by Kelly Wilson
As they waited, Vicki walked Charlie in big circles, her heart breaking when she saw Amanda’s huddled form by the fence. Kelly and Stella were trying to console her. Her sisters had been too young to remember losing Bella, but although several years had passed, Vicki would never forget just how devastating colic could be. Every time Charlie stopped to paw the ground or swing his head to his flanks, Vicki’s breath caught.
“No one’s answering the phone,” Annabelle said breathlessly when she rejoined them a few minutes later. “They’re probably still asleep.”
Mum and Dad weren’t far behind.
“Vicki, you and Annabelle need to ride up the hill to Annabelle’s and get help. Dad and I would prefer to stay here to watch Charlie, and it’ll be just as fast on horseback.”
Vicki passed Charlie’s rope to her mum.
“You can ride Cameo — it’ll be faster than getting Blackie from the far paddock,” Vicki said to Annabelle as she handed her the halter that was hanging over the gate along with a lead rope. She was about to head to the tack shed to get another halter when a cry stopped her.
“Hurry, girls! Charlie’s down!”
Vicki’s heart lurched when she saw Charlie lying on the ground, groaning. She grabbed the lead rope, sprinted for Casper and twisted it around his muzzle as a makeshift halter. Grabbing a handful of mane, she swung up onto his back and urged him forward, hoping she’d have enough control to guide him.
Dad held the gate open for them.
“Ride as fast as you can — Charlie needs help urgently,” he said.
“Annabelle, you lead the way,” Vicki urged as they trotted down the driveway and headed for the road, cantering on every grass verge to make up time. To Vicki’s relief, Casper was following behind Cameo eagerly, responding to commands just as if he were wearing a halter.
A few minutes later, they turned into Annabelle’s driveway. She tossed Cameo’s reins to Vicki and ran into the house.
Her sleepy stepfather, Mike, soon emerged at the door, with Annabelle in tow. In his arms was a collection of vet supplies.
“I’ll drive down and check Charlie now. You two can take your time riding back. It’ll give your ponies time to cool off properly,” Mike reassured them as he piled everything into his car and sped off down the driveway.
“Well, we’d better do as he said and walk the whole way home,” Vicki said. Although she was worried about Charlie and impatient to get back, she knew it wouldn’t help to risk their other ponies’ health. “I hope Mike can help Charlie.”
“Me too,” Annabelle said.
By the time Vicki and Annabelle returned, Mike had already treated Charlie. The little pony had been rugged up with a horse blanket to keep him warm, and now stood quietly beside Amanda.
“I think he’s going to be OK. He’s very lucky that he only has a mild case of colic and you caught him before he rolled,” Mike said. He was holding a stethoscope against Charlie’s gut, checking that it was making all the normal sounds. “Keep him close to the house so you can keep an eye on him over the next couple of hours, and call me if you’re worried.”
“Thanks for helping him,” Amanda whispered tearfully as she stroked her pony’s mane. “But I still don’t understand — what made him get sick?”
“Colic is like a tummy ache for horses, and it can happen for lots of reasons,” Mike explained. “But in Charlie’s case, the cause was most likely too much cold water on a cold night, after getting hot and sweaty cantering up hills.”
“So we shouldn’t have ridden them in the dark?” Vicki questioned. She was feeling terribly guilty for having suggested the night ride.
“No, that was totally fine. But next time, make sure you walk them to cool them off for much longer than after a normal ride, especially if there’s a chill in the air. And let them drink only a little bit of water at a time until their body temperature is back to normal.”
Chapter 14
Odds and Ends
REASSURED THAT CHARLIE WAS making a good recovery, Mike drove away with a promise to come back later in the day.
Vicki was expecting to be told off for the night ride, but Mum and Dad, seeming to understand that watching Charlie suffer had been bad enough, simply suggested that they all have their breakfast.
The sun was by now high in the sky and the girls realised how hungry they were. They heated up their spaghetti in the embers of the fire and then, determined to carry on with their plans as best they could, set to work putting together a jumping course. First, they carried the sisters’ jump stands and poles out of the river paddock and set them up on the lawn.
