Pony Jumpers 5- Five Stride Line

by Kate Lattey

  “Yep. And I always thought I was the weird one, because I’m so weirdly obsessed with my pony.”

  “That is pretty weird,” Lexi agreed, almost smiling.

  “Besides, you’re already the smart one,” I told her. “You don’t get to be smart and weird. That’s just greedy.”

  Lexi gave a short laugh, much to my relief. “I could be weirdly smart.”

  “That’s entirely possible,” I agreed as I heard a familiar voice behind me.

  “There you two are!” Mum strode over to us, spinning her car keys around her index finger. “All set?”

  I shook my head in a renewed panic as Lexi replied on my behalf. “She hasn’t bought anything yet.”

  “Nothing at all?” Mum looked at me in surprise. “I thought you’d have acquired half the shop by now.”

  With whose money? I thought bitterly, but swallowed my irritation.

  “I’m almost done,” I lied. “Just a couple more minutes.” I looked around frantically, but Lexi bought me some time by dragging Mum over to the ice boots and explaining to her how they worked, which kept them out of my hair for a minute or two.

  I hurried down the aisle, looking desperately around for something – anything – that I could buy for my friend. I found myself in front of the racks of halters and leads, wondering if any of them would appeal to Katy. There was gorgeous dark brown leather one, but a quick glance at the price tag revealed that it too was way outside my budget.

  “Can I help you find anything?” I turned to see Hannah Fitzherbert, who smiled warmly as she recognised me. “Oh hi! You’re Katy’s friend with the grey pony, right?”

  I nodded. Hannah was the eldest of the Fitzherbert siblings and was studying at Massey University, so wasn’t around much. I’d only met her a couple of times, and I was a little surprised that she remembered me.

  “Yeah, I’m trying to find a present for Katy actually,” I said, wondering if she could help. “But I can’t find anything she doesn’t already have.”

  “Hmm.” Hannah cast her eyes around the shop. “Oh, I’ve got just the thing! Come with me.” She led me over to a stand near the front counter, where a range of leather belts were hanging. “Did you see these? They’re really cool.” She pulled a black belt off the stand and handed it to me, then picked up a brass nameplate. “You can get this engraved with her pony’s name, and then get it riveted onto the belt. We’ve only just started selling them but they’re really cool. Everyone’s going to be wearing them soon, I promise.”

  She was right that it was pretty cool, and I knew Katy would love one. “How much are they?” I asked nervously.

  “Sixty for the belt and ten for the plate. Engraving and mounting is included,” Hannah said happily. “We’ll do it out the back for you while you wait. Such a bargain. And they’re really good quality!”

  I sighed. “Thanks, but I don’t even have fifty bucks left.”

  “Oh.” Hannah looked disappointed for a moment. “Bummer. I wish I could give you a discount, but I don’t have the authority. I could ask my boss?” she suggested weakly, sounding as though she didn’t really want to but felt obliged to offer.

  “That’s a nice belt,” said a voice over my shoulder before I could respond to Hannah, and I turned to see Mum looking at the belt still in my hands. “Is that what you’re getting for Katy?”

  “Um…maybe.” I’d just had a thought. “If you can lend me twenty bucks. I promise I’ll pay you back as soon as I can, but I’m just a bit short.” I showed her the belt and the nameplate, and she looked thoughtful as I continued my pitch. “I wouldn’t ask, but it’s perfect for her and she’d love it. I honestly can’t find anything else she’d rather have.”

  “You know we don’t like lending money,” Mum said, reiterating our family policy. She and Dad had decided years ago that five children were too many to just hand out money to, so loans were strictly forbidden in our house. But she surprised me by pulling her wallet out of her handbag. “However I will give you twenty dollars, since Katy has done so much for you and Squib. You can tell her that part of the gift came from us.”

  “I will,” I promised. “Thanks so much!”

  * * *

  On Christmas Eve, Katy and I rode over to the Fitzherberts’ arena to do a bit of jump schooling. Squib was excited, tugging at the bit as we trotted down the grass verge next to the road.

