by Kate Lattey
* * *
I rolled over and stared up at the dark ceiling. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, often waking up several times during the night and only managing short bursts of fitful sleep. The lack of sleep combined with my early morning runs and multiple ponies to ride every day was draining me, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to ride, because there was nobody else to do it. I had to run, or I couldn’t think. I had to sleep, if I could only work out how to make that happen.
I forced my eyes closed, trying to make myself relax. Cicadas whirred in the trees outside my bedroom window, and a morepork hooted incessantly. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the hum of a motorbike. Was Phil not sleeping either? Was I the only one still awake at this godforsaken hour? One of the ponies snorted in the paddock outside, and I wondered which one it was. Then I started worrying again about Lucas’s leg, which had swollen slightly after I’d ridden him today, and the very thought of that made my stomach clench. Not my pony. What would Abby say? Will she take him back? Have I ruined him? Will he ever jump again? I’ve done everything wrong. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t jumped him, if I’d pulled him up the second he’d taken that misstep, if I hadn’t let Mum keep using that useless farrier… My thoughts swooped and spun around in my head in a whirling cacophony, and I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes and groaned aloud.
Get some perspective! I scolded myself. As Mum had been at pains to remind me lately, I didn’t exactly have it hard. AJ was the one who was still struggling with dizzy spells, who had a split collarbone and a ruptured spleen and was going to miss the entire rest of the season because of it. Anders was the one whose leg was now held together with steel bolts and plates, who was battling fierce headaches and sucking down pain medication, trying to face the fact that he might end up walking with a limp for the rest of his life, and would certainly never play rugby again.
Yet here I was, stressed out and unable to sleep because Lucas might be out of work for a few more weeks, and because my exceptionally talented new horse was a bit hard to bridle. Big freakin’ deal, in the grand scheme of things, and yet I couldn’t seem to shut up the nagging in the back of my mind that I was kidding myself by thinking I’d have Tori jumping Juniors by the end of the season. I hadn’t even taken her to a show yet, although she was entered at Waitemata this weekend. She’d been schooling okay at home, but she didn’t seem to be enthusiastic about jumping, and she’d thrown a handful of refusals in when I put her wrong. That was always Mum’s cue to start telling me that I needed to be more accurate, and that I wasn’t riding a pony any more that was going to save me when I made a mistake – as if I wasn’t the one in the saddle, fully aware of all of the above. The thought of taking Tori out at a show was daunting, not least of all because Dad would be coming to watch, and he was going to expect us to do well. I’d talked myself up to him, persuaded him to spend thousands of dollars on a horse that I’d promised to succeed with, and I’d never felt more like a failure in my life.
I rolled over and pressed my face into the pillow. Don’t be a quitter, I schooled myself. So she’s difficult to handle? Work with her. Build her confidence, get her trust. I racked my brains for some of the groundwork exercises that I’d seen Mum do in the past, and forced my brain to focus. As I finally dropped off to sleep, I was picturing Tori calmly following me on the end of a loose rope, her head lowered and body relaxed. That happy horse was inside my tempestuous mare somewhere – I just had to find a way to bring her out.
* * *
Tori pawed the ground, rolling her eyes at me as I stood uncertainly at the other end of the long leadrope. I clucked to her, putting a bit of pressure on the lead, and she lifted her head stiffly into the air, her muscles quivering and tensing up. I tried to keep my emotions in check, and stay outwardly calm.
“It’s okay,” I told the mare. “All I want you to do is take a couple of steps forward.”
