Horse Sense

Read all the Saddle Club books!

Horse Crazy

Horse Shy

Horse Sense

Horse Power

Trail Mates

Dude Ranch

Horse Play

Horse Show

Hoof Beat

Riding Camp

Horse Wise

Rodeo Rider

“I
CAN TELL
I’m really getting better at riding,” Lisa Atwood announced to her two best friends with a smile. “Max is only giving me four instructions at a time now—instead of the
eight
he gave me during my first few lessons!”

Carole Hanson and Stevie Lake laughed along with Lisa. Max Regnery, their riding teacher at Pine Hollow Stables, was quite a character sometimes. But they also understood the complexity of riding well. There were always dozens of things to remember at once!

The girls were lounging contentedly in Stevie’s room, talking about their favorite subject: horses. The three friends were the members of The Saddle Club, and this get-together was a “meeting.” The girls had created the Club, with only two requirements: The
members had to be horse crazy and they had to be willing to help one another when help was needed. At the moment, with no problems or crises in evidence, the girls were lazily talking about riding.

Lisa sat cross-legged on Stevie’s bed. She twirled her long light brown hair around one finger as she and her friends talked. Lisa was petite and fine-boned, and she looked younger than her thirteen years. Also, the clothes her mother steered her into choosing—classic styles, like pleated plaid skirts and penny loafers—exaggerated her good-little-girl look. Occasionally Lisa daydreamed about having her hair cut in spikes or buying some offbeat clothes at the secondhand store at the mall, but there wasn’t enough rebel in her to defy her mother—or, usually, anybody else.

Although a year older than her friends, Lisa was the newest rider of the group. She’d only begun a few months before. She’d started lessons because her mother thought every well-brought-up young girl should know how to ride (“—and dance and paint and play the piano and do needlework, and every other boring thing you could imagine!” Lisa had said in exasperation one day). Then, Lisa had surprised her mother by becoming very interested in riding—and had especially surprised herself, and even Max, by how good she had become at it.

“Well, what were the four instructions?” Stevie asked Lisa with a grin. Stevie was lying on the floor of her room, with her legs propped up on her bed, and her dark blond hair spread out dramatically on the
floor. Her hazel eyes were full of mischief. Stevie lived in a comfortable, spacious home with her three brothers (Michael, eight; Alex, her twin; and Chad, fourteen) and her parents. In contrast to Lisa’s stylish outfits, Stevie’s usually looked like hand-me-downs. She rode in jeans and beat-up cowboy boots. Now, relaxing after riding class, she was lounging in an oversize sweatshirt and a pair of tights.

Stevie was the only rider in her family. Sometimes it was hard for her parents to understand her love of horses, but her commitment had finally convinced them Stevie was serious about riding—perhaps because it was the only thing she
was
serious about. Stevie was a practical joker and frequently in trouble. Somehow, though, Stevie always managed to come out on top. To Lisa, that was one of Stevie’s most endearing qualities.

Lisa had to think for a moment to remember Max’s instructions. She rolled her eyes and said in a deep, serious voice, “ ‘Heels down, toes in, look straight ahead, and’—” she paused, laughing, then resumed sternly, “and, ‘stop talking to your horse!’ ”

Her friends joined Lisa in a burst of laughter. Max not only taught riding but also owned Pine Hollow Stables. And he was famous for certain idiosyncrasies, among them his belief that horses couldn’t understand English. He told his riders that a horse would appreciate the sound of a reassuring word now and again, but they were never to speak
instructions
such as “whoa.” For instructions, the rider should always use “aids”— signals with hands, legs, and a riding crop.

“What were you saying to Pepper?” Carole asked.

“I just told him that he should stop looking at the clock—there was another half hour to go in class!”

“You’re right, you know. When Pepper decides class should be over, he gets very ‘barny,’ doesn’t he?” Any horse in a hurry to get back to his stall was called barny.

Carole was the most experienced rider of the three girls, having ridden all her life on the Marine Corps bases where her father, now a colonel, had been stationed. Lisa thought Carole was beautiful, with her wavy black hair that hung loose to her shoulders and her intense big brown eyes. Lisa knew that Carole dreamed of owning a stable one day. She wanted to breed horses, train them, and, most of all, to ride them. Riding was the most important thing in her life. So Lisa was always pleased when Carole agreed with her observations about horses.

“He sure does,” Lisa said. “Every time we passed the door to the stalls, he slowed down and looked that way—just to remind me that we
could
go in there instead of around in circles.”

“I rode a horse on the base at Twenty-Nine Palms once,” Carole began, “who was so barny that if you took him out, you always had to keep him turned away from the barn. Once he was turned toward home, no matter how far away he was, nothing could keep him from heading back. They nicknamed him Pidge because he was like a homing pigeon!”

The girls were laughing when there was a knock at Stevie’s door. “It’s me, Chad,” Stevie’s older brother said. He opened the door. “Mom said to tell you that there are cookies in the kitchen if you’re hungry. I could bring them up, if you’d like.” With that, he disappeared from the door.

“What’s that all about?” Carole asked.

“Beats me,” Stevie said. “The last time he offered to do anything for me, it was to eat all my Halloween candy when I was six. Tried to convince me I’d get a stomachache. But he volunteered to take the risk himself!”

“I guess brothers can be weird,” Carole remarked. “And speaking of weird, did you hear that new French girl shouting at Nero? She was
really
angry. You’re taking French, Stevie, could you understand her?”

“I think the words Estelle used
aren’t
included in the vocabulary lists that Mlle. Lebrun gives us.” She shook her head and grinned wickedly.

“You shouldn’t make fun of her,” said Lisa, who always tried to be fair. “After all, Estelle is new to this country. I’m sure they just do things differently in France. And it can’t be easy to move your entire life to a new country, you know, just because your father’s job is here.”

“Well, if they do things differently in France, they do them
very
differently,” Carole said, almost smirking.

Before Lisa had a chance to ask Carole what she meant, there was another knock at the door. Chad was
back with a snack for the girls. He brought a tray with a little plate of cookies and a glass of milk for each of them. By the time he’d finished serving them, the girls had forgotten about Estelle and had started talking about horses again.

“How’s Delilah?” Stevie asked Carole. Delilah, a mare at Pine Hollow, was due to deliver a foal within the next month. The foal had been sired by Cobalt, a Thoroughbred who’d had to be put to sleep after his leg had been shattered beyond repair in a jumping accident. After the tragedy of his sudden death, Carole had wanted to give up riding. He’d been her favorite horse to ride, ever. Then she’d learned about Cobalt’s foal.