Young Riders (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 16) Read online

  YOUNG RIDERS

  BY

  CLAIRE SVENDSEN

  Copyright © 2015 Claire Svendsen

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the Author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, places or events is purely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Tell me again about this boy who likes you,” Missy said.

  “It’s nothing, can’t you just forget about it?” I said.

  I was in Arion’s stall with my head pressed against his big gray belly, listening for gut sounds. There were plenty of them, rumbling and grumbling around which should have been reassuring only it wasn’t because as far as I was concerned he still wasn’t right. The only trouble was that no one else believed me.

  “No, I can't forget it,” she said. “If a boy likes you, that is a big thing.”

  “Why?” I said, standing up and patting Arion. “Because I’m so repulsive that I should just take the first guy who comes along and says I’m cute?”

  “Emily,” Missy said, her voice warning me. “You know that’s not what I mean. There is no need to act out with me.”

  “I know.” I sighed. “I’m just so worried about Ari. What do you think?”

  “I think he looks fine,” she said. “Still a bit on the thin side but better than when he first came. I think you’re worrying about nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing,” I said.

  “Fine. Then I think you are worrying about this because then you don’t have to think about the real problem here, which is who you are going to take to the clinic.”

  “I’ve already decided,” I said. “I’m taking Bluebird.”

  “That’s not what your father says.”

  “I know.”

  I slipped out of Arion’s stall and closed the door. Dad and I had been fighting for days. He finally sent in the paper for the clinic with both Bluebird and Encore listed and a note that said we hadn't made our final decision yet on which horse would be going. As far as I was concerned, there was no decision to make. Bluebird had been my choice from the start. He was talented and fast and would jump anything I pointed him at but Dad had other ideas. He said that Encore was the professional choice. He looked like a real jumper. He’d competed at the top. He would make me look good. I told him that I didn’t need an experienced horse to make me look good. I wanted the one I’d trained myself. The one who understood me. But my father didn’t understand things like that.

  “You have to cut him some slack,” Missy said. “Your father has a lot on his mind right now.”

  “I know,” I said. “And I’m trying to be understanding, really I am. It’s just that this clinic is really important to me and since I’m the one who is riding in it then I should get to decide, don’t you think? Can’t you talk to him about it? Please? He’ll listen to you.”

  “I’ll try,” she said, shaking her head. “But I’m afraid he’s not listening to much of anything at the moment.”

  The suspension hearing was going to be held while I was away at the clinic. Every night Dad shut himself away in his office and talked to people on the phone in French and German. The clients he had trained and owners he had ridden for while he was living in Europe. I still didn’t know what had happened over there but I knew it had to be a mistake. I’d been doing my own research and it turned out that banned substances could be lurking in anything inconspicuous. That treat you just gave your horse or a new supplement. Even a simple anti-inflammatory like bute was not allowed before a competition so drugging didn’t necessarily mean your horse was high on something. It just meant that somewhere along the line someone messed up.

  I was standing there feeling glum and watching Arion when Henry came running up.

  “What is it?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Bluebird,” he replied, looking pale. “You’d better come quickly.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Bluebird had been in his paddock. I’d seen him when I walked by. He’d been standing there at the gate and he nickered, calling out to me or more importantly to the carrot that I had stuffed in the back pocket of my jeans. But I’d brushed his enthusiasm off with a wave of my hand, too preoccupied about Arion to go over and give it to him. I told him I’d be back out to get him in a minute but it had certainly been a lot longer than a minute. I’d been in Arion’s stall for ages and all that time my pony had been upset because I’d ignored him and now something bad had happened to him.

  I ran behind Henry, heart pounding in my chest. He hadn’t told me what was wrong. He just said I should come but from the look on his face, I knew it couldn’t be good. Henry was the head groom at Fox Run. Before he came to work here he’d been a groom on the back side of the racetrack. He’d pretty much seen everything and knew everything and if he thought it was bad then it probably was.

  A couple of the other grooms were out in the paddock by the gate. I couldn’t see Bluebird anywhere.

  “Where is he?” I cried.

  Then I saw him, lying on the ground with all four legs shoved under the gate and people holding him down so that he wouldn’t struggle and make an already bad situation even worse. My heart stopped and then so did the panic. I went into some kind of ultra-calm mode like a robot.

  “We have to take the gate off,” Henry said. “Your father went to get the tools.”

  Bluebird saw me and let out a desperate whinny, thrashing his legs a few times. I went to him and sat by his head, cradling it in my arms.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “Everything is going to be okay but you have to lie still until help comes, alright?”

