Champion Horse, Page 2

  I could not help looking around for Sophia Rosebury, whose outfits were always perfect and whose boots, Jane said, were custom made, but of course she would not be there on a Wednesday. Both of her horses were champions, and her horse Onyx, whom we used to call Black George when we owned him, was probably going to be Horse of the Year at these shows – he hardly ever lost, and I had to admit that it was because in addition to the fact that he loved to jump and was very easy to ride, Sophia hardly ever made a mistake. She was not a nice girl – for one thing, she never smiled – but she rode perfectly, as far as I could tell, and I watched her whenever I could. I sometimes wondered if she knew who I was or remembered that she had bought my horse, but I didn’t say anything.

  I checked on Blue and gave him some more hay, then went to the barns, where Melinda, of course, was waiting for me. She was standing with Rodney and Gallant Man, and Rodney had plaited both the pony’s mane and his tail, putting little red bows on every plait; they looked wonderful against Gallant Man’s sparkling dapples. Melinda was frowning, with a straight line going right down between her eyebrows, and as soon as she saw me she said in a serious voice, ‘Hi, Abby. I’ve decided that it is best if I don’t do this. It really is for the best.’

  I cleared my throat and pretended that I was considering her opinion. Then I said, ‘Well, Melinda, why don’t you get on Gallant Man, since he looks so great with the red plaits, and we’ll talk about it. We can walk over to the warm-up and you can at least watch.’

  ‘Right you are, then, miss!’ exclaimed Rodney in his English accent, and he hoisted her into the saddle.

  Melinda picked up the reins, and said, ‘Why—’

  Rodney turned his back and walked away. Melinda looked after him.

  I said, ‘Wow, Rodney really put a lot of plaits in the pony’s mane. I wonder how many?’ I started walking, and Melinda followed me. She said, ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘Are you kidding? I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Yes, seventeen.’

  I shook my head.

  She started counting, and by the time we got to the ring, she was saying, ‘See? Seventeen, eighteen with the forelock.’

  ‘Have you patted your pony ten times today?’

  She started patting.

  ‘What time did you get here?’

  ‘Well, May got me up at five, because I asked her to, but really, I couldn’t open my eyes until almost five-twenty because last night I was reading Black Beauty, and then I got to the part where Ginger dies and I started to cry, so I stayed up sort of late.’

  By this time, I was walking into the warm-up ring. Melinda was talking and following me. I said, ‘That is sad. I cried there, too. Okay, why don’t you just trot around me in a nice circle and we can see how Gallant Man feels this morning.’

  She was going before she realised it, and then she was fine. Melinda was always more scared of things in advance and afterwards than she was while she was doing them. But she had grown, at long last. She was eleven now, and I wasn’t sure how much longer she would look good on Gallant Man. I put that out of my mind, because it wasn’t any of my business.

  Since we were early, there were only three other riders in the warm-up. All the girls were courteous and looking out for each other, and I saw that they were careful to pass ‘left hand to left hand’, which is how, when you are approaching another horse and rider, you know who goes to the outside and who goes to the inside. They were all also looking at each other – who had the prettier horse or pony? What were they all wearing? That was something Melinda cared about, so as she lifted her chin and showed off a little, she got less nervous.

  There were three plain jumps across the middle of the warm-up, just standards and poles. The crossbar was to the left, the oxer to the right, and the regular jump in the middle. As Melinda headed down towards the crossbar for the first time, I saw Jane show up near the gate of the warm-up with Mr Anniston. She was talking; he wasn’t saying anything. Melinda trotted down towards the crossbar, cantered the last two strides, and jumped it nicely, then cantered away, smiling. I hoped she wouldn’t see her father. I shouted, ‘Okay, very nice, come around and do it again.’ She did, and still did not see her father. I pointed her towards the regular jump, which was maybe two feet. She had to pause and wait for the girl on the palomino, and when she did, she saw her father. The palomino went over. Gallant Man slowed his trot and stopped. Melinda caught herself. I called out, ‘Try again. Give him a kick and make sure he’s going. You have to want to jump, or he won’t care.’

