Showjumpers (7 page)

“I’ve seen a lot of horses that were as cool as a cucumber in the show ring and became headstrong on the crosscountry,” Tara said. “It looks like Belle might be one of them.”

Tara looked over at Belle. The mare was drenched in sweat and heaving with the exertion of her mad gallop. “You’d better rug her up and walk her or she’ll get a chill.”

Georgie pulled herself up and did as Tara said. She took Belle, rugged her up and walked the mare to cool her down before grooming her, feeding her and turning her out. When she returned to the stables to hang up her halter she found Tara waiting for her.

“Georgie,” Tara said, “I think we need to talk.”

She followed Tara through the stables to the tack room and sat down while Tara made them both a cup of tea. She had been here once before with her teacher and that time they’d talked about Georgie’s mum. Tara had been at school with Ginny Parker and although the two of them had been rivals, they’d also been friends. Tara had a soft spot for Georgie because of this. Or at least so Georgie thought.

“You realise that you’re coming bottom of the class, don’t you?” Tara began straight away.

Georgie didn’t know what to say. “We’ve had a couple of bad weeks,” she responded meekly, “I’m trying…”

“Georgie, I didn’t bring you in here to give you a telling-off,” Tara sighed. “I can’t play favourites and give you extra tuition, but I do think you need someone to help you with Belle.”

“Belle is fine – she’s just fresh, she’ll change…” Georgie protested stubbornly. But Tara shook her head.

“When I was competing, a lot of my horses were very hot like Belle,” Tara said. “You can’t expect them to miraculously alter their character. You have to change. It’s up to you to learn to let her go.” Tara looked serious.

“This horse will be the making of you, Georgie. For every rider, there is one horse that elevates them to a new level. Belle can do that for you – if you let her. But you need to find a way forward with this mare because right now you’re in danger of failing my class. If you don’t get the grades this half-term, then I’ll have no choice but to eliminate you.”

The walk down the driveway back to Badminton House seemed to take forever that evening. Georgie’s boots felt like they had lead in them. There was no one else in the boarding house – the others must have already headed up to the dining hall for dinner – but Georgie didn’t mind being left behind; she wasn’t hungry anyway.

Exhausted, she headed straight for her dorm room, and that was when she saw the envelope pinned to the outside of her door. Inside there was a card with a handwritten message – just a phone number and a name. Georgie looked at it for a moment and then took the card into the lobby of the boarding house, picked up the phone and dialled the number. The phone rang and rang, then, just as Georgie was about to hang up, someone answered.

“Hello,” the voice at the other end of the line said, “this is Riley Conway.”

W
hen Riley Conway gave Georgie directions to Clemency Farm he made them sound easy. Look for a white fence and a beaten-up green letterbox, turn down the driveway and ride until you reach a barn with a green roof. But this was bluegrass country, home to over five hundred horse farms, the green fields went on forever, their white plank fencelines merging into one another. Georgie had been riding for almost half an hour now and everything looked the same! It was impossible to tell where one farm finished and the next one began.

She was just beginning to despair when she caught sight of a pale green letterbox, the metal all crumpled like a paper bag. She turned down the driveway and in the distance she could make out a barn with a green roof. This must be the place.

As she walked Belle down the driveway, two Thoroughbred yearlings, a chestnut and a bay, craned their necks over the paddock rails to whinny hellos and then began trotting back and forth along the fenceline, their heads held high, their eyes fixed on the visitors. Surprised by their attentions, Belle boggled and snorted.

“It’s OK, girl.” Georgie gave the mare a reassuring pat on the neck. “They’re just being friendly.”

The yearlings kept pace companionably on the other side of the fence all the way to the end of the driveway. Their nickers echoed around the empty stable yard, announcing Georgie’s arrival.

“Hello?” Georgie dismounted and ran Belle’s stirrups up, leading the mare alongside, her horseshoes chiming out against the concrete surface of the yard. She’d expected Clemency Farm to be like all the other horse farms around here with their glamorous stables and flashy facilities. Instead, this yard wasn’t much more than a wash bay, a couple of pens and a hitching rail.

“Is anyone here?” Georgie called out. There was still no reply so she led Belle into the barn. It was a dark space, with a high curved ceiling and concrete floors. There were no fancy loose boxes, but there were four wooden railed pens with fresh straw laid out on the floor. Three of these pens contained young racehorses: two chestnuts and a steel grey colt. At the sight of Belle, they raised their heads.

“Riley?” Georgie called out. She was beginning to think that maybe he’d forgotten she was coming. She walked all the way through the barn to the back doors that had been slid wide open to let in the morning sunlight. Behind the barn, there was a small, round pen and beyond that, a large field bordered by a racetrack.