  Thoughts played through my mind like an old movie reel, horrible thoughts about Bluebird with a broken leg, his jumping career and maybe even his life over. Or any other of a million injuries he could do to himself before we got the gate off. He was my jumping pony. My special partner and I’d taken him for granted. A tear rolled down my cheek but I quickly brushed it away before anyone could see. The other grooms didn’t look at me. Instead they tried to soothe my pony as well, stroking his sweaty neck and patting his rump, holding him down every time he tried to get up because he couldn’t get up on his own. Somehow he had rolled and got his legs stuck under the gate and now he couldn’t get up even if he wanted to without taking the gate with him and really hurting himself in the process.

  Dad came running over with a tool kit and Henry helped him work on lifting off the gate. It was old and rusted. It wouldn’t come off easily. They had to hit it with hammers and work the old metal with wrenches.

  I kept talking, trying to keep Bluebird calm, my words strings of nonsense about how we’d go to the clinic and show everyone he was the best even though it was probably a lie. He’d never be able to go with me now. If, by some miracle, he came through this episode unscathed, there was no way I’d be able to jump him in a few days. And I thought of Arion. How I’d held his head in the hurricane as they worked to free his legs from the wire he was tangled in and couldn’t believe that something this bad was happening again.

  Then, with a squeaking of old metal, they lifted the gate and suddenly Bluebird was free. Before we could even tell him it was okay to get up, he surged to his feet. He stood up and shook himself and I quickly put his halter on before he could do anything else dumb like run off a
round the farm.

  “Take him into the barn,” Dad said. “I’ll call the vet.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I refused to leave my pony’s side, even though he mostly seemed okay. There were a few scrapes on his legs where he had thrashed about a bit before the grooms found him but no broken bones and no apparent damage. It could have been worse. A lot worse. And now that I knew that he was alright, I was mad at him for being so stupid and mad at myself for not just bringing him into the barn when I walked past.

  I knew how he’d been lately. At first he didn’t seem to mind being at Fox Run but now that I was there all day, coming in and out of the barn with different horses and riding all over the property, he was suddenly a very jealous pony. He nickered and called for me if I was tacking another horse up instead of him and he fussed and fretted if he saw me jumping in the ring, pacing back and forth until one of the grooms put him in his stall.

  “You could have waited two seconds,” I told him. “I would have come back to get you.”

  I hugged his neck and dried my tears on his mane. To him two seconds was probably forever. I didn’t even know if horses had a decent concept of time. They sure knew when feeding time was, banging their buckets and whinnying excitedly but Bluebird had no way to know that I was really coming back for him. He was feeling neglected and as a result something bad had happened.

  “The vet is on his way,” Dad said.

  He came into the stall and looked Bluebird over, concentrating as he ran his hands over him.

  “I think he is okay,” I said.

  “I think so too.” He stood up and put his hands on his hips. “But I knew you’d want to be sure.”

  “Do you think the vet can look at Arion too?” I said. “Since he’s going to be here anyway? I still don’t think he’s quite right.”

  “Still?” Dad said. “I thought we decided there was nothing wrong with him?”

  “You decided,” I mumbled under my breath.

  “Fine,” he said. “Get him checked but don’t agree to any expensive tests without asking me first. Money doesn’t grow on trees you know.”

  Money was suddenly a sore spot in our house in a way it hadn’t been before. I was used to scraping by, living with Mom from one paycheck to the next and eating macaroni and cheese so that we could afford to pay the rent but apparently Dad was not used to such hardships. He wasn’t happy that his cash flow was suddenly being diverted but he didn’t really have much of a choice.

  Work had now halted completely on the farm he was renovating and with that money he’d hired a fancy lawyer who sent a private investigator over to Europe to get to the bottom of the drugging scandal. He wouldn’t talk about it, except to say that he was innocent. I believed him but I wished I had all the details. He offered to tell me once but I’d refused, not wanting the shiny image of him I had in my mind tarnished. But now that I wanted to know, his lips were sealed. He said his lawyer told him not to talk to anyone about it. I was pretty sure that wasn’t supposed to include people like daughters but he wasn’t saying another word about the whole thing and I couldn’t make him.

  After my heart rate returned to normal and I was convinced that Bluebird wasn’t going to suddenly drop dead of shock or something, I went to fetch a bucket of water to clean his wounds.

  The one on his right front had a rather nasty flap of skin that had been sliced off and was half hanging there like a prop from a horror movie. I gently washed and cleaned him up. He didn’t seem too fussed. He was more interested in the pile of hay that Henry had given him. I was just finishing up when the vet arrived.

  He was a young guy, not that many years out of vet school, and had all these modern machines and inventive ideas, which was why my father didn’t like him very much. He said that every time he came here you could kiss a thousand dollars goodbye. He wanted an old school vet who went on instinct and intuition. Who could tell you what was wrong with your horse because he knew his stuff like the back of his hand and didn’t need a million diagnostic machines to tell him. I wanted one too but I told him that I didn’t think those sorts of vets existed anymore. He’d sighed and said I was probably right. Besides, everyone else at the barn loved him so we didn’t really have a choice. We had to go with what the boarders wanted. After all, they paid the bills.

