Flame and the Rebel Riders (11 page)

“I think these guys are hitting the horses too hard,” she told her. “They’ve never done this before. They really bashed Tokyo with the rail just then.”

“That’s exactly what they’re supposed to do,” Ginty said flatly. “It was Tokyo’s fault. She didn’t lift her legs enough.”

“But she did lift them.”

Ginty ignored her. “It’s your turn,” she told Issie. “Take Flame in at a canter.”

Issie didn’t move.

“Is there a problem, Isadora?”

Issie nodded. “It’s just that I’ve been talking to someone and this person told me that rapping is really cruel.”

Ginty sighed. “This ‘person’ wouldn’t be Tom Avery, would it?”

“Ummmm…” Issie hesitated.

“It’s all right,” Ginty said, “I’m not expecting you to compromise your loyalty to him. I know that Avery is your friend. And I have nothing against him and his methods — but he seems to be obsessed with me!”

Ginty’s expression looked sorrowful, as if she were deeply hurt by Avery’s accusations. “What can I say? Avery’s a pony-club instructor and I’m a professional. He probably can’t stand the fact that I’ve had more champion showjumpers than he’s had hot dinners. For some reason he seems to think that must mean that I’m doing something naughty.”

Ginty held Flame’s reins and reached out and stroked
the chestnut’s glossy neck. “Isadora, I am the best in the business. And that isn’t just because of my methods, it’s also about instincts. I have an eye for a good horse.” Then Ginty reached her bony hand out and grasped Issie’s hand in her own. “I have an eye for a good rider too. I have big plans for you, Issie. I like the way you ride. I think you could go a long way in this business and become a very good professional rider one day, hopefully working for my stables.”

Issie couldn’t help but feel flattered at this. “I tried to explain to Tom. I told him it’s a professional stable and things are different, but he didn’t listen…”

Ginty nodded, her face filled with understanding. “Isadora, it’s hard for a man like him to change. It’s been a long time since he rode at Badminton. Tom’s stuck in his old ways. He’s not exposed to new ideas and techniques the way you and I are on the competition circuit.”

Ginty kept her hand tightly clasped around Issie’s and looked deep into her eyes as she spoke. “He’s trying to hold you back, Issie. Can’t you see that? Avery is desperate. He doesn’t want to lose you.”

Her voice was firm now and her grip tightened as
she said, “Sometimes the best pupils outgrow their teachers. Isn’t it time for Tom to face the fact that he has to let you go?”

Ginty was right. Issie wasn’t a pony-club kid any more. She had responsibilities at the stables and her riding had become a serious business. Avery didn’t understand. Neither did her friends. On Tuesday when Stella phoned her up and asked Issie if she wanted to go for a ride after work the next day, she had to make an excuse and say she couldn’t make it. Riding more horses was the last thing Issie felt like doing after being at the stables all day.

“How about Thursday, then?” Stella suggested. “Kate wants to come too — we haven’t seen you in ages!”

“It’s only been a couple of weeks,” Issie said.

“Well, that’s ages!” Stella laughed. Then she made another suggestion. “On Friday we’re going to have a lesson with Tom. We could ask him to make it at five to give you time to get there once you finish at work?”

“I don’t think that would work out,” Issie said,
thinking about her last conversation with Avery. “I can’t make it, Stella. I’m sorry. With Verity gone, we all have to cover for her and I have loads of extra work. I’m too busy.”

It was true that she had extra work to do at Dulmoth Park. Issie was riding seven or eight horses most days. Flame was still behaving badly and Issie seemed to spend all her time in the arena fighting with the big chestnut. Her worst moment was during another rapping lesson on Wednesday when Flame got so over the top he simply ran through the entire course, demolishing all the jumps!

Ginty decided that he needed more aerobic exercise to take the edge off his high spirits and so the riders spent Thursday and Friday taking the horses out into the forest for big, long rides with lots of trotting to work off their excess energy. Verity still hadn’t been replaced, but the others hardly noticed her absence. Issie found herself actually enjoying the extra responsibility too. Ginty would spend some time with her each morning explaining a different aspect of stable care. Instead of being baffled by the huge array of feeds and supplements that the horses were given, Issie now knew each of the thirty horses’ diet plans off by heart. She could icepack tired
legs and apply a cooling clay poultice without thinking twice. And there wasn’t a piece of equipment in the tack room that she didn’t know how to use.

