the first time ever, he slid to a halt in front of the fence, his forelegs crashing into the jump poles and sending them clattering to the ground. The judge rang the bell and Squib backed out of the wreckage fretfully with his ears laid back.

  “It’s okay,” I told him, rubbing his solid neck. “It wasn’t your fault. Just give them a moment to rebuild and we’ll have another go.”

  I walked him around as we waited for the jump to be rebuilt, avoiding looking at Katy. I knew she’d be shaking her head at me and telling me to retire now from the class, but I didn’t want to leave it on that note. If Squib had only jumped into the combination properly, he’d have been able to jump out. It had only happened because we got a bad distance off the corner, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again.

  The bell rang, and Squib grabbed at the bit, plunging forwards. He’d clearly decided that more speed was the order of the day, and he usually knew better than I did, so I let him canter on. He met the first fence on a good distance, and landed much better. But he baulked at the oxer, clearly remembering his crash last time he’d gone to jump it. I clucked hard and kicked on, and Squib took a stride and flung himself into the air, with his ears flat back against his head.

  “Good boy!” I praised him loudly as we made the turn to the next fence. Squib bucked on the turn, his ears laid back irritably. For the first time in a show jumping arena, he wasn’t having a good time, and he wanted to make sure I knew it.

  I shortened my reins and lined him up for the triple bar. It was wider than I’d ever jumped before, and when I’d walked the course I’d been pretty sure it was over the 1.20m height limit. It was massive, but Squib could jump anything. All I had to do was make sure he didn’t try and jump it off a long distance, because it was too wide to take off early and make it to the other side. Squib saw the jump and slowed down, so I pushed him on. But instead of speeding up, he went even slower. I had to really kick on to get him to the base, and it was only his honest nature that made him attempt to clear it. He did his best, but I felt one of his hind feet slip on take-off, and he hit a rail on the way up, knocking it to the ground.

  This time when we landed, he really bucked. If I’d been in my own saddle, I’d have been history, flat on my back while he took off to the gate, desperate to get out of the rain. But I had knee rolls and thigh blocks today, and I kept my seat and got his head
up just in time to point him at the yellow and white vertical. Again he slowed, again I pushed him on, again he went even slower, got right to the base, jumped late and had the rail down.

  “What is wrong with you?” I muttered as I made the turn towards where Katy was standing. One more fence and then the treble combination, which was an oxer to a vertical then a long two strides to an oxer out. I cantered past Katy on my way around the turn to the planks, and she called out to me as I approached her.

  “Don’t jump the treble!”

  I looked over at her, rattled. “What?”

  “He won’t make the last distance, he’ll crash! Just retire him,” she yelled, sounding anxious. “Don’t try it!”

  We were three strides away from the planks and I had to focus. I pushed Squib on but he wavered, considering running out to the side of the jump, which he hadn’t done since he was very green and even then only when he was in a silly mood. I pulled on the left rein, keeping him straight, and literally kicked him on, using my voice to growl at him in the way I’d learned to the reluctant riding school ponies I’d started out on.

  Squib jumped, but he wasn’t happy about it. His ears were back the whole time, and he bucked again several times on landing, making sure I knew exactly how he felt about the situation. The treble lay ahead of us now, and my mind started flashing through scenarios.

  We try to jump through the treble and crash.

  We jump through cleanly and prove Katy wrong.

  We jump into the line and he gets the wrong stride, but I pull him out before he gets into trouble…

  No, that was a bad idea. Pulling a horse out of a jump was practically a criminal offence, because it taught the horse that it didn’t have to commit to the jump, and had the option of running out, which was not something I wanted to encourage.

  In the end, Squib was the one to make the decision for me. When he saw the row of three big fences appear in front of us, he sucked so far back behind my leg that I once again felt like I was back on a riding school pony, dead to the leg and reluctant to expend any unnecessary energy. Squib didn’t want to do it, and he couldn’t make his feelings on the matter any clearer, so I took Katy’s advice and circled him away before we reached the fences. My pony came willingly back to a walk and I dropped a quick salute to the judges, indicating my retirement from the class.