Pony Jumpers 5- Five Stride Line

by Kate Lattey

  “That was an overreaction. All I did was nudge you.”

  I rolled up my sleeve and showed him the huge dark bruise on my arm. “You nudged that.”

  Harry swore under his breath, but he looked impressed. “How’d you manage that one? Squib bite you or something?”

  “Stood on me,” I replied. I found myself telling him the whole story, explaining how Squib had jumped super at the start of the show but then the rain had destroyed the ground and spoiled everything. I looked at him warily as I finished my retelling. “I suppose you’re going to tell me to put shoes on him.”

  Harry shrugged. “It’s not really any of my business, but yeah, kind of. I mean, I don’t see why you wouldn’t, if you think it’ll help.”

  “Because…” I looked over at Anders, who was asleep on the couch. The movie was still going, crashing through relentless action sequences, but nobody in the room was paying it any attention. “Never mind. You’ll think I’m stupid.”

  “I doubt it.” I looked at him warily, and he leaned his head back against the couch cushions and considered me. “You must have your reasons. I’m just curious what they are.”

  I took a breath, wondering how much to say. “I don’t know. I just…well, I’ve always liked the idea of keeping horses as naturally as possible. You know, not shutting them in stables or strapping their heads down with a whole lot of extra tack.” Harry nodded understandingly, and I continued. “So when I got Squib, I set myself goals, like that one day I would jump him around a whole course with just a rope round his neck, and that I would keep him as natural and healthy as possible. He has really good feet, all the farriers say so, and he never needed shoes before. But now it’s like…the goals I set then and the ones that I’m setting now are so different. I never really thought I’d ever jump him in Pony Grand Prix, or be aiming at Pony of the Year or anything, but somehow I am. And I’m really excited about those goals too, but it seems like the closer I get to them, the further away I get from the other ones.”

  “And you liked your other goals because they were more about the pony’s welfare and not about your ego?”

  I blinked a couple of times, surprised that he’d understood so well. Twisting sideways to face him, I nodded emphatically. “Right. Like I used to ride him in a snaffle, but now I use a copper roller. And I do have more control and he is way easier to ride, but I feel like I should be taking the time to school him in the snaffle properly, you know? So I don’t have to use the stronger bit, or a martingale. A couple of weeks ago when he kept throwing his head up Katy suggested a shadow roll, but I don’t want to add more tack. It seems kind of…self-defeating.” I sighed, feeling more confused than ever. “And I can’t talk to Katy about this, because she just tells me that Squib is in perfect health and happy as, but she’s so much more competitive and driven than I am. She doesn’t really get it.”

  Harry looked thoughtful, running his hand through his tousled hair then scratching an itch at the back of his head. “Want my advice?”

  I eyed him dubiously. “I guess.”

  “Put shoes on your pony.”

  I groaned, rolling my eyes, but he held up a hand. “Hear me out. When we were living in Huntly, Dad had a client with a barefoot pony a bit like yours. It was a Kaimanawa, bred tough and had hooves like rock. Barely needed trimming, and Dad always reckoned they were the best hooves he’d ever worked on. That pony jumped awesome, show jumped all summer and hunted all winter, never slipped or stumbled or anything.”

  “I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.”

  “I’m not done. So then they decided to buy a second pony, right? And they wanted another one that would go barefoot, so they bought this pinto pony that was bred on some station out Gisborne way. Great feet, once again, but when they started jumping it over a metre it kept getting under the jumps or taking rails. They did everything they could think of to get it to jump – spurs, whips, stronger bits, whole nine yards. Dad said maybe it needed shoes, maybe it wanted more grip, but they refused to consider it. Kept saying it had awesome hooves, and they were adamant that shoes wouldn’t help.” He tailed off and sat there, looking thoughtful.

  “So what happened?” I asked curiously.

