Pony Jumpers 5- Five Stride Line

by Kate Lattey

  “Thank God for that,” Katy said as she met me at the gate. “Poor Squib was slipping and sliding all over the place out there, I thought he was about to seriously toss his toys and deck you.”

  “He wasn’t very happy,” I admitted. “He hates the rain in his eyes.”

  Katy just gave me a look, and I knew she didn’t think the rain was the problem. But I knew Squib better than she did, and he’d always hated being ridden in the rain. He’d never hated jumping before, but that was the rain’s fault. And it was a bit slippery out there for him, but that didn’t mean he needed shoes. Maybe it meant that I should just not jump him when the ground was this bad.

  Maybe.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Happily, the rain stopped overnight and by Sunday morning, the sun was out. But it was too little, too late for a couple of the rings, which had been absolutely trashed by the mud yesterday. Katy came bursting into the truck early in the morning with an announcement, flinging the door open with a thunk.

  “They’ve closed the lower pony ring!” she said loudly, yanking me out of my contented half-sleep.

  “What? What does that mean?” I asked, propping myself up on my elbows and fearing the worst.

  She confirmed my suspicions. “It means they’ve cancelled your Derby class. Puppet’s too. They’re only running the Championship classes, because they’ve already printed the rugs and sashes with this year’s date so they can’t use them again. Plus the sponsors want them to run. So now they’re resetting the Derby to put as much of the course in the arena as possible.”

  I sighed heavily and flopped down, face first into the pillow. I’d been hoping for a good round today to get Squib’s confidence back, had even considered dropping him down into the 1.05m Derby to give him a really positive experience, and now I couldn’t do either. I was going to have to finish the show on yesterday’s disaster.

  “Don’t you want to hear the good news?” Katy asked, bouncing over to me in her inexplicably happy mood.

  I opened one eye and looked at her. “Go on then.”

  “I changed your entry and put you in the Open class. You’re welcome.”

  I jerked upright so fast that I hit my head on the truck roof. “Ow! What? Are you mad? That’s a metre-thirty class, and after yesterday…”

  “It’s a metre-twenty to metre-thirty, and the jumps get bigger as you go around the course,” Katy told me. “And the first eleven jumps are on the arena, so you basically get a full metre-twenty to twenty-five course on a good surface before you jump into the grass field. You can just do the first half of the course to give Squib his nerve back, then retire before you have to go on the grass.”

  I stared at her unblinkingly as I rubbed my sore head. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Those jumps are going to be huge.” I’d looked at videos of last year’s Derby on YouTube, and some of the fences were cross-country portables, big wooden rolltops and ramps that wouldn’t fall down if you crashed into them. Before yesterday, that wouldn’t really have concerned me, but now it really, really did.

  “Come on, he’ll love it!” Katy said. “Get him ready and warm him up, see how he feels. Even if you only go in and jump the first couple of fences, at least you’re not ending on yesterday’s disaster.”

  I pulled my pillow out from under my head and whacked her with it. “Shut up about yesterday.”

  Katy grabbed my blankets and hauled them off the bed. “Come on, get up! Squib needs his tail washed, and you need to go and beg Susannah to borrow her saddle again so you don’t fall face first into the mud.”

  I wasn’t going to ask Susannah for another loan – I thought it had been generous enough of her to lend me the saddle, which I’d carefully saddle soaped and oiled before giving it back yesterday – but when Katy saw me putting Squib’s Wintec on again, she marched off to Susannah’s truck and came back with hers.

  “Don’t be too proud to accept help when it’s offered. Sus doesn’t mind, honest. She said she’d sell it to you, but she has to ask her dad what he’d let it go for.”

  I looked dubiously at the saddle as I set it onto Squib’s back. “How much do you reckon it’s worth?”

  Katy shrugged. “It’s an Antares, so a buttload.”

  “What’s that in actual money?”

  “Like five grand.”

  I practically swooned. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. Hey Susannah, how much did you pay for this saddle?” Katy called over her shoulder as Susannah rode up to us on Skip.

  “I don’t know, Dad bought it. It looks good on Squib,” she said with a smile as I tightened up the girth.

  “Thanks for letting me ride in it. I’ll miss it when I give it back,” I admitted.

  “I’d let you hang onto it for as long as you want to use it, but I’ll have to check with Dad,” she said. “He gets a bit overprotective of stuff sometimes.” She pulled a face, as though it was crazy to be possessive of a five thousand dollar saddle.

  “It’s fine, really. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Aren’t you girls ready yet?” Deb demanded, striding over to us. “They’re doing the presentation for the horses, your course is about to open for walking and you haven’t even got Molly’s bridle on yet!”

  “Chill, Mum,” Katy said, moving purposely slowly just to irritate her mother. “Molly’s fourteenth to go, she’s got hours.”

  “Do you know when I’m on?” I asked her as I prised Squib’s mouth open with my thumb and pushed his bit in.

  “No clue, you weren’t on the board because you’re a late entry,” Katy said casually. “Probably near the top but you won’t have to go first or anything so don’t stress.”

