Pony Jumpers 6- Six to Ride

by Kate Lattey

  “How are you Katy?” Christina asked me as she made her way to her daughter’s bedside. I mumbled a response, knowing she was only asking out of politeness anyway. She didn’t even look at me as she rested a hand on AJ’s forehead and peered at her anxiously. “Are you feeling better, Possum? Headache easing off at all?”

  AJ pulled a face. “Not really.”

  “Well, the doctors said it would take time,” Christina said, but the crease between her eyebrows deepened as she spoke. “Head trauma,” she told Mum over her shoulder in that matter-of-fact tone that she used for every conversation, but her voice sounded shakier than usual, as though she was only just holding it together. AJ’s mum was a police detective, well used to horrible and gruesome things happening in the world, but she was a lot more emotional today than I’d ever seen her before. I supposed that those horrible things usually happened to other people, not her own children, and I wondered again how Anders was doing. I needed to know, yet I didn’t want to ask.

  AJ’s mum moved away from her side, and I tried to give my friend an optimistic smile.

  “You’ll be out of here in no time,” I assured her. “A few weeks of R&R and you’ll be back in the saddle and raring to go.”

  AJ’s eyes lit up, but her mother made a little huffing noise. “Yes, well. We’ll see about that.” She pushed past me and tried to fluff up AJ’s pillows, but they lay stubbornly flat despite her attempts. “It’ll be some time before AJ is able to ride again, and there won’t be any more shows for you this season,” she told her daughter firmly. “No riding for at least three months, remember?”

  AJ glared at her. “He said no contact sports,” she reminded her mother. “Riding isn’t a contact sport! Squib’s not going to tackle me in the paddock.”

  “He might if you have enough carrots,” I muttered, but AJ didn’t hear me.

  “It is if you fall off,” Christina told her daughter. “I know it feels like the end of the world right now, but it’s not worth risking doing more serious internal damage if you have a fall, especially with a head injury. It’s too risky, and as much as you love Squib, you can’t exactly argue that you never fall off him.”

  AJ opened her mouth to rebut her mother’s comment, but she didn’t have a leg to stand on, and we both knew it. The truth was that AJ did fall off a fair amount, usually because Squib jumped her out of the tack or spooked unexpectedly rather than because of any deficiency in AJ’s riding ability. And her pony almost never got her off on purpose, or so she insisted. But the ground was hard, however you ended up there, and even if he’d been the quietest pony in the world there’d have been no guarantees.

  There was a brief silence as we all let the depressing information sink in, then Alexia started asking again when they were going to go home because the hospital smell was giving her a headache, and Christina was distracted with trying to placate her while Astrid just stared vacantly out of the window, her mind clearly elsewhere.

  I leaned in closer to AJ and spoke quietly. “Do you remember what happened?” I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to ask, but I was desperate to know more.

  She started to shake her head, then winced again. “Ow. I keep doing that. Nope, no clue. I was flicking through the music on my phone, trying to find the song I wanted to listen to, and then Anders started swearing and the next thing I knew we’d gone off the road and everything was upside down.” She blinked a couple of times. “I whacked my head pretty hard on the dashboard and it took me a moment or two to realise what’d happened. By then Anders was unconscious, but luckily the people behind us pulled over and called an ambulance, then helped us get us out of the car. Anders came round briefly before the ambo got there but he wasn’t talking.” She shuddered a little. “It was so scary,” she whispered. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  I swallowed down my fear, trying to stay calm for her sake. “How is Anders?”

  “I don’t really know. Nobody’s talking about him much. He’s still in ICU, and they haven’t let anyone except Mum and Dad in to see him yet. All they’ll tell me is that he’s stable, but he’s still unconscious and I’m scared.”

  “Me too.” I grabbed her hand and she held mine tightly.

  “I mean, he’s a pain in the neck,” AJ said softly. “But he’s also my best friend. You know, aside from you.”