  “Flipped over backwards on its owner, eventually.” He nodded as I gasped. “Broke her pelvis, and they wanted him shot for being dangerous. Dad persuaded them to give the pony away instead, and he ended up going to my cousin. She immediately had him shod, and she had a different pony within a few weeks. Even won a couple of classes at HOY earlier this year,” he added proudly. “Goes in a snaffle, jumps like a bean. So my point is that just because your pony has really good strong hooves, doesn’t mean that he’s happy jumping off them without the extra support of studs. Some ponies are just like that, and you’re not going to change them. If you really want to do the right thing by your pony, don’t let your ideals block you from listening to him. Give the shoes a shot. If they don’t help, take them off.”

  I nodded slowly. “You could be right.”

  Harry grinned. “I’m always right.”

  “Modest, too.”

  “To a fault.” He looked over at the TV and we both noticed that the end credits were rolling. “I guess it’s time I got out of your hair.”

  “Thanks for the advice. I’ll give your Dad a call.”

  Harry gave me an encouraging smile as he picked up his sweatshirt and headed for the door. “You do that. He’s working around these parts tomorrow, he could probably fit you in.”

  Tomorrow? I hesitated, then made myself nod. “Okay. Let’s do this thing.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Last chance to change your mind.”

  “She’s not going to change her mind,” Katy insisted.

  I sucked in a breath, but nodded determinedly. “Go ahead.”

  Rick grinned at me through his mouthful of nails, and set one into the shoe that was fitted against Squib’s hoof. Holding it carefully between forefinger and thumb, he drove it in smartly with the hammer. Squib flinched in surprise, and turned his head to see what was going on.

  “Good pony. Keep him steady,” Rick said as he set another nail and drove it swiftly into the hoof.

  Squib rolled his eyes at me, lifting his head and looking anxious.

  “It’s okay,” I told him, pushing aside my own misgivings. “Here.”

  I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out a piece of carrot, which Squib gobbled up eagerly. He proceeded to carefully search me for more, his concern about what was happening to his hooves evaporating in the face of potential snacks, and before we knew it, he had shoes on all four feet.

  Katy wanted me to ride him straight away, but I resisted.

  “I’ll let him have a while to get used to them,” I decided, looking at the shoes nailed firmly onto Squib’s hooves. They looked so foreign, yet familiar at the same time. After all, I’d seen and ridden shod ponies before – but none of them had been Squib.

  “They’re shoes, not anvils,” Katy told me. “He’s not going to die.”

  “I can’t anyway,” I said. “I promised Mum I’d go shopping with her and Lexi this afternoon.”

  Rick looked over at me curiously as he shut the back of his ute. “How’s she doing, your sister? All right?”

  “Yeah, fine,” I replied, a little confused until I realised that Harry must have filled him in. I wondered what he’d told his father about Lexi – and about me. Feeling my face starting to flush red, I quickly led Squib back to his paddock, listening to the unfamiliar clip clop of his hooves as the metal shoes rang out against the concrete and trying to swallow my misgivings.

  * * *

  “All set?”

  Mum was looking at me expectantly as I walked to the front of the shop, dodging harassed shoppers while I scanned the list in my hand.

  “Almost,” I told her, side-stepping a small child at the last minute. “Just need to find something for Katy, but I’ll need to go to the tack shop for that. How abo
ut you?”

  “Mostly,” Mum said. “Just a few more things, but don’t feel like you have to stay with me.” She smiled broadly, and I read between the lines. “I’ll meet you at the saddlery in half an hour.”

  And she hurried off into the crowds, leaving me with Lexi.

  “Do we have to go to the horse shop?” she asked, looking put out.

  “Only if you want me to finish my Christmas shopping so we can go home,” I replied, and she huffed out a sigh.

  “Fine.”

  We headed down the busy street, and I tried to think of something Katy needed that she didn’t already have. Nothing sprang to mind.

  “Why does everyone leave their shopping until the last minute?” Lexi asked as we walked past a woman talking on her cell phone, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.