I was trying to get Tori to respond to my subtle cues, so that she would be easier and safer to handle on the ground. I’d started with what had seemed like the most simple thing of all – leading her in a straight line, her head alongside my shoulder while the leadrope was slack in my hand. That had gone fine until I’d asked her to stop. All of my other ponies would stop walking as soon as I did, attuned to my movements, but Tori had paid no attention and kept walking past me. I’d put pressure on the lead, which in turn had placed pressure on the rope halter that ran across her nose and behind her ears, and she’d reacted by pushing her shoulder into me and almost knocking me off my feet before charging forward, ignoring my protestations. I’d dug my heels in, but she was a lot bigger and stronger than I was, and there had been several heart-stopping seconds when I’d wondered whether she was going to get free of me and run away, until she’d finally spun around and stood facing me, her expression mulish. Since then, she’d refused, point blank, to move her feet at all.
“Take a step forward,” I urged her. It was still early, but the day was promising to be a scorcher. A light sweat had already broken out across Tori’s shoulders, and I slapped irritably at a mosquito that tried to settle on my arm for breakfast. “That’s all I want you to do. Take one step towards me.”
I increased the pressure on the leadrope slightly, and Tori yanked her head back, then went into reverse. The rope burned through my hands and I gritted my teeth as I stepped towards her, reluctantly conceding ground. If she really wanted to get away from me, she could do it easily. I wasn’t sure if she was fully aware of that, and I certainly didn’t want her to find out.
Tori stopped, and I did too. “Okay, let’s try something else,” I told her aloud. A bellbird whistled from a nearby tree as I took another step towards the mare, shaking the leadrope slightly. “You want to go backwards, then go backwards.”
I had to get control of her feet – that was the primary goal. To be able to get her to put her feet wherever I wanted them, whether it was walking alongside me, backing away from me, moving sideways or standing completely still. As a flight animal, the positioning of Tori’s feet was important to her. It was how horses established dominance over one another in a herd situation, by moving a subordinate horse away from a preferred patch of grass, or shady spot, or water trough, whenever the dominant horse pleased. So far we’d been grazing Tori in a paddock on her own, in case she got herself kicked or injured through interaction with one of the ponies, but I could already tell that she was the dominant type. She didn’t want to concede to me when I asked her to move her feet, but I had to be the one in charge. I had to make her do what I wanted.
Tori glared at me obstinately as I stepped right up to her, then flipped the end of the leadrope in the direction of her chest.
“Back,” I told her firmly, but she just laid her ears back and pulled a threatening face at me. You can’t tell me what to do, she seemed to be saying. “Oh yes I can. I’m the boss around here, and the sooner you learn that, the better off we’ll both be,” I told her. “Now step back.”
Tori moved her feet at last, but in the wrong direction. Instead of backing up, she surged forward and slammed her shoulder into my chest, pushing me off balance.
“Hey!” I staggered back and stepped to the side, narrowly avoiding being steamrolled. “Have some manners,” I told her, snapping the leadrope firmly. Tori laid her ears back and curled up her nostrils, giving me a dragonish look. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I took a deep breath. I couldn’t walk away from this and let her win. “Now back up.”
When she still refused to move, I put a hand on her chest and pushed firmly against her, simultaneously putting pressure on the leadrope in my other hand. Tori’s head snaked around and she bit me sharply on the arm.
“Ow!” I slapped her hard on the shoulder in reflex, and she squealed and struck out at me with a foreleg, catching me on the shin. Gasping in pain, I slackened my hold on her leadrope. Sensing her chance, Tori spun around and lashed out at me with both hind legs, forcing me to drop the rope as I dodged he
r flying hooves, then cantered down the driveway towards the road.
I let out a steady stream of curse words as I hobbled after her, wiping my watering eyes on my t-shirt. What in the hell had I been thinking, buying this horse? She was a demon. A waking nightmare. Never, in all my years of riding, had I dealt with a horse quite like her, and I didn’t know what to do. But whether I liked her or not wasn’t the point right now. I reached the end of our driveway in time to see her heading down the road at a fast trot, leadrope trailing behind and her thick black tail kinked up over her hindquarters. Her shod hooves sparked off the tarmac, and as she passed a clump of toi toi bushes, a pukeko ran out of them, squawking and flapping its wings. Tori shied wildly, hooves sliding on the sealed road, and for a heart-stopping moment I thought she was going to skid right over. But she stayed on her feet and broke into a canter, heading towards the main road.