  “I know.” I looked over at Mum, who was deep in conversation with Christina. “And don’t worry about Squib,” I reassured AJ. “I’ll take care of him until you’re better.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled weakly. “It’s so annoying. Just when I had him going well, and now we’re going to be back to square one by the time I can ride again. He’ll probably be just as naughty as he was when I started.”

  She sighed heavily as the ward nurse came back into the room and looked scandalised by the number of people crowding around AJ’s bed. She strode over and started telling us that only two visitors were allowed at a time, and that her patient looked exhausted and it was time for her to get some rest. I was ready to argue the point, but AJ didn’t raise any objections to the proposal, so Mum and I took the hint and said goodbye, promising to visit again soon and bring lots of photos of Squib for her to look at.

  I was three steps away from her bedside when AJ called out to me.

  “Katy!” I turned and went back to her.

  “Yeah?”

  “I know you’re really busy, but if you have any time left over you could ride Squib for me. I mean, only if you want to,” she added, her blue eyes anxious.

  “Of course!” I assured her quickly, breaking into a smile. “I’d love to. I was going to offer, but I didn’t want to rub it in, you know, that you can’t ride for ages.”

  “Stop mentioning it then,” AJ muttered. “But yes, please. The more work he gets the better. Do whatever you like with him, jump him, anything. Treat him like one of your own.”

  My heart leapt. “He’s entered at Dannevirke next weekend, right?”

  AJ’s expression faltered a fraction. “Yeah, he is,” she said slowly. “Did you want to ride him there?”

  “Only if you want me to,” I assured her. “I don’t have to, I can scratch him, it’s no big deal.”

  “You might as well though,” AJ said resolutely. “It’d be good mileage for him. He’s entered at all the other shows this month as well. Waitemata, and Horowhenua.” She swallowed hard, and I felt her pain. Horowhenua was supposed to be her first Pony Grand Prix start.

  “I don’t have to,” I reminded her. “He’s young, and it won’t hurt him to take another season to build up to it. I could just ride him lightly, or we could turn him out on the hills and let him have a holiday, and you could bring him in over winter and get him really tuned up for next season.”

  AJ considered it for a moment. “No, he should keep going if he can. And it seems like a waste of entry fees, and having put shoes on him and all that just to turn him out now. See how he goes. If he’s really naughty then you don’t have to ride him, but…”

  “He’ll be fine,” I assured her. “I’ve ridden him before, and he behaved himself.” I knew that AJ had had quite a bit of trouble with her excitable pony in the past, but I’d been riding naughty ponies since almost before I could walk, and Squib didn’t have anything up his sleeve that I hadn’t dealt with before. The nurse cleared her throat, and I stepped back reluctantly. “I’d better get out of here. Be better soon, okay?”

  “I’m trying,” AJ promised weakly as Mum shepherded me to the door.

  We weren’t allowed to see Anders, and when I tried to give Christina the block of chocolate we’d bought for him she looked teary rather than grateful.

  “Thanks Katy, but I don’t think he’ll be able to have that for a while,” she said, making my stomach turn to ice. “But the girls will eat it, won’t you?” she added, looking over at AJ’s sisters, who were still hovering in the background. Alexia didn’t need telling twice, and practically snatched it out of my hand before tearing it open and h
oeing into it as though she hadn’t eaten in days.

  “How is Anders?” Mum asked gently.

  “He’s…well, he’s stable,” Christina said, making an effort to keep emotion out of her voice. “Multiple fractures in his left leg and a couple of cracked ribs, but it’s the head injury that’s the big concern. He kept losing consciousness, so they’ve been keeping him in an induced coma. They’ll give it another twenty-four hours, then try bringing him out of it and see how he is.”

  “He’s tough,” I told her, doing my best to sound convinced despite the clawing sensation in my stomach. “I’m sure he’ll make a full recovery.”

  Christina nodded, her eyes on her daughters instead of me, as though reminding herself of what she still had instead of what she might be about to lose. “Yes. I’m sure he will.”

  “Well, we’d better be off,” Mum said quickly, taking me by the arm. “Don’t worry about Squib, we’ll take complete care of him until AJ’s back on her feet.”