“Nice show jumps!” Annabelle said when she saw them. “At our farm we just have logs and old tyres to jump over.”
“They’re amazing, aren’t they?” Vicki grinned. “Our grandad and Uncle Simon helped our dad make them for us last year!”
“But we don’t have enough for a full course,” Kelly explained, “so our next mission is to find random objects around the property to make about eight more jumps.”
“What about those chairs?” Amanda asked, pointing towards the front porch. She was sitting on the grass, keeping a careful eye on Charlie, who seemed almost back to his normal self and was greedily snatching mouthfuls of grass.
“Great idea,” Vicki smiled. “Our boogie boards would work, too.”
Soon old pieces of wood, real-estate signs, tyres and chairs dotted the lawn, creating a mismatched but effective collection of jumps.
“We need at least two more,” Kelly declared, as she eyed the course. Her eyes lit up when she saw a line of gorse bushes growing at the top of a bank at the far corner of the lawn. “How about we canter up the bank and jump over the gorse?”
Vicki shook her head. “It’s too high and wide.”
Rolling her eyes, Kelly ran over to the shed and grabbed a pair of hedge-trimmers and gloves. “Seriously, Vicki, where’s your imagination?” For the next ten minutes, Vicki and the others watched on as Kelly snipped pieces of gorse, transforming the bushes into a long box hedge about 80 centimetres high.
“That’s brilliant,” Vicki cried out when her sister had finished. “I just hope I don’t fall off and land in the middle of it. The thorns would take days to get out!”
Wincing, Kelly laughed. “I didn’t think about that!”
“We just need one more jump,” Vicki said as she looked over at Charlie, who was now grazing happily by their A-frame rabbit hutch. As she watched the rabbits darting in and out of their box, an idea formed.
“The rabbit hutch!”
“Did they escape again?” Amanda cried.
“No! But we should jump it.”
“There’s no way the ponies will jump it,” Kelly gasped. “It’s huge!”
Vicki’s eyes gleamed. “If anyone jumps it clear, they deserve to be the winner!”
Once the jumps were made, Vicki and Stella designed a course, carefully planning out the best route to jump around the obstacles.
“Is it going to be like a real show-jumping competition?” Kelly asked.
“Of course,” Vicki said.
“Then we’ll need a timer to see who jumps around the fastest, and start and finish flags so we know when to start and stop the time.”
“Can we put numbers on the jumps, too? Then it’ll be just like a real show!” Amanda said as she lifted one of the rabbits from its hutch. “Do you think Floppy will mind the ponies jumping over him?”
Shaking her head, Vicki smiled. “Floppy and Fluffy will be fine — they can always hide in their box if they get worried.”
“If I was a rabbit, I’d watch the ponies sailing over me,” Amanda declared as she gave Floppy a hug and placed him back into his cage. “It would be way more fun than just eating grass all day!”
“Talking of fun, we better finish this course quickly. Annabelle and Stella’s parents will be here in an hour to watch us compete,” Vicki said, as she headed towards the house. “Any ideas about what we can use to m
ake the flags and numbers?”
Kelly twisted her ponytail in one hand as she considered this new challenge. “We could make numbers from the plastic lids of old ice-cream containers?”
“Great idea,” Vicki said. “And we can use handkerchiefs tied to bamboo stakes as flags.”
Within twenty minutes, the course was complete. The girls walked from jump to jump, learning the correct order. Most of the jumps weren’t normal by any definition, and at a glance the lawn looked like a junk heap.
“I wish Charlie wasn’t sick — he would have flown over the jumps,” Amanda sighed. “But I’m just so glad he’s alive, I don’t mind only getting to watch.”
“I can’t imagine any pony in their right mind jumping over these,” Kelly said, biting her lip at the thought of having to get Cameo around the homemade course. She was a lot more confident jumping than she had been a year earlier, but she didn’t enjoy big jumps the way her sisters did. “Every jump is more colourful and scarier than anything I’ve seen at shows!”