The atmosphere in the stable was more cheerful and relaxed with Verity gone, too. Issie had thought that Natasha might wig out and get jealous that Issie was taking on some of Verity’s main responsibilities, but she remained in a good mood. Natasha was happy with the six horses that she had been assigned to ride, and she couldn’t have given a hoot as long as she didn’t have to do extra work.

On the Saturday morning Issie rose at four thirty, even earlier than usual. It hardly seemed worth going to bed when you were getting up like this in the middle of the night, Issie thought. But that was the life of a professional rider. Today they were taking seven of the horses to the Westfields show. It was a two-hour drive to get there so they needed to leave by 6 a.m. That meant having all the horses ready to be loaded with their gear before it got light.

At the stables, Issie did the hard feeds before anything else. She fed Flame last and stood there watching as the big chestnut snuffled down his feed.

“You’re going to go well today,” Issie said softly to the horse, “I know you are…”

“Issie?” It was Natasha. “I think you need to come and take a look at Tottie.”

Tottie was one of Issie’s horses now, and for the past week she had been riding the grey mare every day. She’d jumped the mare on Thursday over some low fences just to get a feel for her, and on Friday she’d taken her on a long road hack. Tottie had been fine then, in fact the mare was so fit she was a bit above herself, pulling hard and wanting to canter the whole way home. But that morning was quite different. Tottie was standing quietly in the corner and when Natasha went in and led her over towards the door Issie could see straight away that she was favouring a leg.

“It’s her near-hind,” she said. “She’s really sore on it.”

“What shall we do?” Natasha asked.

“Don’t bother to put her floating boots on,” Issie said. “She won’t be going anywhere. She can’t compete like that.”

“OK,” Natasha nodded.

“I’ll tell Ginty that there are only going to be six horses for the truck,” Issie said.

Ginty’s reaction, however, was not at all what Issie expected.

“Put her protective gear on and load her on-board,” Ginty said firmly.

“But she’s lame—” Issie began. Ginty ignored her and grabbed the paperwork off her office desk, barging past and leaving Issie in her wake.

“Load her on the truck,” she said darkly over her shoulder, as she headed off towards the stables. “And don’t question me again.”

“But what’s the point of loading her up if she’s lame?” Natasha asked when Issie told her what Ginty had said.

“I don’t know,” Issie said as she Velcroed Tottie’s floatboots on to her hind legs. “But I do know I’m not saying anything to her about it again. She’s the boss. If she wants to take a lame horse to the show, that’s her business.”

Aside from Ginty’s frosty behaviour over Tottie, the trainer seemed to be in good spirits. She laughed and joked with the girls as they loaded the horses on the truck for the long drive to the Westfields grounds. Natasha and Penny were in the back with the horses this time and Issie rode up front in the cab with Ginty.

It was the first time Issie had really had the chance to talk to her boss, and she found herself telling the trainer all about her own horses. Not just Comet and Blaze, but Nightstorm too. Ginty was fascinated when Issie told her about Blaze’s son, and how the colt was in Spain right now, training with the famed Spanish Andalusians, learning
haute école
dressage under the direction of the mysterious Francoise D’arth.

“He sounds like a very special young horse,” Ginty said.

“He really is,” Issie said wistfully. “I miss him so much, but it was the right thing to do, leaving him there at El Caballo Danza Magnifico. Francoise has promised that one day, when Nightstorm’s training is completed, he’ll be returned to me. It’s just that sometimes it feels like that day is never going to come.”

Ginty told a few stories of her own about her showjumping exploits over the years and her early days as a competitive rider.

“I would load up five horses by myself and head off to a show,” she told Issie. “Most of them were green good-for-nothings that I’d bought cheap. I’d clean them up, clip them and rug them, give them a good groom,
pull their manes and plait them. I’d put a month of effort into schooling them up and then I’d take them to the shows, win a few ribbons and flick them on for a few thousand and turn a tidy profit. That was the way I got started in this business. It was hard graft, but eventually I had enough money and enough of a reputation behind me to get owners who wanted to sponsor me. After that I could afford the better horses and success quickly followed.”

