Show Horse (6 page)

“You are something else,” Carole said. “Before, it
was his dimples, and now it’s his signature. How do you know when he’s in a bad mood or has bad news?”

“Easy,” Stevie said immediately. “It’s when he calls me Stephanie. Same with my mother. The minute I hear anybody call me that, it’s sure to be bad news.”

“That doesn’t do me any good,” Carole said. “My real name is Carole.”

“Well, then, I don’t see the difference. If somebody called you Stephanie, it would probably be bad news, too.”

Carole laughed. Stevie laughed, too. Lisa might have laughed, but her mother was there, watching absolutely everything, and somehow that put a damper on any desire to giggle.

In a few minutes the young riders were ready. The four girls and Mrs. Atwood dutifully filed into Max’s office. Max greeted them all, especially Mrs. Atwood, who did not usually come to Lisa’s lessons, and asked them to sit down.

“There’s one other aspect of Briarwood I wanted to discuss with you four. It’s not official from Briarwood’s point of view, but it is from mine. As you know, I believe that my riders must all meet certain standards—nothing unreasonable, mere excellence.…”

The girls smiled a little nervously. They knew that Max was only half joking, and that was one of the reasons they were proud to be his students.

“I believe that excellence comes from within, however. And I also believe that one person’s excellence cannot be judged by another person’s standards.”

That sounded odd, because Max’s own standards were always very high and were consistently used to judge his students. In class he was the one who was always telling each of them what to do. Stevie was about to point this out to him, but he had more to say.

“So here’s what I want you to do. I want each of you to think about what your own goals are for riding, especially for riding at Briarwood. You will each be in five classes, and that means that you should be thinking about your goals for each of those five classes. For instance, in the Fitting and Showing class, one of you may think of her goal as keeping her horse calm. Another may feel that there’s progress to be made on hoof cleaning. When you’ve decided what your personal goal is, you are going to write it down on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope—one for each class. Then you are going to seal the envelopes and give them to me. After the show we’ll meet again. I’ll return the envelopes to you, and you can open them to remind yourself of what you thought was important before the competition. You then get to grade yourself. I am not going to ask you what your goals were; I’m simply going to ask you if, in your opinion, you met them. I will then give you whatever ribbon you tell me you deserve.”

“You mean if I tell you it’s straight blue across the board, you’ll give me blue ribbons?” Stevie asked.

“The purpose here is to learn, Stevie,” Max said. “If you have learned, you have succeeded.”

“And how are you going to break the ties if these
other girls think they’ve won blue ribbons at the same time I have?” Veronica asked.

Lisa noticed the way Veronica phrased the question. She made it sound as if she, Veronica, would be winning blue ribbons while The Saddle Club girls would only
think
they had. Max noticed it, too.

“Whatever anybody
thinks
is what they are going to get, Veronica,” he said patiently. “Now, all of you, go get ready for class. Think about what I’ve said and think about your personal goals. We’ll have a special session to practice for the show after class today. Can everybody stay?”

Stevie, Lisa, and Carole all nodded. Veronica mumbled something about having to reach her mother on the mobile phone. The Saddle Club wasn’t interested in her excuses. There was plenty of work to do before class. They dashed for the tack room.

Lisa’s mind was in a haze while she tacked up Prancer. All she could think of was how wonderful Briarwood was going to be and how she and Prancer were going to do so well. She thought about what her goals were going to be. There were hundreds of things, she realized. She still sometimes had trouble keeping her legs perpendicular to the ground and her heels down. Sometimes her hands slipped on the reins and gave too much slack. Occasionally she lost track of which diagonal she was supposed to be posting on, and she still wasn’t always sure she got her horse to jump at the right distance from the jump. She thought about these things, but she also thought about the
horse she was tacking up. Prancer. The horse’s name alone was enough to make her dream of blue ribbons. After all, it was the name of one of Santa Claus’s reindeer, and it was a good name, because this horse could really fly! She could even soar. And that made Lisa’s thoughts soar. With Prancer on her side, she was going to win. There just wasn’t any doubt about it.