  “Steady on,” I told him. “You’ll get there eventually, but you don’t need to try and pull my arms out of their sockets.”

  “How does he feel?” Katy asked me for the umpteenth time. It was my first time riding Squib since he’d had his shoes put on, but other than the different sound he was making when he stepped onto the sealed road, I couldn’t tell much of a difference.

  “Fine. The same.”

  A pheasant flew out of a bush and Squib leapt sideways, then shot forward into a canter. Sinking my weight down into my heels, I pulled him back, trying to resume a trot. He ignored me and kept cantering, shortening his stride until he was cantering almost on the spot. I couldn’t help smiling, and Katy called something to me that I couldn’t quite hear. I turned my head to face her at the same time as Squib bounded sideways and bucked, throwing me forward onto his neck. I wrapped my arms around him tightly, not wanting to faceplant into the tarmac, and Squib stopped misbehaving, allowing me a chance regain my seat.

  Katy was laughing as she rode Molly up next to us, reins loose on her pretty bay mare’s neck. “Nice save!”

  “He’s so full of himself,” I said, shoving myself back into the saddle and shortening my reins. “Maybe I shouldn’t have given him two days off.”

  “He’s feeling good,” Katy asserted, her eyes travelling to Squib’s shod hooves. “Trust me. He’s already feeling the difference, whether you want to admit it or not.”

  I stuck my tongue out at her, and she laughed louder and nudged Molly into her long-striding trot.

  “Come on, let’s get going!”

  There was nobody home at the Fitzherberts’. We looked around as we rode up their driveway, noticing the stables standing empty, the tackroom locked securely and the yard swept. Their horses and ponies were all turned out in the paddocks, grazing peacefully on the rolling hills that surrounded their property.

  “Huh.” Katy looked around in surprise. “I thought they’d be here. They usually have a big family shindig on Christmas Eve.”

  “And we were going to gate crash?” I asked.

  “Not at all,” Katy replied. “They practically expect me to turn up. Last year we nicked a bottle of bubbly off the table and got very tipsy in the hay barn.” She cast around another look of apparent disappointment, then shrugged. “Oh well. Let’s go jump anyway.”

  We rode on up to the arena, and Katy stood in her stirrups and looked over at the house. “There is someone home,” she pointed out. “The doors are open onto the verandah.”

  “Should we go and ask permission to jump?” I asked.

  Katy snorted. “Nah, they won’t care. Should probably go say hi though. Merry Christmas, and all that.” She looked at the arena as we stopped at the gate. There was a course set at a good height, probably about a metre-fifteen to metre-twenty. “But let’s jump first!”

  The most difficult thing about jumping Squib had always been trying to keep his enthusiasm contained. His tendency to run at the jumps and fling himself over them, clearing them by miles, made it hard to keep up with him sometimes. But that had never bothered me too much, because having a pony who loved jumping too much and jumped too high was not really anything to complain about. But his exuberance also made him tricky to adjust between the fences, and although the schooling I’d been giving him under Katy’s watchful guidance had helped me to get him a little steadier, he was still liable to get headstrong between the jumps. Related distances and combinations were often our downfall, because Squib would jump into a line and then power on down to the next obstacle as quickly as he could, often getting under the second fence
and having to snap his forelegs up really quickly to avoid taking down the rail.

  Despite all my schooling, he was still a handful at times, but he warmed up well, and I walked him on a soft rein while I watched Katy jump Molly cleanly around the course, her black tail swishing in a satisfied manner over every fence.

  Patting her pony as she came back to a trot, Katy looked at me. “Your turn.”

  I picked up my reins and touched my leg on, and Squib bounded into a canter. Immediately I sat up and steadied him, then pointed him towards the first jump. He cleared it and cantered on around the corner to the second. It was a wide oxer, with a high vertical six strides on. Squib cleared the oxer with ease, despite its width, and eyed up the vertical keenly. I sat up and held him back, and for the first couple of strides he pulled against me as usual, running through my hand and getting strong. But then something changed. I felt his stride shorten and get bouncier, and instead of burying himself at the base of the vertical, he reached it on a super distance and flew the fence easily. I praised him as we took the corner towards the treble line, squaring my shoulders and bracing myself. But once again, Squib allowed me to rate his stride. He was still enthusiastic and travelling a bit faster than was probably ideal. But instead of running away from me, he seemed more willing to collect his pace.

