Bridle Path Read Online Free

but I didn’t balance the saddle right on the fence—”
    Stevie didn’t have to finish the story. Both Lisa and Carole remembered then that the saddle had tipped into the mud, dragging all the rest of the tack with it. They were surprised that Stevie hadn’t cleaned the tack right away. It might have been easier then. Butthat would have meant that they would have been late getting to Stevie’s house for their sleepover. Stevie’s motto seemed to be “Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow—especially if you can get two good friends to do it with/for you!”
    Carole picked up a brush and attacked the caked-on mud on the saddle. Stevie began working on the bridle. Lisa worked on the metal parts of the tack with another brush and then soap and water.
    “Guess what,” Carole said, working on a particularly stubborn mud glob with her thumbnail.
    “What?” Stevie asked.
    “The other reason Dorothy is coming is because she’s bringing a stallion for Max.”
    “Max doesn’t need a stallion,” said Lisa. “They’re difficult to ride. He’d never let one of us kids ride it, and the adult riders like tame horses, too. A stallion would be crazy for riding.”
    Stevie saw the other side of the story right away. “You’re kidding! How wonderful!”
    “
I’m
not going to ride him,” said Lisa. “No way!”
    “He’s not for riding,” Stevie told her.
    “What else, then?” She seemed genuinely confused.
    “Breeding,” explained Carole. “Max is really considering breeding on a regular basis. This horse has good bloodlines, and there are a lot of people whowould like to have their foals sired by a champion. That way, the foals are more likely to be champions themselves.”
    “You mean we’re going to have a lot of baby horses around here?” Lisa asked. Her eyes lit up.
    “Sometimes,” said Carole. “Breeding horses can really be a big business. If this stallion is good enough, Max can probably make a lot of money with him.”
    “Then why doesn’t Dorothy want to keep him?” asked Lisa.
    “Dorothy owns his full brother and uses him for breeding. She doesn’t need another horse with identical bloodlines,” Carole explained. “She was training this one, but he had an accident and isn’t suitable for showing now. He’s perfect for breeding, however.”
    “Another wedding!” Stevie mused.
    “Huh?” said Carole.
    “Well, it seems that everywhere I look these days, somebody’s getting married. First Dorothy and Nigel, then Skye on television, and now a mare will marry this stallion.”
    Carole took a deep breath and got ready to explain to Stevie that horses didn’t really
marry.
The sires, as father horses were called, took no part in raising the young, except for in the wild, where young horses were part of a herd of mares and foals that was led bythe sole stallion in the group. On a breeding farm, mares were separated from the stallions except when they were actually being bred, and the foals that were produced would likely never even see their sires. This was not like a traditional family of humans.
    “Oh, I know all that stuff,” Stevie said before Carole even began. “But it’s always seemed to me that there should be a little more romance to it. Of course, we don’t even know who this stallion would marry, do we?”
    “Sure, what good is a groom without a bride?” Lisa said. “How about Prancer?”
    “I don’t think so. Remember that foot?” Stevie said.
    Prancer was a Thoroughbred mare that Max and the stable’s vet, Judy Barker, owned together. She had been bred and trained as a racer, but a fracture in her foot had ended that. She was now being retrained as a stable and show horse. However, there was a history of weak feet in her family, and the fracture she’d suffered confirmed that. It wasn’t wise to use her for breeding, because it would mean that her foals would have a good chance of acquiring the same fault.
    “Okay, so if Prancer’s out, then