Georgie heard the sound of hoofbeats before she caught sight of the horse and rider. They were galloping at the far end of the track. The rider was perched jockey-style; his stirrups so short that his knees were tucked up underneath him, his body bent over the horse’s withers. The jockey held a whip in his hand, but he didn’t appear to be using it. In fact he hardly seemed to move at all as the horse strode out beneath him, swallowing the ground with magnificent ease. They were taking the corner and heading back for home, in full gallop as they flew out around the bend of the track towards the barn.

As the horse drew closer, Georgie could see that it was big, maybe seventeen hands high, solidly built and jet black with no white markings, galloping with a natural ease that only true Thoroughbreds possess.

They headed into the home stretch, and the jockey lifted the whip. He held it in the air near the horse’s face as if he was showing it to the big, black Thoroughbred. The horse seemed to understand his meaning and his strides came even faster. He stretched out long and low, increasing speed as they bore down on the finish line. Georgie could see the strain showing in every inch of the animal’s body, the muscles rippling beneath the shiny black coat, the white foam of sweat beginning to appear on the horse’s neck. As the jockey galloped past an orange marker post beside the track, he reached for the stopwatch on his wrist.

It took another hundred metres for the horse to ease up. The jockey stood quietly in his stirrups, steadying back to a canter, then a trot and finally a walk as he headed back towards Georgie.

“You Georgie Parker?” he called out to her. Georgie nodded.

“Get on your horse and come out and join me,” the jockey said.

Georgie was a bit surprised by this request. But she did as he said, mounting up and riding Belle out on to the track.

The jockey shoved his whip down the side of his boot for safekeeping while he yanked off his helmet and mud-splattered racing goggles. He raked a hand through his damp, dark brown hair.

“Sorry,” he said to Georgie. “I thought I’d be finished by the time you turned up. Do you mind walking along the track for a while so I can cool Talisman down?”

Georgie stared at the jockey. Now that he had taken off his helmet and track goggles she could see that he had green eyes, wide cheekbones and a nose that might have been broken once and had mended slightly crooked, giving him an off-kilter look that didn’t destroy his handsomeness so much as enhance it. But that wasn’t holding Georgie’s attention. It was his age, or rather, lack of it. She’d been expecting to meet an adult, a professional.

But the jockey on the black horse couldn’t have been more than fifteen. He was a teenager, just like her!

“I thought you’d be old!” Georgie blurted out without thinking.

Riley smiled. “Nope,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I’m not.”

He turned the black horse around on the track and began to walk. “You’ll have to keep up with me,” he said. “I really need to give Talisman a cool-down.”

He looked over his shoulder at Georgie, who hadn’t moved.

“You coming?”

What else could Georgie do? It had taken an hour to get here. She might as well give him five more minutes – even though she failed to see how he could teach her anything about horses that she didn’t already know.

“So,” Riley said, “this is the mare that you’ve been having trouble with?”

Georgie didn’t have to answer. Belle, who had been crab-stepping anxiously along the race track as if her hooves were touching hot sand, suddenly went up in a half-rear and then tried to bolt. Georgie had to twist her around in a tight circle, reacting like lightning to stop the mare from taking off.

Riley watched this performance and then looked questioningly at Georgie. “Do you always ride her like that?” he asked.

Georgie was puzzled. “Like what?”

“Hangin’ on to the reins.”

“You saw what she just did!” Georgie said. “If I don’t hang on she’ll bolt.”

Riley looked unconvinced. “If you keep holding on like that then pretty soon that mare will be thinking backwards. If I were you I’d—”

Georgie snapped. “Listen, Mr Horse Whisperer. You can lay off, OK? I know how to ride. I’m a student at Blainford Academy. I won the UK auditions!”

Riley looked nonplussed by Georgie’s outburst. “The UK? I thought you were from England?”

“It’s the same thing!” Georgie completely lost the plot now. “And it’s beside the point.”

“First of all,” Riley said, “I think you need to calm down. I can see that you’re a pretty good rider. But I can also see that this mare doesn’t like to be held back, and I’m pretty sure that most of your problems are a battle of wills between you two.”

He smiled at Georgie. “You like to win your battles. Trouble is, this mare is just the same as you, so you keep fighting. You need to come up with a new plan. Out-think her. Do the opposite – stop hanging on and let her go.”

“Unbelievable!” Georgie scowled at the boy. “You’ve only just met me and Belle and already you think you can psychoanalyse our relationship?”

“Why don’t you listen to what I have to say about this mare and then decide,” Riley replied.

“OK, Mr Horse Whisperer,” Georgie said, “go ahead – tell me all about Belle.”