  I didn’t have to go first, but I did have to go second. Again. At least this time the rider ahead of me made it over all the jumps, proving that the course was jumpable, although she had five rails down. I rubbed Squib’s neck with one hand as we trotted into the arena, looking around at the huge fences. He’d warmed up well, getting his old confidence back after a couple of jumps off the surface which offered a better grip than the slippery grass had. There were eleven fences to jump before the ramp in the fence line that took the course out onto the grass, including two combinations, but all the big cross-country rolltops were in the field, so I wouldn’t get to jump them. I wasn’t sure whether I was relieved or disappointed about that.

  I made sure to keep Squib away from the judge’s box so he didn’t react to the bell, but it turned out to be an irrelevant concern because they started us with a hooter instead. Fortunately Squib had no idea what that meant, so I was able to move him off smoothly. There was no hesitation in his stride today, no flattened ears or loss of confidence. He eyed up the first fence, powered forward and flew over it with his knees tucked tight to his chest. As we came down he kicked up his heels, as if to prove that he could jump, thank you very much, in case someone had seen him yesterday and had been left in any doubt. Once again Susannah’s saddle saved me from tipping off over his head, and I wondered just how hard it was going to be to go back to riding in my own.

  Squib was incredible. He jumped everything perfectly, flying through the double, attacking every jump with enthusiasm and clearing them all by miles. When we came down to the big Liverpool oxer by the railing, I heard people gasp as he catapulted into the air, and I grinned to myself as I made the turn to the planks – the last jump on the arena.

  Squib’s hind hooves tapped the top plank, but I didn’t hear it fall. It was five strides in a straight line from the planks to the fence line ramp, and Squib had lined it up before I could tell him that we were done for the day. I could’ve turned him away, but I didn’t. I let him canter on towards it, pretending, just for a moment, that we were going to jump the whole course. I’d never jumped him over a solid fence that big before, but once again Squib was possessed of the utter conviction that he could jump anything, and then it was too late to stop him or turn him anyway. We reached the ramp and he bounded over easily, landing on t
he muddy grass.

  It wasn’t as bad as yesterday. There was no surface water on the grass, and it wasn’t as chopped up as the pony ring had been at the end of a long, rainy day. Squib got purchase on the grass and cantered on, looking eagerly ahead and searching out the next jump on course.

  It was the blue and yellow oxer on our left. I knew it was, because I’d walked the whole course with Katy and Susannah, despite not intending to ride it. So now I sat down in the saddle and pushed Squib on towards fence thirteen, deciding to keep going for as long as my pony was happy to jump. If he slipped on a turn or started backing off or bucking, we could leave it at that. But he wanted to go, and I wanted to ride, so we cantered down to the big metre-thirty oxer, a serious Grand Prix fence, completely committed to jumping it.

  The rest of it comes back in flashes, even now. The blue and yellow poles, the clatter as they fell, the grunting sound my pony made, the feel of muddy grass on my face…the taste of dirt in my mouth. The stabbing pain in my arm as Squib stood on it, pressing it into the soft ground and leaving a dark, hoof-shaped bruise that would take weeks to fade.

  Katy told me later that I should’ve just stuck to the game plan, but she admired my courage in giving it a shot.

  “It was brave, if incredibly stupid,” she told me bluntly as I stared out the truck’s front window, watching the road shine ahead of us as we made the journey back to Havelock North.

  After the first hour, Katy went into the back to sleep, but I stayed up front with Deb. I couldn’t face lying down anyway – it was bumpy in the back of the truck and my arm was killing me. Fortunately the paramedics had decided there wasn’t anything wrong with it that some painkillers wouldn’t cure, and had given me paracetamol and a sling that I’d already thrown aside.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I told Deb morosely.

  “About your pony?”

  “Katy says he needs shoes and studs.”

  “But you don’t want to shoe him.” There was no judgement in her voice, just calm statement of fact.

  “I…” My reasons for not wanting to put shoes on Squib were starting to seem silly and ideological. “I’d rather not. But I guess if I have to, then I have to.”

  “Nobody says you have to,” Deb replied. “But I do agree with Katy that it’d be a good idea. You could at least try it. Or if you really don’t want to, then you’ll have to work something else out.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like only ever jumping him off good ground,” Deb said. “If you’re prepared to pick your shows and your surfaces, and scratch if the weather gets bad, then you could carry on barefoot. That’s really up to you.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “I guess I could do that. And it would lessen the risk, right?”

  “It would lessen some risks, maybe. Not others.” She glanced over at me, then refocused on the road. “Not every show is going to have good surfaces. Last year it bucketed down at HOY overnight before Pony of the Year, and the ring got pretty slick. Squib wouldn’t have coped, and it would be a shame to go to all the effort of qualifying, then have to scratch on the day because of a bit of rain.”

  I came over all cold just listening to her. All the time and effort and money it would take to get there, and to have it be for nothing… I couldn’t imagine having the opportunity to ride in POY and then standing around watching instead, even if it was for Squib’s own good in the long run. But then…

  “You’re making me feel selfish,” I told Deb.