  Jane stared at Melinda, then me. Then she took the hint and walked away with Mr Anniston. I hoped she would keep him off in a corner for the whole morning. I had never seen him smile. Melinda and Gallant Man made a little circle and went back to the jump. Two strides out, she gave him a kick, and of course he bounced over, easy as you please. He didn’t look very good – his front legs weren’t neatly folded – but when she came around again, he sorted himself out and did a good job. Then they jumped the oxer twice, and both times perfectly. When I took Melinda to the gate of the show ring, she had an unusual look on her face – a look of determination. I realised that part of Melinda’s problem was that Gallant Man never made a mistake, and so she never really understood that she was in charge. Now she did.

  It was time to walk the course. I wasn’t sure what to do with Gallant Man, but then a groom for the girl on the bay held out his hand, and the girl said, ‘Andy will hold your pony, if I can walk the course with you.’ She jumped down. I said, ‘Okay.’

  The course was eight jumps, two turns. Simple enough until jump seven, when the girls had to turn away from the jump that came eight strides after number six and roll back to the right, towards another that was more or less behind them – the clue was that number six was a little brush, and number seven was a little brush. The one they were not supposed to jump was a chicken coop. I pointed this out, and they both nodded. Then we stood in the centre of the ring, and I made them do my favourite thing – hold one of their hands up and walk their fingers around the course while reciting the numbers. After they were done, I said, ‘Do you know it?’ Melinda nodded, and the girl said, ‘It’s easy.’

  I said, ‘We’ll see.’ There were a lot of jumps in the ring. I would have found it confusing. We went back to the horses. Andy handed me Gallant Man. I said, ‘Are you the groom?’

  He laughed, and said, ‘No, I’m the brother. We don’t have a groom or a trainer, just us.’

  The girl said, ‘I’m Daphne.’ Andy gave her a leg-up onto the bay. I wondered where they had come from, since I’d never seen them before, but I forgot about them as soon as I saw Mr Anniston go into the tent by the ring and sit down on one of the benches. I wished Jane would put a bag over his head. Okay, with holes cut out so he could see.

  But Melinda was so focused on remembering the course that she didn’t notice him. She waited for her number to be called, and when it was, she trotted in and made her circle. She did just what I’d told her – she veered as close as she could to some of the jumps, so that Gallant Man could see them (actually, so that Melinda could see them; Gallant Man didn’t care). And after a long minute and twenty seconds, they came out, having done a pretty good job. At least he went straight to the fences, and Melinda’s position was good. Daphne went after them. She was very good. But Melinda didn’t care – she got a ribbon (fourth out of six), and she had taken the whole course by herself without making a mistake. She was grinning. Daphne continued to be nice – back in the warm-up, she called out, ‘Good job!’

  Melinda said, ‘You too!’

  I guessed that Daphne was also eleven, but she seemed older and more self-confident.

  In the flat class, Melinda went around nicely, not quite showing off enough, but evidently happy. She smiled at Daphne every time she saw her, and Daphne smiled back. Daphne got second, and Melinda got third. Rodney met us at the gate. He had Ellen by the hand. Melinda jumped down and ran over to her dad, brandishing her ribbon. He
still didn’t smile, but he patted her on the head. That was the last I saw of them, because Ellen was ready to mount up and go. Rodney didn’t give her a leg-up – he picked her up and sat her on the pony. She grabbed the reins, and Gallant Man tossed his head. I said, ‘Ellen, remember what I said about holding him too tightly. He doesn’t like it.’

  She loosened her reins.

  I said, ‘Take a deep breath. Or two.’

  She took two deep breaths.

  I said, ‘Pat the pony.’

  She put both her reins in her right hand and patted the pony. This was something we did at every lesson.

  Ellen was tough and often angry, but if you told her what to do in a way that she understood, she would do it. As we were walking into the warm-up, I said, ‘Don’t show off. It makes you put your heels down too far and arch your back too much. Just try to pay attention to your pony and make it easy for him.’ This was her first show. I had no idea what would happen. In the warm-up, I had her practise walk, trot and canter, since the first class was the flat class.