  The new controllability was a definite upside. The downside was that Squib was now using his hindquarters so powerfully in the canter that he was chucking me out of the saddle over every fence. He bounded down the line of jumps with his ears pricked, tucking his legs up carefully over the top poles, adoring his job. I shoved my heels down as far as I could and struggled to stay with him. When he landed over the middle fence, with only one stride to the big oxer out, I was slightly behind the movement and landed on the high cantle of the saddle, which bounced me forward again. I was half on his neck as he jumped out of the line, despite my inept riding, and I had to circle him before I could complete the course. But the same thing happened over the last two jumps as Squib’s huge leaps threw me out of the tack, and I was puffing as much as my pony when I pulled him up.

  Katy had the look of a cat that just got a whole bottle of cream.

  “I told you. Didn’t I tell you? I said shoes would make him jump better!”

  I looked at her, still breathless. “He’s jumping huge!” I said breathlessly. “I can hardly stay on!”

  “I know.” Her grin never slipped. “I hope you asked Santa for a new saddle, because you’re going to need one.”

  I walked Squib on a loose rein, rubbing his neck with the palms of my hands. “Why would having shoes on make a difference here though?” I asked. “We’re not even using studs. I thought we got them so he could be studded on grass.”

  “Well that was the main concern,” Katy agreed, letting Molly walk alongside Squib. “I suspected this might happen though. Consider it an added bonus.”

  “But why?” I queried, a little confused. “He’s not slipping on this surface, he never has.”

  “No, but it’s abrasive,” Katy replied. “It’s a course gravel sand and it’s got sharp bits in it. The shoes make him feel more comfortable, so he’s more willing to sit and push from behind. That’s why he’s getting so much more air over the fences.” I must have still looked a bit confused, because she continued to clarify. “It’s like if you went running on the beach without shoes on. After a few kilometres you’d start feeling it on the soles of your feet. That’s why humans wear shoes for running. We protect our feet so we can run faster and stronger. It’s not really any different for horses.”

  I frowned. “But we have completely different feet to horses,” I pointed out.

  “A bit different,” she conceded. “But if he stood on a nail, he’d feel it. If he stood on a sharp rock, he’d feel it. Squib’s got pretty tough feet, not like Lucas, who’s such a sensitive soul that he flinches when you pick out around his frog. And before you say anything,” she warned me, “he doesn’t have thrush. He’s just got sensitive feet. Some humans can run miles without shoes, but most of us can’t. Even with all the conditioning in the world, it’s never going to be as comfortable as having that protection on the bottom of the hoof. There is a reason that all the top riders around the world, in every Olympic discipline, have shod horses. Because it works.”

  “Well you must be feeling pretty pleased with yourself,” I said, resigning myself to accepting that she was right, and had been all along. But she didn’t take the opportunity I’d just given her to rub it in, instead giving me a serious look.

  “I’m pleased for you, actually,” Katy told me. “I’m glad you made the decision to shoe your pony, because I think it’s the best thing for him. I don’t have an agenda, AJ. I never have. But it scared me, watching you jump without shoes on slippery ground. I was worried that you would get hurt, and Squib would get a fright. For your safety and his comfort, I wanted you to at least try shoeing him. You can always pull them over winter, and only use them for the months of the year you’re competing regularly. You’ll save money that way too.”

  “That’ll be good, because I don’t know how I’m going to keep paying for them,” I admitted. “Mum and Dad agreed to cough up for this first set, but it’s a lot of money to be spending every six weeks.”

  “Doesn’t come cheap,” Katy conceded. “And you pay more for a decent farrier, but you know what they say about paying peanuts and getting monkeys.” We were both silent for a moment, both thinking about Lucas and Robin and the damage that substandard shoeing had done to them, but neither wanting to talk about it directly. Then a wicked grin crossed Katy’s face, and she slid her foot out of her stirrup and kicked my ankle with her toe.

