Lauren and Lucky (7 page)

I woke Arabella up early and Jody let us go down and speak to Sally before breakfast. She said she wouldn’t allow it usually, but she could tell from our faces that it was important.

We went into the office and Sally was by the sink, filling the kettle. “Hi, girls,” she said, “and what can I do for you this early? I haven’t even had my coffee yet!”

I looked at Arabella and Arabella looked at the floor, and Sally looked at both of us and said, “Well?” So eventually I had to say, “Arabella’s scared of Gracie, and we thought you might know what to do.”

Sally looked confused.

“She hates me,” Arabella said quietly.

“Oh, I’m sure that can’t be true,” said Sally, smiling. She was probably thinking it was just Arabella being difficult again.

“But she does,” Arabella insisted. She glanced at me and I gave her a nod of encouragement. She took a deep breath and told Sally everything about Gracie nipping and kicking and throwing her off.

As Sally listened, her smile turned to a frown. “Well, I haven’t noticed anything,” she said.

“She doesn’t do it when anyone else is around,” said Arabella. “Only when I’m in the barn with her, when everyone’s busy and distracted. She doesn’t want anyone else to see what she’s really like.”

Sally sighed. “Ponies don’t think like that,” she said firmly. “It sounds as though you’ve got into a vicious circle. You’re nervous when handling her, she picks up on it and gets anxious herself, then she acts up a bit and you get more nervous.
You need to break the cycle. You need to be calm and confident and in control.”

“But she—” Arabella began, but Sally interrupted her.

“She doesn’t
hate
you,” she insisted. “As I said, ponies don’t have those kind of thoughts.”

“Really?” said Arabella.

“I promise,” said Sally. “As someone who’s had ponies since I was six, spent three years at equestrian college and five years as an instructor, I think I should know. But you do need to work on building up your relationship. Lauren’s got a great partnership going with Lucky, I’m sure she can show you how it’s done.” She looked at me. “OK?”

I nodded.

“Thanks, Lauren,” Arabella said shyly.

Sally smiled again then, and said, “Now, why don’t you girls get yourselves in for some breakfast, before Millie scoffs all the
Frosted Wheats. And don’t even think of coming down here this early again!”

“OK,” said Arabella. She already looked much happier.

She went out into the yard and just as I was following, Sally called me back. “It’s very kind of you to help her out,” she said. “I’ve noticed that you two don’t exactly get along.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Maybe we will now,” I said, and headed out.

So after breakfast, we all grabbed some lead ropes and went to catch our ponies. Lydia supervised us in the field, but she wouldn’t do the catching for anyone this time. She said we should have the hang of it by now. After I’d caught Lucky, I noticed that Arabella was still standing in the field with her lead rope, looking
uncertain. Tears sprang into her eyes and she said, “I tried, but whenever I start walking towards her, she just trots away.”

“OK, don’t worry,” I told her. “Take a deep breath and think positive. Now walk up confidently to her side and clip on the lead rope, as if you
expect
her to stand still.”

Arabella still looked unsure, but she did what I said. And guess what? It worked! She looked so pleased with herself, and she thanked me as we led our ponies out of the field. “See? She’s a good girl,” I said then. “She just needs to feel that you’re confident and in control, that’s all.”

Gracie was a total sweetie on the yard, too. I made sure I said loads of nice things about her so that Arabella could see how lovely she is. I showed her how to run her hand down Gracie’s side and leg before trying to pick up her hooves, so that she didn’t get a shock. Then when she was trying to sponge her eyes Gracie did a loud snort and tossed her head. Arabella started and jumped backwards, but I just grinned and said, “Don’t worry, she’s only saying thank you!” Arabella saw it differently then and gave Gracie a big pat, so we’re definitely getting somewhere already!

Oh, and guess what? Arabella
did
say sorry to Lucky, too! And she made a big fuss of him, patting his neck and telling him what a clever boy he was and how fab he is going to be in the dressage comp.

He whinnied and nuzzled her arm, so I know he forgave her – and I’m sure the half a carrot she gave him must have helped, too!

Arabella was also a bit nervous of the other dressagers after what happened yesterday evening, but she took a deep breath and put on a big smile. And it worked ’cos soon everyone was happily grooming away in the yard. Then when she was about to start using the mane comb on Gracie’s body Paula pointed to it and went, “Beep! Uh-uh!” as if we were still playing quizzes. Everyone laughed and it was so funny that Arabella couldn’t help joining in. I grinned at her and she grinned back. Perhaps she’s not so bad after all.