  “Because we’re lazy,” I replied, almost colliding with the man in front of me when he stopped abruptly to stare at a florist’s window display. “Can’t all be as organised as you, Lex.”

  “I bought everyone’s Christmas presents ages ago.”

  “I know.” She’d not shut up about it all afternoon, having only been dragged along with me and Mum because Mum wanted to buy her some new clothes for Christmas, and she’d long since given up on trying to guess what Lexi would like.

  We walked on in silence as the crowds thinned out slightly, then crossed the road to the saddlery. I breathed in the delicious smell of leather, and looked around in delight at the rows and rows of horse gear. Lexi followed me as I headed down the nearest aisle.

  “What are you going to buy for Katy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She huffed out an exasperated breath. Lexi never went shopping without knowing exactly what she was there to buy. Actually, she hardly ever went shopping at all, finding it much easier to do everything online.

  “What’s this?”

  I looked over at the package in her hand. “Um. Ice boot.”

  “Ice boot?”

  “Yeah, see?” I picked up a plastic sheet of ice cells and prodded one of the pouches of blue liquid. “You put this in the freezer, then slot it into the boot and wrap it around the horse’s leg. In case of strains or injuries, like an icepack on a human.”

  “Oh.” She set the ice boots down and walked a few steps along, perusing the aisles with vague interest. “What’re these?”

  “Open front tendon boots.” I pointed to the plastic horse leg on the next shelf that was modelling one of the boots. “They’re for jumping.”

  “Why don’t they go all the way around?” Lexi asked, perplexed.

  “Because the horse’s tendons and ligaments all run down the back of the leg,” I explained. “So the hard plastic is to protect that part, because it’s the most sensitive. The front of the leg is bone, like our shins. And they’re open at the front so that if the horse hits a jump, they’ll feel it and then they’ll pick their legs up higher next time.”

  Lexi looked horrified. “That’s so mean!” She turned on me with an accusatory glare. “Do you have these boots for Squib?”

  I nodded slowly. “Yeah, but he almost never touches the jumps anyway. He’s very careful.”

  “I don’t blame him,” Lexi said as she set the boots back down. “Well, don’t buy those for Katy. I don’t think she should use them.”

  “Okay.” I knew Katy already had about ten sets of open fronts, so I wasn’t planning on getting them anyway. “What d’you reckon she’d like?”

  Lexi shrugged and turned to look at the display behind her. “What’re all these?”

  I drew in a breath, schooling myself to patience, and turned to see what she was staring at. “Oh. Those are studs.” She still looked confused, so I picked up one of the little plastic bags and showed her the small pointed studs inside. “They screw into the horse’s shoe to give them more grip when the grass is slippery.”

  “Oh.” She took the bag from me, and looked at the display with interest. “That makes sense. And there’s lots of different kinds.” She pulled out a set of bullet studs. “Do you mix and match?”

  “Sometimes.” I picked up a pre-packaged stud kit that came with a range of studs and a spanner and stud tap. Katy had told me I could use her studs until I decided whether I wanted to keep Squib shod. I didn’t need this yet.

  “I like these ones.” Lexi pulled a packet of shiny gold-coloured studs off the stand and thrust them at me. “You should get these for Katy.”

  “Nah, she’s got heaps of studs already,” I said and turned away, unwilling to look at the display any longer.

  Shopping for Katy was harder than I’d imagined. I’d assumed that when I got through the saddlery doors, something would’ve leapt out at me. But nothing had, and everything that Lexi suggested was something Katy already owned or didn’t need. After about the tenth time I told my sister that she already has one of those Lexi looked exasperated.

  “What doesn’t she have?”

  “If I knew that, I’d have bought it already,” I snapped back.

  The only thing I’d found that I’d considered buying was a set of spurs with little crystal studs inlaid along the sides, which Katy had admired on another rider at Taupo, but Lexi refused to let me buy them.

  “No whips either,” she said adamantly. For someone who had no interest in horses and barely even noticed our family dog, she was very strict about what she saw as potential animal abuse.