“Well, hopefully our ponies aren’t in their right minds, then,” Amanda said cheekily.
Rolling her eyes, Kelly headed away to catch her pony.
Chapter 15
Show Time
AS KELLY RETURNED with a brushed and saddled Cameo, Stella’s dad, Peter, pulled up in his car.
“I heard there’s a massive show on today and the best riders have turned up here to compete,” he joked.
Laughing, Stella led her pony over so that she could give her dad a quick hug. “Wait until you see the course! It’s on a whole new level.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” he smiled. “I hear you need an official time-keeper and I happen to have a watch in working order.”
“That would be great. The pony that jumps clear in the fastest time will be the winner,” Vicki said, walking up with Casper.
Peter’s eyes widened and he glanced at his daughter. “Isn’t this the Arabian we tried a while back?”
Stella giggled at her dad’s shocked expression. “One and the same.”
“He was terrifying when we saw him. It’s hard to believe he’s the same pony!”
“He was pretty awful when we tried him, too,” Vicki said quietly, remembering the first time she’d laid eyes on Casper. “But even then I was sure he had a gentle side.”
As they chatted, Vicki suddenly realised she was filled with nerves. Building the jumping course had kept her too busy to think about anything else, but now everything was ready she began to worry about what she was about to do.
Apart from Casper, every other pony had competed at shows and won lots of ribbons. She reminded herself that today was just for fun, but couldn’t help glancing over at Dandy grazing on the hill, and for a moment wishing she was riding her champion jumping pony instead.
Turning back to Casper, she stroked his neck and silently apologised for her lack of faith in him. Leaping on bareback, she waited for the others to hop onto their own saddled ponies, then she and Casper led the way towards the lawn.
Looking around at Kelly on Cameo, Stella on Diego and Annabelle on Blackie, Vicki hoped Casper wouldn’t be too spooky over the jumps — a refusal or an awkward leap over one of the fences could easily mean a fall. As she knew only too well, without a saddle it would be far too easy to slip off Casper’s sleek back.
As they rode their ponies past the vegetable garden, Mum was setting down her gardening tools. “How long until the show begins?”
“Give us fifteen minutes to warm up the ponies and show them all the jumps.”
Next they passed the chicken coop, where their dad was throwing out the food scraps.
“It’s almost show time!” Kelly called out to him.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Dad replied, as he ducked away from the rooster chasing him out of the coop and followed them up the driveway. He settled in one of the chairs which were lined up on the lawn, and began chatting with Peter and Mum.
“Those aren’t for you to sit on,” Amanda giggled. “They’re a jump.”
“I guess we’d better relocate then,” he said, moving everyone off to sit on the bank.
“You can’t sit there either,” Vicki laughed as she walked Casper up to show him a jump. He spooked and eyed the obstacle warily; she patted him on the neck to reassure him. “We’re cantering up the bank and over the gorse hedge.”
“That sounds spiky,” Dad grimaced, as the adults moved once again. “By the way, if you need an announcer I’m up for the challenge!”
Vicki halted Casper and smiled in delight. “Yes, please! It’s starting to feel more and more like a real competition!”
With their time-keeper and announcer in place, it was show time.
Kelly and Cameo were first to compete, and Vicki watched closely to see how the young mare would cope around the challenging course. Vicki had helped Kelly train Cameo from scratch just over a year ago. It had been six months since the pair of them had won their class at the Royal Easter Show, and there was a new sense of confidence about them.
“Watch closely, Casper,” Vicki urged her pony as her sister cleared the chairs, then turned to the gorse hedge. “If you jump around the course as steady as Cameo, I’ll be very happy.”
Laughing, her mum walked over. “I don’t think any pony alive could be as kind or safe as Cameo. Certainly not your spooky Arabian!”
Vicki groaned in annoyance. Even with all of Casper’s improvements, the family still struggled to see past his quirks. “Why can’t you love him just the way he is? He doesn’t have to be like the other ponies.”