Oh, hang on, here come the others.

In bed –
I'm tired out but too excited to sleep, so I'll just catch up on my diary

We had our lesson first this morning, so we could practise riding our freestyle tests to our music. Then during the workshop time Sally gave us notes on how we did. We were all nervous and excited about putting everything together at last. Lydia called out the dressage tests for us, so we could focus on our riding. We'll have to have them memorized and go it alone tomorrow, though!

After a warm-up on each rein and some general work on balance and impulsion, it was time to ride the tests. The rest of us went out into the lane to give each rider the whole manège. We dismounted, held on to our ponies, and while they munched on the grass
verge, we leaned on the fence to watch.

Gracie started getting a bit restless and Arabella gave me an anxious glance. She was gripping tightly on to the lead rope, so no wonder the poor pony was getting fed up. I told her to relax, let the rope out and give Gracie a bit of space. She did, and soon Gracie was happily munching on the grass verge.

“Thanks!” said Arabella. Then she burst out laughing. “
And
for the lovely gungy green bit I'm going to have to scrub!”

I couldn't help laughing too, especially when I saw that Lucky had a foaming green mouth to match Gracie's! Urgh!

I was third up after Paula and Marie. I really enjoyed myself – it felt completely different doing the test to music. Lucky was more alert and quicker off the leg, so I knew he definitely
liked the song I'd chosen! Thank goodness Lydia was calling out the test though, because I would have forgotten all about our halt and rein back at E and gone walking all the way up the long side! I just hope I can get it firmly into my head before tomorrow.

I was really into the rhythm of the music and I focused on using squeezes on and half halts to get Lucky exactly on the beat. This didn't always work and it's really tricky to do, but when it did it looked great, so even if I can just get
some
of my routine like that tomorrow I'll be happy!

After Leonie and Arabella had had their goes we all went back into the manège and warmed down together, and then took our ponies back to the barn and untacked. We were all saying well done to each other and keeping our fingers crossed for good comments from Sally.

Once we'd grabbed drinks and sat down at the benches, Sally gave us her notes. Everyone has points to work on, but me and Lucky seem to have a LOT! They are:

When Sally had given us all our notes, she said, “So, let's recap. What does the judge expect to see?” We could just reel off the answer by now because she'd said it so many times, and we all chanted: “Rhythm, impulsion, suppleness, expression, on the bit, straight, good collection, good rider position,” and then burst into fits of giggles.

“OK, well done,” she said, rolling her eyes. Then she put us in pairs to carry on memorizing our tests, and when I went with Marie, Arabella didn't get moody about it, she just asked if we could be a three. Marie said yes and it worked out fine.

When we came out after lunch we were all stressing out about how much practice we still needed to do before the freestyle comp, and all the points we've got to improve on. But when
we got on to the yard, Sally really surprised us by saying, “Actually, what you girls need far more than practice is to chill out! It's a beautiful afternoon and we're going for a hack!”

At first we were all going, “No, we can't! We really
do
need to practise!” But soon we were having a great time with our ponies, cantering up stubble fields and trotting down lanes – we even had to go through a river! At one point, Flame stumbled over a branch on the ground and Paula came tumbling off, and later on Arabella said to me that she could see Flame didn't do it on purpose and so maybe Gracie hadn't either when she'd pitched
her
off that time. She even admitted at tea that going on the hack was the best thing we could have done because she could bond with Gracie and have fun. (I was amazed
because she's so obsessed with dressage practice usually.) In fact, when we were grooming down and caring for our ponies it was
me
going, “Come on, hurry up, I'm hungry,” because Arabella didn't want to leave Gracie!

Then this evening the fun continued 'cos we had…

We all got ready as if we were going to a proper party – Paula did everyone's make-up with her cool sparkly silver eyeshadow and pink lipgloss, and Bea lent me her silky red flower clip 'cos she was wearing her blue one.

Jody drew the curtains and Millie's big brother James brought his light system into the
games room (so I guess brothers are useful sometimes!). We all had a great time dancing about, and after a few songs James would just suddenly mix in one of our dressage test tunes. When that happened we would all stand back and let the girl whose song it was pretend to be on her pony and mark out the test. It was so funny, my jaw was aching from laughing so much, especially at Leonie 'cos when her
Black Beauty
music came on she kept whinnying and pretending her pony was messing about!