“That’s a pretty horse,” her mother remarked, bringing Lisa back to the present.

“She’s the greatest,” Lisa agreed. “I’ll give her a careful grooming after I ride her today, Mom, and if you want to wait around, you’ll see how gorgeous she is when her coat is sleek and clean, but even now you can see what a champ she is.”

“I guess I can,” Mrs. Atwood said. She stepped back a little, though, because Prancer was shifting back and forth uneasily. The mare was much more comfortable and relaxed around young riders than adults, and Mrs. Atwood seemed to be making her a little nervous.

“She won’t hurt you, Mom,” Lisa promised. “She’s just trying to figure out if she trusts you.”

“Maybe, but I’m more interested in whether or not she trusts you,” Mrs. Atwood said. “Which horse is Veronica diAngelo’s?”

“Two stalls down,” Lisa said. “Her name is Garnet.”

“But that’s not Veronica who’s putting on her saddle and bridle, is it?” Lisa’s mother asked.

“No. Veronica usually gets somebody else to do the work for her.” She stood on tiptoe to see who Veronica’s victims were this time. They were two younger
girls in the class who were apparently trying to ingratiate themselves with Veronica. They weren’t doing a very good job of it, since they had Garnet’s saddle way too far back on her. That would have to be readjusted during class, and it wouldn’t make Max happy.

Mrs. Atwood stepped away from where Lisa was working on Prancer and walked over to Garnet’s stall.

A few minutes later she reappeared. “Nice horse Veronica has,” she said to Lisa.

“Yes. Garnet’s pretty.”

“But she’s kind of small—I mean, compared to Prancer, here, isn’t she?”

Lisa would never understand what her mother thought was important, but if the height of a horse was it, she’d go along with it.

“Arabians aren’t known for their height,” Lisa said. “They’re known for their endurance and their beautiful heads.”

“I think Prancer is really pretty.”

“She is,” Lisa agreed, recognizing progress when she heard it. “She’s one of the prettiest horses I’ve ever known.”

“You know, I only care about what’s right for you,” Mrs. Atwood went on.

“Yes, I know,” Lisa said. It was true, too. Her mother sometimes had a skewed notion about what was desirable, but her intentions were always good.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt or anything.”

“I won’t, Mom. I promise.”

“All right. I’ll tell Max it’s okay.”

“You’ll sign the form?”

“Yes, I’ll sign the form,” Mrs. Atwood said. “As a matter of fact, I’ll go to Max’s office right now and do it.”

Lisa wasn’t absolutely sure her mother was beyond hearing when she shrieked with joy. It didn’t matter, though. All that mattered was she’d be in the ring at Briarwood, and she and Prancer would … Could she say it? Yes. They’d win. She just knew it!

“A
ND YOU ALL
have to keep an even pace,” Max said. “It’s extremely important. You can’t have your horses dashing around the show ring in spurts. That goes for all the classes, but especially for the jump—Lisa, did you hear me?”

Lisa tugged at Prancer’s reins. The mare seemed to think this was a race and she wanted to win. She went faster with every step.

“I heard you,” Lisa said. “I’m just not sure Prancer did.”

There was nervous laughter.

“You’d better come to a halt now and then start again,” Max said.

It took another ten steps before Prancer got Lisa’s message about stopping. Lisa decided that poor
Prancer had been cooped up in her stall for over six months, and all she wanted to do now was move, fast. Lisa was sympathetic with that, but she also knew it was her job to be in charge all the time.

“I’m ready to try to canter again,” she said.

“And we’re waiting for you to do it,” Max said. There was an edge to his voice. Lisa knew he was a little annoyed.

“Come on, girl,” she whispered to Prancer. “Let’s show them how good you can be.”