“I know that, honey,” her mum said, then frowned. “It’s just unusual that you can’t ride him in a saddle and bridle yet. Doesn’t it frustrate you that he’s not making progress?”
“Sometimes,” Vicki nodded, as Cameo stopped at the rabbit hutch, before circling around and jumping it the second time. “But then I remember that it was only a few months ago that I couldn’t even catch him. The fact that I can do everything on him bareback only shows how much he trusts me. If he wanted me on the ground, there’s no way I’d be able to stay on him!”
“Good point,” Mum said, and affectionately rubbed Casper’s head. “Sometimes it’s easy to forget how much he’s improved.”
Chapter 16
Complete Trust
“THAT’S FOUR FAULTS FOR Kelly and Cameo,” Dad’s voice boomed across the lawn. “Next up are Annabelle and Blackie.”
With only two ponies until her turn, Vicki returned her focus to Casper, slowly warming him up. As they trotted in circles, she kept a distracted eye on Annabelle, then Stella, riding. Both girls had trouble as they navigated the course, but eventually cleared every jump, their ponies slowly gaining confidence as they went round.
“Next in the ring is our final combination,” Dad finally called out. “Please put your hands together for Vicki and Casper, her spirited Arabian.”
Vicki rolled her eyes at Dad’s dramatic introduction, before urging Casper into a canter. Although he’d been spooky when she’d first shown him the jumps, he bravely flew over the first upright and the oxer before approaching the jump made from chairs. Beneath her, Vicki felt him tense and drop back to a trot, but a slight squeeze with her legs encouraged him forward and they continued jumping clear around the course.
With only one jump to go, Vicki approached the rabbit hutch. Floppy and Fluffy had crept out of their box and sat nibbling on grass as they approached. Praying they wouldn’t dart for cover and distract Casper at the last second, Vicki urged her pony on.
“Steady, boy,” Vicki said, as she saw Floppy twitch his ears, poised to move. They were going too fast, and Vicki knew that if Casper spooked and refused at this speed she’d fall off for sure. Gripping a handful of mane, she held on for dear life. But soon the rabbits were beneath them as Casper soared up and over the hutch.
“Ladies and gentleman, we have a winner!” Vicki heard her dad call out, as she slowed Casper to a walk. �
�First place goes to Vicki and Casper, the only clear round from our first class of the day.”
Grinning, Vicki rode up to her mum to collect a red ribbon, which they’d recycled from other events they’d competed at. Beside her, Kelly and Cameo lined up in second place, and Stella and Diego were third.
“I think we need to handicap you so the rest of us stand a chance,” Stella joked after they finished their victory lap.
Laughing, Vicki glanced over at her friend. “I’m game. What were you thinking?”
“If you weren’t already riding bareback, I’d make you remove your saddle.” Stella shook her head in admiration. “But you already have that disadvantage.”
“What about removing the halter and using just a rope, like when you rode to Charlie’s rescue this morning?” Amanda suggested, her eyes full of mischief.
“Yes!” Annabelle agreed. “I’d love to watch you ride him like that again — he was so good this morning.”
Vicki saw their eager expressions, then glanced down at Casper. He’d certainly been good earlier in the day, but he’d only had to follow behind Cameo — nothing as challenging as jumping around a full course.
“Oh, come on,” Kelly begged. “It’d be amazing to see, even if you just jump one or two jumps.”
Keen to give it a go, Vicki leapt off Casper’s back and removed his halter, then twisted the rope around his muzzle. Vaulting back on, she turned his head to the left and right to make sure she could steer him, then walked him in a circle and halted.
“I think he’ll be OK,” Vicki grinned.
“You should ride last again,” Kelly told her sister. “That way we’ll all be able to watch you without having to worry about warming up our ponies.”
“Good idea,” Stella said. “I don’t want to miss it!”
The girls had agreed that this class would be Take Your Own Line, which meant that the fences could be jumped in any order, and from either direction. The only rule was that they had to jump everything, and only once.