  “Thank you,” Christina said, sounding heartfelt. “That’s a weight off AJ’s mind, for sure.”

  I nodded, noticing that she didn’t say it was a weight off her own mind, but then she’d never really taken an interest in Squib. AJ had told me once that her parents hadn’t seen her ride since the day they bought Squib for her, which was just appalling if you asked me. But nobody did, so I kept my thoughts to myself as I followed Mum out of the dreary building and back into the bright sunlight.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “No, don’t argue,” I told Squib as I trotted him around the corner of the arena. “Soften and bend. You know how to do it, so quit being a drama llama.”

  Squib tossed his dark grey head and sped up, refusing to believe that I knew more than he did about flatwork. I hadn’t wasted any time when I got home before saddling AJ’s pony and giving him a workout, determined that when she was able to ride again, she’d find her pony better schooled than ever and more than ready to go straight out to Pony Grand Prix. If she recovered quickly, there was still a chance that she’d be able to ride at Horse of the Year. If I could get good results on him at the few shows we had left prior, he’d get the mileage and hopefully qualify for Pony of the Year. If not, AJ would have to go hard for a win or placing in the Championship Stakes at HOY itself, which would earn her a wildcard entry into the title class. It was a far-fetched goal, but it wasn’t impossible. Not with my help.

  I wanted so desperately to make things better – to make AJ better, to make Anders better – but I couldn’t. I couldn’t fix them, but I could fix Squib. Only problem was, Squib couldn’t sense the urgency of the matter and was determinedly pretending that he was a completely unschooled pony with no clue what I was asking him to do.

  And I was doing everything right. I’d schooled enough ponies in my life to know how to teach them to soften and bend, how to get them working correctly through from behind into the hand so that they would naturally put themselves into a balanced frame, how to teach them to move off the leg and be sharp off the aids, to build strength in their hindquarters with lots of transitions and balance through their bodies. How to use lateral work to teach straightness, and poles to teach them to use their back and to adjust their strides. I knew what kind of grids and exercises taught them to be quick off the ground and clean through the air, to use themselves correctly every single time they jumped so that when they went competing they were completely prepared for whatever came along, to have the strength to jump from any distance, then to land and turn and jump again. The whole way home I’d been planning out Squib’s training schedule in my head - which days I’d do flatwork, which days I’d jump him, when I would trot and canter him over the hills to build his muscle and fitness, when I’d give him the day off…

  I’d decided to start with flatwork, building on the things AJ had been working on with him. He had picked up how to do flying changes almost without effort, but now he refused point blank to attempt counter canter, which was a great balance and suppling exercise, so I wanted to get that established. And he was extremely stubborn about leg-yielding and shoulder-in, which was not helped by the fact that AJ was a bit vague herself on how to ride the movements. The calendar in my head had Flatwork – counter canter & shoulder-in scrawled across today’s date, but I’d been riding Squib for fifteen minutes already and I still couldn’t even get him to do something as simple as trot in a circle without bulging out through his shoulder and trying to drag his head down to his knees to evade my contact.

  “Where is your work ethic?” I grumbled at the pony as I sat to the trot and asked him to canter. Squib pretended that he had no idea what the aid to canter was and just trotted faster. It took me three attempts and a bit of a sharp kick with my outside leg to convince him that I wasn’t going to be fooled, and then he exploded forward, grabbed hold of the bit and rocketed off around the arena. With a supreme effort I managed to collect him, and he gave me four strides of a decent canter before something rustled in the flax bushes and he flung himself sideways with a snort, almost unseating me.

  “You are the dumbest pony in the world,” I told Squib irritably, but he was too busy spooking to pay any attention to me. I reached down to rub his neck reassuringly, but it was rock hard and he gave no sign that he even noticed me. I put my leg on, which he resolutely ignored, so I gave up for a moment and glanced at my watch as I sat still, waiting for him to snap out of it.