I ran as fast as I could, but my bruised foot was still holding me back, and my newly-scraped shin was sending stabbing pains up my leg. I was losing ground fast, and I clutched instinctively at my pocket for my cell phone, but it wasn’t there. An image flashed through my head of it sitting on the charger in my bedroom as I struggled onward. Who was I going to call, anyway? Mum had gone grocery shopping, Dad was down in Wellington for the week, and Anders certainly couldn’t drive right now… I was out of options, and my panic began to rise as I forced myself to keep moving forward in pursuit of my horse.
The growl of a heavily throttled engine came ripping into earshot behind me, and I looked over my shoulder to see a familiar yellow dirt bike crest the hill. I staggered into the middle of the road and waved my arms over my head in a desperate plea to stop it.
Phil slowed down as soon as he saw me, coming to a juddering stop a couple of metres away. He pushed up his visor and looked at me questioningly as I hurried to his side.
“Tori got loose, she’s running down the road, I have to catch up with her!”
Phil didn’t ask questions, just grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the back of the bike behind him. I wrapped my arms around his waist and clung on tightly as he revved the bike back into action and we hurtled on down the road.
Around the corner, there was no sign of my horse. My arms tightened around Phil as we zoomed on and took another corner at speed before he abruptly slowed, backing right off the throttle. Just off to the side of the road, standing in a patch of manuka scrub, was Tori. She had a large wad of green grass hanging from one side of her mouth, and she swung her head around and watched us approach warily. Phil moved the bike slowly onto the other side of the road and we chugged slowly past, then he turned around, putting ourselves between Tori and the main road. It was close enough now that I could hear the traffic shooting along it, and I shuddered to think what could’ve happened if Tori hadn’t decided to stop for a snack.
I slid off the bike almost before it had stopped moving, and walked towards my horse on wobbling legs, trying to appear calm even as my heart pounded frantically. We weren’t out of the woods yet, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to relax until she was safely back in her paddock. Because even once I’d caught her, I was still going to have to get her home.
“Are you having a nice time?” I asked Tori, keeping my voice light so I didn’t spook or upset her. Neither Phil nor I were large enough to block the road if she decided to duck past us and keep going towards the highway. But much to my relief, she stood still and allowed me to walk right up to her, and I reached down to pick up her trailing leadrope, grasping it tightly in my hand like a life-line. Tori seemed unfazed, swivelling her large ears back and forth before resuming grazing, tearing big mouthfuls of green grass up out of the ground as though she hadn’t eaten the stuff in years.
The air around us went suddenly still and quiet, and I realised that Phil had switched the dirt bike’s engine off. A bee buzzed past my ear, moving languidly in the rising heat, and the sweet scent of manuka flowers filled the air around us. A thin sheen of sweat had broken out on Tori’s shoulders, and she twitched her skin restlessly as she grazed stubbornly on.
“Is she okay?”
I glanced over Tori’s legs, looking for any visible nicks or swelling. I didn’t trust her enough to go running my hands down them, but I couldn’t see any marks on her.
“Seems to be.” I glanced over my shoulder at Phil as he approached us. He’d taken his helmet off, and his sweaty hair was sticking up in all directions. He ran his hand self-consciously through it as he reached my side, but only succeeded in making it stand up even more.
“Thanks,” I added belatedly. “If you hadn’t come along, I’d never have caught up with her, and if she’d ended up on the main road…” I shuddered.
“Just good timing I guess,” Phil shrugged. “And it looks like she’d stopped for a picnic anyway. What happened?”
My turn to shrug. “She got away from me while I was leading her out to the paddock.”
Phil raised his eyebrows. “Bit of a handful, huh?”
“You have no idea.”
“Nothing you can’t handle though, I’m sure.” He sounded confident, but his expression changed as our eyes met, and I saw his surprise as he read the doubt in my face. “Or not?”