Stevie, Carole, and Veronica had all stopped their horses to give Lisa a chance and to help Prancer concentrate. Lisa nudged Prancer with her legs, shifted her weight, and loosened the reins. Prancer began moving immediately. And as soon as Lisa signaled for a trot, the horse began cantering. A puzzled look crossed Max’s face. Then he erased that puzzlement and showed nothing. Prancer was cantering and he was at an even gait. That was, after all, what Max had wanted.

“Nice going,” he said.

Lisa beamed. None of the other horses or riders moved until Lisa and Prancer had circled the ring several times. They wanted her to be able to establish a pace that was comfortable for Prancer. It seemed to work.

“All right, now the rest of you please canter.”

This time it was Veronica who was having trouble. Her stirrups were too long, and she was having trouble maintaining her balance with her legs extended so far.
It was typical of Veronica that she’d let a small problem like stirrup length interfere with her riding just because readjusting the stirrups involved a little bit of effort. Naturally, she didn’t feel she could solve the problem herself. She just
had
to get Max to do it for her.

While Carole, Stevie, and Lisa continued cantering, Max gave his full attention to Veronica’s stirrups.

Stevie found this exercise a breeze. Topside was an extremely well-trained horse. He’d belonged to Dorothy DeSoto and had ridden in many, many horse shows. He automatically maintained an even pace at any gait because he’d been so thoroughly trained to do so. Stevie thought she could be doing this in her sleep.

Carole was having a wonderful time, too. When she’d first gotten Starlight, she’d known that he was a young horse who hadn’t finished his training. She’d spent hundreds of hours since his arrival last Christmas working on the basics. It was important to have a horse who responded to your commands, especially if you expected to go far with the horse. Carole definitely expected to go far with Starlight, starting at the Briarwood Horse Show.

The only problem Carole was having, in fact, was with Lisa. Every time she looked at Lisa, she grew more concerned. It was bad enough that Lisa had trouble with Prancer when they were working on maintaining a smooth gait, but it got a lot worse when they started to practice jumping.

Prancer could jump all right. The problem was, Prancer couldn’t wait to strut her stuff. Lisa was asking her to go over some very low jumps, mostly two or two and a half feet high. The height of the jumps wasn’t meant to be a challenge to the horses. The jumps were simply part of the exercise of hunter-jumping competition, which showed the judges how a horse could maintain a smooth gait even while jumping.

Prancer, however, was interested in the height of the jumps. Without any signal from Lisa, she took off way too far in front of the two-foot-high jumps. She fairly flew into the air, soaring over the low jump. Lisa was as unprepared for the landing as she had been for the takeoff. She had to grab on to Prancer’s mane just to keep from falling off. While Lisa was startled at first, the feeling of flight was simply exhilarating. The fact that her horse wasn’t doing just what she ought to be doing seemed insignificant compared to Prancer’s incredible strength. Lisa sighed happily after the first jump and couldn’t wait until the second.

“Lisa!” Max cried out.

“Isn’t she something?” Lisa asked, grinning proudly.

“Well, I think she needs a little bit more work,” Max stammered.

“Oh, of course she needs more work, but she’s so wonderful! All her great qualities are going to come out in competition, don’t you think?”

Max waited a few minutes before answering the question. “Maybe,” he said finally. “Just maybe.”

Carole and Stevie exchanged glances. They
couldn’t believe how oblivious Lisa was to Prancer’s need for more training.

During the next half hour, Max took the group through the rest of the skills he thought they would need to work on before going to Briarwood. Since all of his riders had extensive training in grooming, he wasn’t at all concerned about the Fitting and Showing class. He was, however, a little worried about Equitation and spent most of his time working on that.

Lisa listened to everything he said, and she tried to do everything he told her. With every word, though, she was convinced that the reason he was giving her more advice than he was giving her friends was that he believed Prancer was going to win, and he wanted the others to know how hard she had worked for it.