  There were five kids in the group, four girls and one boy. They looked about eight, except for the boy, who looked about six. Their ponies were all tried and true – way older than their riders. The other trainers were standing here and there, shouting commands: ‘Lift your eyes, Rachel! Look where you’re going!’ ‘Ginny, heels down! Good girl.’ ‘Robert, shorten your reins!’ The announcer called the class.

  Ellen came over to me and took a deep breath, which made her nostrils flare, and tossed her head, which made her plaits bounce. She said, ‘I’m ready.’

  She was. She walked into the ring ahead of all the others and turned right, walking along the rail, urging Gallant Man. He went at such a brisk pace, I thought he might trot, but he didn’t. Her reins were short, but then she noticed and loosened them. I whispered, ‘Good girl.’ The kids were told to trot.

  I won’t say that all the ponies wandered around the ring the whole time, but it was pretty chaotic, and twice ponies came close to the back of the black pony with two white hind feet, who pinned his ears and looked like he might kick. But Ellen and Gallant Man stayed out of trouble, stopped when told to, trotted when told to, turned when told to, and trotted out when told to. Ellen wasn’t bad at steering, either. It was clear that she and one other girl, Ginny, who was on a bay pony mare, were the best, but the judge let them go around for a while, I suppose to get practice. Finally, he called them into the centre and gave Ginny the blue ribbon and Ellen the red ribbon. Ellen came out of the ring in a huff but her mother appeared right there and said, ‘Oh, darling, how wonderful! You were so good! I am proud of you!’ She had some sugar cubes, which she handed to Ellen, and with all of that, Ellen relaxed, gave the pony the sugar, and didn’t have a tantrum.

  The practice ring was now set with three cavalletti poles. These are poles that have X’s nailed to each end, and they can be jumps of different heights depending on how you turn the X’s. When the pole is turned downwards, the jump is about six inches. When the pole is on its side, the jump is about nine inches, and when it’s turned upwards, about twelve inches. Ellen was secretly jumping about eighteen inches in our lessons, and Gallant Man could easily do three feet, so we only practised a couple of times in the warm-up, and then went first into the ring. The point was steering. Ellen was good at steering, since she knew always to look ahead. I didn’t think I had ever seen her look down.

  She did what I had told her – made a little circle, then trotted around the course. The course was two cavalletti, then a left turn away from the rail and back over the same two, then around the end of the ring and down over two that were set diagonally through the centre, then around to the right and down over the last two, halting at the end, turning, and trotting over the last one going the other way, and then making another small circle. Her first loop was a little big, and she veered a little to the right on the last jump, but I was pleased with her.

  Ginny did well, too, with just one mistake – breaking to the walk before the third jump, but only for a stride. The other kids were chaos. Robert’s trainer finally had to go in, after he had come to a halt facing the judge’s stand, and lead him over the last four cavalletti. Robert was crying. Ellen stood beside Gallant Man and stared at every one of the other children. I would have said she was casting a spell on them, if I believed in spells.

  As soon as the announcer said, ‘And a tie for first place goes to Ellen Leinsdorf and Virginia Cartwright, on –’ Ellen was away from me, leading Gallant Man and running into the ring. Gallant Man trotted after her, his ears flicking. I said, ‘Hey!’ but they were gone. Ellen was shouting, ‘What about the jump-off? There should be a jump-off!’ The announcer stopped speaking. In the silence, Ellen sounded even louder. She wasn’t screaming, but she did have a loud voice. ‘In the programme it says there will be a jump-off!’ Since I hadn’t read the programme, I didn’t know that this was true, but in some things Ellen was never wrong. I got to her and took Gallant Man’s reins. Jane came hurrying into the arena. Ellen began to scowl, and I started to worry – once in the spring when she saw that she wasn’t going to get her way, she’d thrown herself right off the pony, flat on the ground.

  But then the judge nodded and the announcer said, ‘The judge says that there will be a jump-off between Virginia Cartwright and Ellen Leinsdorf. Girls, please come to the judge’s stand and listen to your course.’ Jane and I exchanged a glance, and then Ginny came over with her trainer, and we all listened.