  We had some people arriving soon to trial Gully, one of my project ponies who was behaving himself well enough these days to be sold on. There was probably a bit more work I could have put into him, but now that I had Squib to ride as well it was time to move him along. Especially if Tori comes, I thought wistfully, mentally crossing my fingers that she would pass her vetting. I would’ve crossed them literally but Squib had finally stopped gaping at the bushes and needed a job to do before he started thinking up more ways to be naughty. I shortened my reins and pushed him back into his bouncy trot, trying to imagine Tori grazing in the paddock with my ponies. I glanced over the flax bushes at them as Squib and I circled the arena once more. Bright bay Molly and gangly black Puppet were in full competition work, and Squib (and hopefully Tori) would soon be joining them at the shows. My beloved flaxen chestnut pony Lucas was just days away from being walked out under saddle after damaging a ligament at the start of the season, but he still had a lengthy rehab ahead and wouldn’t be competing until the winter series. And then there was still Robin to deal with.

  Another project of mine, Robin hadn’t been on the market for five minutes before he’d pulled up lame with navicular symptoms caused by poor farrier work. We’d immediately sacked our farrier, but it had taken remedial shoeing and a prolonged rest period before his x-rays showed up clean enough to bring him back into light work. He would have to return to full, consistent soundness before we could even consider putting him on the market, and I groaned internally at the thought of having to ride him again. There was no dirt in Robin, but there wasn’t much excitement either. Riding him was about as much fun as watching paint dry, and he’d probably go as a Pony Club plodder to some nervous child that only wanted to canter occasionally and didn’t aspire to jump much bigger than a crossbar or two. That would suit him down to the ground, and since ponies like that were actually fairly hard to find they usually fetched a decent price. But they also went to inexperienced people who didn’t know one end of the horse from the other, the likes of which had no business buying a pony with navicular symptoms. We were going to have to be careful who Robin was sold to, and it was entirely possible that I would be stuck with him for quite some time.

  A fantail fluttered down onto a jump stand as Squib trotted towards it, and he seized the opportunity to be an idiot yet again and slammed on the brakes, throwing me forward onto his neck. I regained my seat as he went into reverse, and I clamped my legs against his round sides.

  “AJ might find this endearing,” I told the pony through gritted teeth. “But I don’t. Start acting like a grow
n-up, would you?”

  Squib blithely ignored me as the fantail cheeped merrily at us, fluttering its wide tail and cocking its head to the side inquisitively.

  “It’s a bird. It’s a tiny little bird,” I grumbled, urging Squib forwards. “It’s not going to eat you. Or peck out your eyes, or whatever it is you’re afraid of.” I could feel Squib’s back coming up, and hoped he wasn’t going to launch me into outer space. I’d seen him buck before, and I wasn’t sure I could stay on if he really went for it. This pony could’ve been a rodeo bronc in another life.

  Just as I got Squib within a metre or so of the offending bird, it flapped its wings and took flight. Unfortunately fantails are friendly little birds, and it started swooping around Squib’s head, squeaking cheerfully. That was the final straw for the grey pony, who spun around and bolted towards the gate. His mouth had turned to iron and he wouldn’t stop or turn, and with absolutely flawless timing, I realised that Mum was standing at the gate with a young girl and her mother, who both looked utterly terrified as Squib barrelled towards them. Fortunately Mum realised that I had no control and started waving her arms at Squib to prevent him from flattening them all. He propped on his forelegs, almost unseating me again, and I whirled him in a small circle before he could think about bucking. He stood still at last, facing the gate with his head high and ears pricked forward, his breath coming in short puffs.

  “What was that all about?” Mum asked in astonishment as I waited for my heart rate to return to something approaching normal.

  “There was a bird,” I told her, shaking my head and making myself smile. “He’s just feeling a bit spirited today. Must’ve had too much time off.”

  “Certainly looks that way,” Mum replied, accepting my explanation. “I’m just taking Tayla and her mum to bring Gully in from the paddock, so you’ve got another ten minutes or so to get Squib under control. Then you can put him away and demo Gully.”