  “Maybe you should just give it up and go out with Harry, see if his old man won’t cut you a deal,” she suggested.

  “Well by that logic, maybe you should go out with him?” I suggested, safe in the knowledge that she wasn’t interested in him but unable to resist teasing her. “You’ve got more ponies than I do.”

  “Be a harder sell,” Katy said. “Besides, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not the one he’s interested in.”

  She was right, and I felt a moment of relief that we weren’t interested in the same guy, because that could really make things awkward. I mentally crossed my fingers that it would never happen. Of course, the only guy I’d seen Katy interested in was my brother, which was a whole different level of potential awkwardness. But I’d warned Anders off, and although he still teased and mildly flirted with her, he had promised me that he wouldn’t try anything.

  I pulled my mind back to Squib. “Let’s just hope he stays sound,” I said, making Katy roll her eyes.

  “Talk about paranoid, sheesh.” She leaned across Molly’s neck and latched the gate behind us, then motioned towards the house. “Better go say bye, and Merry Christmas and all that.”

  “Right.”

  We rode up to the house, with its large wrap-around verandah and sliding doors that opened out onto it from all sides. Katy urged Molly onto the lawn, weaving between garden beds and narrowly avoiding stepping into the fish pond.

  “Hello!” she called out, leaning down and peering into the house. “Anyone there?”

  It was a few long moments before Phil appeared, sauntering across the threshold and leaning against one of the verandah posts with his arms folded.

  “What?”

  “What?” Katy repeated. “Jeez, Philip, you’re the friendliest person I know. You ought to go into the diplomatic service or something.”

  Phil rolled his eyes, glanced at me in vague disinterest, then looked back to Katy. “What’s up?”

  “Slightly better,” she conceded. “No party this year?”

  “It’s at Trish and Patrick’s,” he said, and Katy nodded, apparently knowing who they were. “They wanted to have the Christmas Eve bash at their new place so they can show it off to the rest of the family.”

  “But you decided not to grace them with your presence?”r />
  He shrugged. “Nah. Couldn’t be bothered.”

  “Such a social butterfly,” Katy teased him as Molly shifted impatiently, then tried to dig up the lawn with a front hoof. “Molly, stop that. Well, we just came to say thanks for letting us use the arena, and have a good Christmas, I guess.”

  Phil accepted her comments with a small up-thrust of his chin, that inverse nod that boys do to communicate with each other when saying Hey is too much effort. “You too.” He glanced at me again, gave another upside-down nod, then went back into the house.

  Katy picked her way back towards me, and we let the ponies stride on down the drive.

  “Man, talk about unfriendly,” I muttered. “What a jerk.”

  I waited for Katy to agree with me, but she was looking pensive as she stared over her shoulder at the house. “He never used to be like that.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Really? What changed?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to put my finger on it. Growing up, I always got on with Phil better than any of the others. Bradley was too bossy, Hannah was too superior and Lacey was such a cry baby. Some things never change, I guess.” She smiled half-heartedly as I laughed. “But Phil and I used to have so much fun. Building forts and rafts, playing pranks on the others. Man, we got them good a few times.” She chuckled at the memory, then her expression sobered again. “But then we got to high school, and he became a teenager, I guess.”

  “You’re a teenager too,” I pointed out.

  “I’m not a sulky one like him.”

  I choked back a laugh. “Um, have you met you?”

  Katy looked shocked by my comment. “I’m not sulky! Well, only when I have reason to be. Not all the time for no reason at all like Phil. It’s weird.”

  “Maybe he’s the weird one in the family,” I said quietly, thinking back to my conversation with Lexi.

  “He used to be the fun one,” Katy grumbled. “Why’d he have to turn into such a teenage boy?” She caught my expression and clarified. “You know what I mean. That phase they all go through when they stop talking and start communicating only in grunts. Bradley went like that, but he came out the other side. You’ve got brothers, you must know what I mean.”