Champion Horse Read Online Free Page B

making your cheeks freeze. At the furthest arena, I dismounted, and Jane ran the clip of the lunge line through the inside ring of Blue’s bit and attached it to the outside one. She stepped into the middle, and Dad and I stood by the fence. Blue went around and around, first trotting, then cantering. I would have preferred a round pen, just because I liked him to turn and go the other way as many times as possible – my trainer, Jem Jarrow, said that just the turning loosened their backs. But the thing about a horse show is that you have to do it their way, not your way. That’s part of the test. Same with a rodeo.
    Blue must have gone around twenty times – it was like he didn’t know how to be tired. Dad said, ‘Must be more nervous than we thought.’
    I also thought he was nervous, but I said, ‘Why?’
    ‘A nervous horse, especially a nervous-type horse, doesn’t really know when he’s tired or when he’s had too much. He’s running on fizz. Maybe he’ll calm down.’
    Jane stopped him, turned him, and switched the lunge line, and then they started again, first trotting and then cantering. His canter was beautiful, as always, just his body opening and closing. But it was Jane who had to stop him – he didn’t think of it himself. Dad said, ‘Thoroughbred through and through,’ shaking his head as if that were a bad thing. He gave me a leg-up, and Blue and I followed Jane to the warm-up ring. Of the ten entries in our class, five had gone already. As soon as we got into the warm-up, I trotted around once, and then Jane pointed me down over the crossbar.
    Well, I was worse than either Melinda or Ellen. I didn’t know why. I could walk around, trot around, canter, and jump, and I could see the things I was doing wrong – leaning forward with my shoulders, letting my hands drop and my heels come up, not being in the centre of my horse – but it was like my brain was hardly working. Twice over the crossbar, and two bad jumps, one with me too far forward and one with me left behind. I felt like Blue was saying, ‘Who is this riding me?’ I brought him to a halt, sat up, and took some deep breaths. Then I pushed my heels down, settled my shoulders, and cantered down to the regular jump, not the crossbar. He went over it nicely.
    And they were calling my number from the show ring. As we left the warm-up, Jane put her hand on my boot. She said, ‘A green horse is a challenge, but you’ve done all of these things before, and he can do it. He needs some hand-holding. Every green horse does. But you’re good at hand-holding, and he trusts you. Just stay with him and make him go forward.’ I didn’t have time to ask him to step under, even once, before we were in the ring, making our circle. And even though the course was the same as Melinda’s course had been, and even though I had walked it and thought about it and walked my fingers over it, I did not know where I was going, or maybe even who I was.
    We finished the circle, and I asked Blue for the canter. He took the proper lead, but then when I steered him down towards the first fence, which was a small coop, you would have thought I was asking him to jump off a building. His ears went forward and I could feel his weight shift backward as he got ready to stop. However, I kicked him and he jumped awkwardly. But we had jumped coops dozens of times. Then came the next fence, just some plain white poles. He didn’t try to stop, but he took off in the next county somewhere, and our jump was broad and flat. Now we had a turn. I remembered not to lean into the turn, so I was sitting up straight for the next jump, which was a good thing, because it felt like he jumped the way a deer jumps, all four legs stiff and bounding off the ground. After jump four, I sort of gave up on the course and turned him in a circle. I sat up and took a deep breath, shook my shoulders, and kicked him. I even said out loud, ‘You gotta do it, Blue. And you can.’ I sat deep in