  The judge was not Peter Finneran, just a man from San Francisco who often did the lower-level classes. He was tall and blond and wore an ascot – this morning it was red – but he seemed pretty nice. He told the girls that since a jump-off was supposed to be shorter and faster than the class, they were to do the first four jumps again, down, around in a loop, then back over the jumps, but this time at the canter rather than the trot. The girls nodded. They would go alphabetically, Ginny first. We all walked out of the ring.

  I gave Ellen a leg-up.

  Ginny entered, trotted, began a little circle, and turned towards the jumps. She kicked the pony and he picked up a nice canter, then went over the two cavalletti. As they came over the second one, I saw that she had lucked out – her pony landed on the left lead, which meant that she only had to make her loop and come back and she would be correct. This is what happened, and they finished jumps three and four very neatly, coming down to a trot circle, and exiting the arena.

  I said to Ellen, ‘Okay. We haven’t talked much about leads, but you know the difference. It doesn’t matter what lead he’s on to begin with, but he has to be on the left lead for that loop, so if he lands on the right lead, trot and fix it, because he doesn’t like the left lead, and he might not take that lead by himself.’

  She nodded. She went in, made a nice circle, picked up the canter, and headed for the jump. I thought his jumps were nicer than the other pony’s. But he did land on the right lead, it did take Ellen a few strides to notice, and when she changed it, Gallant Man looked a little awkward. They ended up with second after all.

  But I had to hand it to Ellen – when I asked her what she’d learned from this whole episode, she said, ‘To get him better on the left lead.’ This made me chuckle for the rest of the morning.

  *

  Dad was brushing Blue. My jacket and my stock were hanging on the bridle hook with my hard hat. In two minutes or so, Blue was tacked up and I was dressed and mounted on him, still thinking about Ellen and Melinda. This was a mistake, since I was too distracted to notice that Blue was tight and nervous, and when we came out of the aisle of the temporary barns and to the railing of the warm-up, he saw one of the tents flutter, and spooked. He almost had me off. I grabbed his mane. Dad came up behind us and said, ‘What was that?’

  I said, ‘Must have been a ghost.’

  But I knew it was the tent. I sat up straight and pushed my heels down, paid attention; he remained nervous. A moment later, Jane showed up. She had a lung
e line. All of a sudden I remembered that I had a trainer too – Jane. I was really glad to see her.

  We walked, Jane in front and Dad behind, past all the rings and tents and food places, to the furthest warm-up, where you were allowed to lunge. The fog had lifted and evaporated, and the light on the horses and the tents was bright the way it gets when there is still some moisture in the air that makes everything sparkly. The temperature was about perfect, too – cool enough if you were wearing a black jacket and tall boots, but not making your cheeks freeze. At the furthest arena, I dismounted, and Jane ran the clip of the lunge line through the inside ring of Blue’s bit and attached it to the outside one. She stepped into the middle, and Dad and I stood by the fence. Blue went around and around, first trotting, then cantering. I would have preferred a round pen, just because I liked him to turn and go the other way as many times as possible – my trainer, Jem Jarrow, said that just the turning loosened their backs. But the thing about a horse show is that you have to do it their way, not your way. That’s part of the test. Same with a rodeo.

  Blue must have gone around twenty times – it was like he didn’t know how to be tired. Dad said, ‘Must be more nervous than we thought.’

  I also thought he was nervous, but I said, ‘Why?’

  ‘A nervous horse, especially a nervous-type horse, doesn’t really know when he’s tired or when he’s had too much. He’s running on fizz. Maybe he’ll calm down.’

  Jane stopped him, turned him, and switched the lunge line, and then they started again, first trotting and then cantering. His canter was beautiful, as always, just his body opening and closing. But it was Jane who had to stop him – he didn’t think of it himself. Dad said, ‘Thoroughbred through and through,’ shaking his head as if that were a bad thing. He gave me a leg-up, and Blue and I followed Jane to the warm-up ring. Of the ten entries in our class, five had gone already. As soon as we got into the warm-up, I trotted around once, and then Jane pointed me down over the crossbar.