  “Not at all,” Deb assured me. “Look, here’s my advice. You can take it or leave it. Get some shoes on him, put some studs in when you’re out competing, and in six weeks’ time, you decide whether it’s made a difference or not. If not, go back to barefoot. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

  “It won’t damage his feet?” I asked hesitatingly.

  “No, I don’t think so. I mean, driving a nail into anything is going to weaken the structure. That’s basic physics. Drive a nail into a piece of wood, and the wood splits around the entry point. But hooves are resilient, and they’re growing all the time. As long as you’ve got good, well-conditioned hooves, the nails will have a minimal effect on the overall hoof health.” She looked over at me. “That’s probably not what you’ve been reading on the internet, but it’s true. In my experience, anyway.”

  I nodded, thinking hard. Deb was a very experienced horsewoman – a lot more experienced than I was – and all of their ponies were shod. But they’re not all sound, I reminded myself. They’d been using a pretty bad farrier before they’d switched to Rick, and his poor work had definitely led to Robin’s lameness - possibly also Lucas’s. Out of loyalty to the farrier because she’d been using him for years, Deb had turned a deaf ear to Katy’s concerns about him until it was too late.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see a new message from Charlie. I’d told her what had happened over the last two days, and expressed my waning conviction that barefoot was best for Squib. I swiped the message open and read it with a frown. I’d expected to get much the same response as Deb had given me – pick your shows, don’t jump in the rain, etc. But Charlie’s advice went one step further.

  If he’s struggling that much on his own hooves, then it’s probably not fair to ask him to jump such big fences. His body knows what it can cope with and nature will tell you when too much is being expected of it. Remember to always put your pony first and listen to what he’s telling you.

  I glared at the screen in frustration, rejecting any feelings of guilt. Squib loved jumping, I was sure of it. He loved being admired, he loved tackling big courses, and he would be the proudest pony in the world to canter into the arena for Pony of the Year. Listen to what he’s telling you. Only ever jumping in low classes that we didn’t need studs for wasn’t what he was telling me.

  I messaged her back.

  That’s the thing though, he loves jumping big! Nothing makes him happier. I’m just thinking maybe we try shoes for a few weeks and see if it helps at all.

  It wasn’t long before I got a response.

  I beg you don’t do it. How will pieces of metal nailed to his feet help him to jump? Think about it. You’re adding weight and putting extra strain on his body, not to mention the risk of tearing a tendon or ligament if you use studs, which have been shown to cause serious damage. If you’d seen the stud wounds I’ve seen you wouldn’t dream of using them!

  I wondered when she’d been around anyone who used studs – as far as I knew she didn’t even go to jumping shows. I turned the screen off without replying and threw my phone into the bag at my feet, then winced as my bruised arm throbbed.

  Deb glanced over at me. “You okay?”

  “What if he gets hurt?” I asked her.

  “What if he doesn’t?” she countered. “A ship in harbour is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for. Your pony was built to jump, and he genuinely loves it. Watching him this weekend, I didn’t see a pony that lacked enthusiasm for the sport. I saw a pony who lacked the right equipment to be able to do his job. Just like that saddle you borrowed from Susannah helped you to stay balanced on his back, studs in his shoes will help him to maintain some purchase on the ground.”

  “And then you won’t end up with a munted arm and grass stains all over your jodhs,” Katy said, climbing through the crawl-through and sitting down next to me in the cab. Apparently she hadn’t been sleeping after all, and I felt a wave of annoyance at her for eavesdropping

  “If he’d had studs in today, he’d have punched holes in my arm,” I pointed out, remembering the paramedics’ relief that my pony hadn’t left me with any puncture wounds, which was apparently another of the dangers of studs, and one thing they commonly saw.

  “If he’d had studs in today, he wouldn’t have fallen over,” Katy replied. “Why are you being so stubborn about this? Just give it a shot. What’ve you got to lose?”

  What’ve I got to lose? I thought as I gazed out of the window at t
he leaden grey sky. Only everything. Squib was the only pony I had, and would ever have. If he got injured, that was it for me. I couldn’t just swap onto the next one while he recovered like Katy could.

  Ignoring them both, I leaned against the cool window glass and watched the rolling hills pass us by, lost in my own swirling thoughts.

  CHAPTER NINE

  With no more shows before Christmas – in fact, nothing until the second week of January – I could wait a bit longer before making a decision about Squib. I was still torn over what to do, and it seemed that the more research I tried to do online, the more confused I became.

  Two nights later, after a particularly frustrating schooling session where I’d been trying – and failing – to teach Squib how to do shoulder-in, I came home to find an unexpected visitor in our house. Harry was lounging in front of the TV with his feet on the coffee table and a big bowl of popcorn on the couch next to him. Lexi was sitting on his other side, glaring at the TV as she fast-forwarded through anti-piracy ads, and was the only one who didn’t turn to look at me as I entered the room.

  “I told you she’d come home stinking of horse.” Anders was sprawled across the other couch, taking up the entire three-seater on his own. He had an enormous bowl of popcorn resting on his stomach, and was apparently completely at ease with the situation.

  “Wouldn’t expect anything less,” Harry said, grinning over his shoulder at me. “How’s it going, AJ?”