Ginty looked out of the window at the road ahead. “I dragged myself up by my bootstraps. I’ve worked hard for everything I’ve got…” Issie saw a cold expression on the trainer’s face as she added, “Only the tough survive in this game—and winning is everything.”

It was almost 8 a.m. when Ginty finally drove the truck into the showgrounds and already the place was filling up fast with competitors’ floats and trucks.

The girls unloaded the horses, unwrapped their tail bandages, took off floating boots and began to groom them. They knew the ropes now and Ginty didn’t need
to tell them what to do. By eight thirty they were almost ready, so Ginty sent her three riders off to walk the showjumping course.

There were four rings set up at Westfields. Issie was riding Flame in the novice hack ring and Quebec in the pony ring, and had been entered in the open hack ring on Tottie — not that she was actually expecting to ride the mare now that she was lame.

Natasha had Tokyo as her open ride and also Baxter, who had been entered along with Quebec in the pony ring. Penny was riding Vertigo in the open class and would also ride Sebastian.

“Since we’ve all got a horse entered in the open classes, let’s walk that course together, and then we can split up and you can walk the other rings by yourselves,” Penny suggested.

The open ring was a big course, which was to be expected. The jumps were already set at a metre twenty for the first class of the day and by the end of the day they would be as high as a metre fifty. Penny guided the girls through the fences on foot, and they discussed striding and alternative routes to get around the ring in a faster time. Issie spent all of her time just trying to
remember which jump came next. She had to remember three courses that day! That was the thing about riding professionally. If you had more than one horse and more than one course to remember it could get jumbled in your head.

“You’ll get used to it,” Penny told her. “It helps if you imagine yourself actually riding around the fences rather than just walking between them.”

As Issie and Natasha entered the pony ring, Issie tried to keep Penny’s advice in mind. She imagined she could feel herself gathering her pony up underneath her, finding her line, and then pushing on at the jump. She was halfway around the course, riding with her mind and trying to find the right striding as she came up to the second element of the double, when Aidan appeared in front of her.

“Hi,” he grinned, “fancy seeing you here!”

Issie smiled back. “You just ruined my clear round.”

“What?”

“I was riding my imaginary horse. I was halfway to a clear round, but now I’m lost again,” Issie explained.

“I prefer riding real ones myself,” Aidan said.

“Are you on Fortune today?” Issie asked.

“Yep, and I’m riding another two ponies for Araminta as well.”

“So I’ll see you in the ring then?” Issie said.

“Why don’t you come and see me for lunch too?” Aidan smiled. “We didn’t really get the chance to catch up last week.”

“I know,” Issie sighed. She looked over at Natasha, who was mouthing at her to hurry up. “I…I really need to get going,” Issie told Aidan. “We need to get back to the truck and get the horses ready.”

“So,” Aidan said, “meet me at lunchtime then?”

“I can’t,” Issie said. “Ginty doesn’t like us hanging out with other riders. She wants the team to stay together.”

“You’re kidding!” Aidan frowned. “It’s your lunch break. You should be able to do whatever you like.”

“I
can
do what I like,” Issie asserted.

“So you’re saying you don’t want to have lunch with me? Is that it?”

“No,” Issie said, “it’s just that I’m working and I don’t want to upset Ginty.”

“So you’re scared of her?”

“No!” Issie was getting upset now. Why did Aidan
insist on getting the wrong end of the stick? “It’s not like that. I just want to be professional.”

“Being a professional doesn’t mean not having any fun or any friends,” Aidan shot back.

“What do you mean?” Issie said. “I can’t believe this is all because I won’t have lunch with you.”

“It’s not just lunch,” Aidan said. “It’s more than that. It’s about how you’ve been acting lately. I met up with Stella and Kate for a lesson at Avery’s the other day and they said you’ve hardly spoken to them since you started working for Ginty. Like you’re too good to hang out with your old friends now you’re riding on the showjumping circuit.”

Issie was taken aback. “Stella said that about me?”

Aidan shook his head. “Stella would never talk about you behind your back. But I could tell she was really hurt. She said she’s asked you loads of times to go riding after work and you always say no.”