  “Fine.” I put them back and kept walking, finding myself in front of a wall of bits.

  Someone walked past us, their arms laden with gear, and I felt a jealous surge as they dumped it all on the counter and told the saleswoman to hold onto it for a moment while they picked up a few more things. I could easily spend that much in this shop too, but my bank account had less than fifty dollars left in it, and that had to go on a gift for Katy. I wanted to get her something good, because she’d done so much for me and Squib. Both she and her mother were so generous with their time and knowledge, not to mention letting Squib graze on their farm and eat their grass, lending me gear and taking me to shows, treating me like a part of their family. I helped out as much as I could around their farm to repay them, but I wasn’t sure it was enough. And then with a guilty start, I realised that I hadn’t even thought of what to get Deb for Christmas…

  “Do you like Harry?”

  I spun around to face my sister, who was fiddling with the rings on a Dutch gag bit. “What?” I asked, flummoxed.

  Lexi glanced at me, then averted her eyes. Prolonged eye contact was not one of her favourite things. “Do you like Harry?”

  “Um, sure. He’s a friend.” I could feel myself breaking out into an anxious sweat, partly because this was a touchy subject, and partly out of fear that if I said the wrong thing, Lexi would have one of her major meltdowns in the middle of the saddlery, and I’d be powerless to stop her.

  “He likes you too, I think.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say. Silence lingered between us for a moment, punctuated by a series of beeps as the woman at the counter scanned her customer’s purchases.

  “I like him too.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m older than you. He’s closer to my age.”

  I swallowed. “Yes, he is.”

  “But he likes you more than me.”

  My eyes shot up to meet Lexi’s, and she met my gaze for a few seconds before looking away. She looked a bit sad, but not angry. More like resigned.

  “I don’t know about that,” I hedged. “He–”

  But she cut me off, staring at the bit in her hand. “I think he likes you like a girlfriend. Like he wants you to be his girlfriend.”

  “I…” I really didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t lie to her, and she wasn’t wrong. Silence lingered between us for a moment before I came up with something to say. “I guess that’s his decision to make.”

  Lexi’s brow furrowed as she considered that, then she heaved out a sigh. “He’ll choos
e you. People like you better than me.”

  She turned and started back down the aisle, and I hurried after her, feeling a weird sense of déjà vu as I recalled my conversation with Astrid only a few days ago.

  “Harry likes you too,” I insisted as I caught up. “He told me that you’re really interesting to sit next to in History, and that you know more about the subject than the teacher.”

  Lexi snorted disparagingly, coming to a halt in front of the brushes and grooming tools. “That’s not hard. Mr Gibson is woefully uninformed. And anyway, that’s not what I meant.” She picked up a soft body brush and ran her hand over the bristles. “I think he wants you to be his girlfriend.”

  “I hope you’re not still talking about Mr Gibson,” I tried to joke, but Lexi didn’t smile.

  “I’m talking about Harry.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I stared at the row of brightly coloured dandy brushes. “I won’t, though. Be his girlfriend, I mean. Not if you don’t want me to.”

  Lexi looked surprised. “But you like him, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. But it’s not like he’s asked me out or anything. So…”

  “He will,” Lexi said firmly. “I know he will.”

  “Oh yeah?” I picked up an ugly brush with garish pink and orange bristles, wondering vaguely if I could get it for Katy as a kind of joke gift. “What makes you so sure?”

  “Everyone likes you,” she replied. “You’re the nice one.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Who, me?”

  She nodded. “You’re the nice one. Anders is the loud one. Astrid is the quiet one.”

  “What’s Aidan?”

  “The responsible one.”

  That figured. “And you?”

  “I’m the weird one.”

  I threw the brush back onto the shelf and shook my head at her. “You’re not weird.”

  “Yes I am. Everyone thinks so.”

  “Well everyone is wrong. Because I have it on good authority from Astrid that she’s the weird one. She told me last week.”

  Lexi gave me a sideways look. “She did?”