  “So, what do we have here then?” Dr. Cunningham said. “I hear we had a little accident.”

  “My pony got his legs stuck under the gate and couldn’t get out. We had to take the whole gate off,” I said.

  “I see,” he replied, nodding his head.

  He was always saying things like ‘I see’ or ‘what a shame’ or ‘well I never.’ It didn’t exactly make you feel very confident in his abilities as a vet. But all the boarders thought he must be the best because he could afford to drive a bright yellow Hummer, even though no one else drove them anymore because they couldn’t pay for the gas. And he wore all these expensive clothes that looked like they came from a high end store. I didn’t know how he managed to keep them clean. Our old vet had worn blue overalls and didn’t mind getting dirty. But at the end of the day, I didn’t really have a choice. I was tied to the barns contacts now, just like once I’d been tied to Esther’s. Obligated to use the same people she did because it was her barn.

  Dr. Cunningham felt Bluebird’s legs and looked at the wounds, nodding his approval at my clean up job.

  “Do you think he needs stitches?” I asked nervously.

  He flipped up the skin flap and shook his head.

  “I’m afraid it’s too shredded. I’ll just snip it off.”

  “Snip it off?” I said, feeling horrified.

  “It will be fine,” he said, taking out a pair of surgical scissors and cutting the flap before I even had a chance to protest further.

  “Now, let’s see if he’s lame, shall we?”

  I trotted Bluebird up and down the barn aisle while the other horses looked on with interest. I tried to listen to the beat of his hooves. Were they even? Was he lame? I thought he was okay but I wasn’t sure.

  “Fine.” Dr. Cunningham said when I brought Bluebird back to him. “He’s fine. Give him a week or two off though and no jumping until those wounds have healed over. I’ll come back and check on him on Friday,” he said, entering the appointment into his phone.

  “Friday?” I said. “I won’t be here. I’m going to the Young Riders clinic. Can we do it when I get back?”

  “Of course, I heard about that,” he said. “Well done.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, looking at my feet. “But I don’t suppose there is any chance that Bluebird will be able to go? That he’ll be fit enough to be ridden by then?”

  “In a few days?” He shrugged. “I don’t think so. You’d be taking a chance that those cuts might open up again if they haven’t completely healed. Are you sure you want to take that risk?”

  “No she does not,” my father said. “All good here then?”

  “Yes, I was just going to get some ointment for those wounds,” Dr. Cunningham said.

  “Don’t bother.” Dad shook his head. “We have a whole shelf full.”

  “Very well, but be sure to keep his legs wrapped to keep the swelling down and hand grazing only.”

  “Alright,” I said.

  I put Bluebird back in his stall with a heavy heart. I hadn’t even had a chance to fight Dad on the issue again and now the decision had been made for me.

  “You see what you’ve done?” I asked Bluebird as I took his halter off.

  And then I remembered that Dad had agreed to let the vet look at Arion.

  “Wait,” I called out after him as he was walking out to his ridiculous bumble bee Hummer.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Dad stood there making faces while Dr. Cunningham examined Arion. I don’t know why. He was the one who agreed to it in the first place. But I knew that he still didn’t think there was anything wrong with him. Well, not anything worth getting the vet out over.

 
After all, Arion wasn’t exactly a top show horse and there was no guarantee that he would ever be one. It was nice to believe in a world where every horse was afforded the same level of treatment but I knew that simply wasn’t true. A Grand Prix horse got access to all the top advancements in veterinary technology that existed to help keep them sound and sane. No expense was spared for those who were top athletes. The rest of them? Well they definitely got adequate care and no one could say that any of our horses were neglected but who had the money to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a horse that wasn’t even worth that much? I knew that I would have spent all I had to treat Arion or Bluebird but the truth was that I didn’t have very much to begin with.

  “Well I’m not really sure,” Dr. Cunningham said after examining Arion.

  Dad made a sort of huffing noise as though of course the young vet couldn’t be sure because he didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “It could be nothing or it could be something but I’d have to do further testing to get a conclusive answer.”

  “What testing?” Dad said, frowning as he did so.

  “Blood work and maybe scope him. It could be ulcers. He’s a Thoroughbred, right? And you said he used to race? It’s not uncommon in racehorses. In fact I’d be surprised if he didn’t have them.”

  “Uh huh,” Dad said, rolling his eyes.

  Ulcers had become the latest catch all for any horse that didn’t seem quite right and the treatment was expensive with no guarantee that they would be cured for life. I tried to add up in my head how much more the ulcer medication would add to my monthly expenses. Between my two horses my budget was already stretched pretty thin. I didn’t think there was much more room in it for anything else.

  “We’ll let you know,” Dad said.

  Dr. Cunningham looked at me and shrugged. “All right. Just let me know if you change your mind. I can scope him when I come back to check on the pony.”