I squared my shoulders. “Yeah, of course. Just having a few teething issues, that’s all.”
Even as I spoke, I wondered whether Tori’s teeth had been looked at by an equine dentist lately. That could be causing some of her bridling and contact issues, at the very least. I made a mental note to check with Mum when the ponies were due, and get her booked in as soon as possible.
“If you say so.”
“I just did,” I pointed out, and he grinned.
“Okay then. You want a leg-up?”
I snorted. “Are you kidding? I’m not suicidal.”
Phil looked surprised. “That bad, huh?”
“She’s just…” Inexperienced. Green. Bolshy. Wilful. Difficult. Unpredictable. “New. And she’s probably never been ridden bareback, so I don’t really fancy starting now when I don’t even have a bridle, or a helmet.”
“I’ll let you borrow mine,” he offered with an impish grin, and I flicked the end of the leadrope at him, catching him on the elbow.
“What a great look that’d be,” I said, smiling despite myself at the image that had conjured in my head. “I’ll just walk her back. C’mon girl.”
I tugged again on the leadrope and to my relief, Tori lifted her head and took a step towards me. I started walking down the road, and she followed me for several strides before she stopped, planting her feet squarely on the road and looking at me defiantly.
“Come on,” I urged the mare, applying pressure to the leadrope, but she threw her head up, almost yanking the rope out of my hands again. I gritted my teeth as the burning sensation returned to my chafed palms. Phil was watching me, a frown creasing his forehead, and I took a step towards Tori and held out a hand to her, trying to make peace.
“We have to go home, we can’t stand out here all day long,” I told her, watching her ears flip back as I stepped into her personal space. The corners of her nostrils wrinkled slightly, and I knew she was preparing to tell me off, but I didn’t want to back away and let her push me around.
Stalemate.
A crunching noise behind us made both of us turn to see Phil pushing his dirt bike across the gravel in our direction.
“She’s almost as stubborn as you are, by the looks,” he said, but I shook my head.
“Not nearly. She has no idea how stubborn I am.” Or how nervous I am, I thought, then pushed that negativity down. I didn’t need self-doubt right now, on top of everything else.
“Well, I’ll walk you home, if you want.”
“I…” It seemed like a waste of his time, and a pain in the neck for him, but I wasn’t in a position to turn down the offer. If Tori got away again, I’d need some way to go after her. “Thanks. I owe you one.”
“Nah.” The corner of his mouth quirked upward. “What’r
e friends for?”
I did eventually get Tori moving, although it was a stop-start affair all the way back up the road, and by the time we finally reached our driveway my hands were stinging from the constant abrasion as Tori yanked back time and again. Phil walked steadily by my side, the crunch of his bike’s tyres on the loose gravel combining with the steady clip-clop of Tori’s shod hooves.
I didn’t want to stop when we reached my driveway in case I couldn’t get Tori started again, so I called a brief thanks to Phil as my horse recognised her new home and dragged me back up to the yard. He called something back to me that I didn’t quite catch over the rampaging mare next to me, and I heard him start his bike up again as we made our way into the welcoming shade of the trees. When I had finally let Tori go in the orchard, with the gate firmly shut behind her, and she’d run off bucking and farting as though she’d had a wonderful morning, I finally let myself relax. Until I looked down at my red, grazed hands and felt the throbbing agony in my leg where she’d grazed the front of my shin and the dull ache of my bruised foot, and remembered that I still had five ponies to ride before the day was through.
The crunch of tyres on gravel made me turn as Mum’s battered old Corolla drove past me and up to the house. I stayed where I was for a moment, letting my heart rate return to normal as she got out of the car and started pulling bags of groceries out of the boot.
“You could come and give me a hand, you know,” she called.
I wandered over to her and grabbed a couple of plastic shopping bags, then winced as the thin plastic handles cut into my tender palms, and almost dropped them.