Riley looked at Belle and thought hard for a moment before he spoke. “She’s half Thoroughbred and half Warmblood,” he said, assessing her physique with an expert eye. “She’s a great jumper in the show ring, but the minute you get her out on the cross-country course something inside her clicks and she won’t listen to you. She gets too strong to hold so you fight her, then she sticks her head in the air, the jumps rush up at you and it ends in disaster. You’re starting to get scared of her. You don’t trust her enough any more to let her go.” He paused. “That boarding school of yours could probably give you another horse, but you don’t want to give up on this mare. You still love her, and there’s something between you two that goes deeper than it does with most horses and riders.” Riley’s voice softened. “You ain’t ready to give up, not yet anyway, and that’s why you’re here.”

Georgie almost burst into tears. She’d never heard anyone put into words exactly how she felt about riding Belle.

“How… how did you know?” she said.

“Lucky guess,” Riley replied. He turned Talisman around. “Come on, I think he’s cooled down enough,” he told Georgie. “Bring your mare. We’ll work in the round pen today. She’ll have nowhere to run – except in circles.”

The first thing Riley did in the round pen was take away Georgie’s reins. “You won’t need these,” he told her, knotting them and clipping a lunge rein on to the bridle.

Riley made Georgie ride around the round pen, steering and controlling Belle with her legs, putting her hands on her hips, then her shoulders, and her thighs – even behind her back. She thought that Belle would try to bolt without being held, but the mare kept a calm, steady pace.

“That’s because you’re using your body, voice and legs to control her speed,” Riley explained. “This is the first step to break your reliance on the reins,” he told Georgie. “Find your balance and power without them and learn not to hold Belle back all the time.”

Despite herself, Georgie had to admit that Riley’s methods seemed to work. By the end of their session, Belle was moving beautifully and freely and Georgie felt like they had made real progress. She thanked Riley and offered to pay him, but he shook his head. “You’re a friend of Uncle Kenny’s,” he told her. “You don’t owe me anything.”

An hour without any reins was hard work and Georgie felt exhausted. She could hardly face the thought of the hour-long ride back to school.

“I’ve got soda and some lemon cake my mom made,” Riley told her. “Why don’t you tie Belle up and have something to eat before you go?”

He led the way into the stables. There was an old, overstuffed sofa at the far end of the barn and beside the sofa, a fridge from which Riley produced the drinks and cake. They sat down next to each other on the sofa.

“So are you here by yourself all week?” Georgie asked.

Riley smiled. “I’m not some hillbilly – I go to school too, you know. I ride in the mornings before class most days. We take the horses for trackwork down at Keeneland Park. My dad manages Clemency Farm and I help him out – he gives me the run of the place on Saturdays so that he can have a day off work.”

“Oh,” Georgie felt foolish. “I thought it was your yard.”

“It will be someday, I suppose,” Riley said. “So what school do you go to?”

“Pleasant Hill High.”

“Do you like it?”

“I don’t hate it,” Riley replied.

“You should try and get into Blainford next year,” Georgie said. “They teach all kinds of riding there.”

“Yeah, it’s on my list of things to do right after buying a super-yacht and a mansion,” Riley said.

“Not everyone there is rich,” Georgie countered.

“It must be weird – actually living at your school,” Riley continued. “Mom says that she feels sorry for kids at boarding school. She says it must be awful having a family who don’t love you enough to keep you home with them…”

As soon as the words were out he realised what he’d said. “I’m sorry, Georgie, that came out wrong. I’m sure your parents aren’t like that.”

“It’s OK,” Georgie said. “I think my dad kind of felt the same way as your mum, but I really wanted to go to Blainford, so I convinced him.”

“What about your mom?” Riley asked.

“She died,” Georgie said, “four years ago. She was a professional eventing rider, but she had a bad accident on the cross-country course.”

“I’m really sorry,” Riley shook his head. “I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“That’s OK,” Georgie said, “I don’t talk about her very often. She was my hero, I guess. She’s part of the reason. I went to Blainford. I want to be an eventing rider one day, just like her.”

“That’s what I want too,” Riley said.

“I thought you’d want to be a jockey.”

“Are you kidding me?” Riley grinned and helped himself to a second slice of the lemon cake. “For starters, I’m already way too tall. Plus, I love to eat. I’m not willing to starve myself to make race-weight. I’m only just light enough now to ride trackwork.”

Georgie was hesitant to ask if she could come and have another lesson, but as Riley said goodbye he added, “So I guess I’ll see you the same time next weekend?”

“I have showjumping training on Saturday,” Georgie said, “but I could come on Sunday.”

“See you then,” Riley agreed.

He gave Georgie a leg-up on to Belle and she set off towards the gate. At the mailbox she turned to wave goodbye, but Riley had already gone.