Comet and the Champion's Cup (12 page)

“Come on,” Stella said, breaking into a run beside Issie. “Let's get back to the truck. I can saddle Comet while you get changed. It's OK, we'll make it in time.”

“Isadora! Where have you been? You're due at the practice arena now!” Avery was far from pleased as Stella and Issie came running towards the horse truck. “Sorry, Tom,” Issie said. “I lost track of the time.” “It was my fault really,” Stella added. “Issie came to find me and I made her late.”

Avery looked at them both and shook his head. “I have no idea what the pair of you have been up to, but lucky for you I've already saddled Comet up.” He tossed Issie her helmet. “Put this on and grab your boots. Let's go.”

As Avery gave her a leg-up on to Comet's back, he offered Issie some last-minute advice. “This is a qualifying competition. There's no clock to beat; all you have to worry about is jumping cleanly. Get a clear round and you'll be guaranteed a place in the Horse of the Year.”

Avery tightened Issie's girth by a hole and checked her stirrup length. “Now, you've walked the course twice already this morning. Do you know which route you're taking?” Issie nodded.

“OK, then give him a brisk trot around to warm him up, and pop him over the practice rails a couple of times before you go into the arena.” He gave Comet's gear a final check, “You're all set. Any questions?”

Issie shook her head. Any questions she had about whether she was ready for this, about whether Comet was truly ready, would be answered in just a moment when they rode into the ring.

As Issie warmed her horse up around the practice ring, she took the same approach with Comet that she had done right from the start. The skewbald was so headstrong that he liked to do things his own way.
Well, fine
, Issie thought,
let him run the show. Let Comet set his own pace and find his own stride between
the fences. Interfere with him as little as possible and never, ever fight him. Just stay one step ahead of him, anticipate, be ready to react
.

As Comet danced about in front of the practice jump, it was as if he expected Issie to take a firm hold on his reins and pull him back. But she didn't. Instead, she gave the pony his head and stayed perfectly calm. She focused her energy on keeping him steady and straight, letting the pony relax as he approached the jump, as if the cross-rails weren't even there and she didn't care. Once Comet had taken the practice jump and understood that Issie wasn't going to try and control him or yank on his mouth, he calmed down too. Now Issie gathered Comet up, holding him just a little with the reins so that he rounded his neck and brought his hocks under him. She looked over at Avery, who was standing on the sideline with Stella. Avery nodded back to her as if to say, “That's it, you've got him ready to go.”

Issie nodded back and, at the sound of her name being called, she entered the arena. There weren't many people here at the qualifying rounds today, but even a very small audience was good enough for Comet. As he came through the flags and took the first jump he gave a dramatic tail flick. Over the first fence he kicked his hind
legs out with a baroque flourish, putting much more air between him and the jump than he actually needed to. Then he approached the second fence and took that with the same outlandish jumping style.

“He jumps like a circus pony,” Stella giggled.

“Yes,” agreed Avery, “but look how cleanly he always takes a fence. The way he kicks his hind feet up like that so that they never so much as scrape a rail. I've spent years training my showjumpers to take fences so cleanly. Comet does it naturally.”

Out in the arena, Issie felt her adrenalin surge as Comet cleared fence after fence with ease. Issie tried to stay calm, to keep a firm but light hold on the reins, controlling her pony simply by sitting up in the saddle if she wanted him to slow down, letting Comet control the pace. As they rounded the corner to set up the final combination in the course, a double with a bounce stride in the middle of it, Issie felt that Comet was cantering a little too fast, and for the first time on the course, she checked him with a sharp signal on the reins. She knew it was risky. Comet might overreact, fight her pressure and go even faster. But the skewbald didn't argue with her at all. He slowed his stride just as she had requested, and then took off perfectly over the first fence, bouncing
in and popping back out over the second with that trademark flourish of his hind legs. Issie felt a thrill tingle through her. Not because they had just got a clear round and made it through to the Horse of the Year Show. Something much more important had just happened in the arena; Issie and Comet had experienced that breakthrough moment. When she asked Comet to slow down and he took her cues without a fight, both horse and rider knew that they were truly working together. It was a partnership. And if they could maintain that partnership, they would be unbeatable.

Issie pressed her ear up against the receiver and listened to the ring tone. She could hear the phone ringing once, twice, three times…Please, please pick up! She was just about to hang up again when finally the receiver clicked and there was a familiar voice at the other end of the line.

“Hello? This is Amanda Brown speaking.”

“Mum?” Issie croaked. “It's me.”

“Issie?” Her mother sounded concerned. “It's nearly eleven o'clock at night. Are you OK?”

“I'm fine, Mum. Are Blaze and Storm OK?”

“They're fine, Issie. I checked them this afternoon. Is that why you called?”

“No…”

“Issie, is there something wrong?”

“I'm fine, it's just…ummm…Mum? Can I borrow $500?”

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment and then Mrs Brown's gentle voice. “OK, Issie, why don't you start at the beginning and tell me just what's going on.”

Half an hour later Issie had told her mother everything. She told her all about the farm being in trouble and Comet, and how she'd been training him to win the pony Grand Prix and had already made it through the qualifying rounds.

“…And the prize money is $15,000! It's almost enough to save the farm!” Issie said. There was silence at the other end of the phone. “So…umm what do you think?”

“I think that $500 is a lot of money,” Mrs Brown replied matter-of-factly.

“I know it is, Mum, but I really think Comet can do this,” said Issie. “I'll pay you back. I have some savings from when I did
The Palomino Princess
and I was going to use that money to buy Blaze a new winter rug, but you can have that and…”

“All right,” Mrs Brown said quietly.

“What?” Issie was stunned.

“I said all right. Yes, I'll lend you the $500.” There was silence on the phone line. “Issie? Are you still there?”

“Uh-huh. I just can't believe you said yes.”

“Neither can I,” Mrs Brown said. “Now I'm going to give you my credit card number to put on the entry form and if I were you I'd shut up and write it down before I change my mind about the whole thing.”

After she hung up the phone, Issie went upstairs to her bedroom. She propped up the envelope containing her entry on the mantelpiece underneath the portrait of Avignon. Then she lay down on her four-poster bed and stared up at the ceiling. She was in a state of shock. Was she really going to do this? She was entered in the biggest competition of her whole life on a horse that was green as grass and she had just asked her mum to give her $500 to do it!

It wasn't that Issie was having second thoughts, or an attack of nerves. No. What she was feeling now was pure adrenalin and excitement at the thought of taking Comet into the show ring and proving to everyone what an amazing horse he really was. She knew the heart and the courage that Comet had; there was no doubt in her mind that he could do it. It was up to Issie now. If she could ride her best, if she did
everything right and didn't make any mistakes then they could totally ace this.

With only a week to go until the competition, she needed to get really serious about training. The Horse of the Year was next Sunday and this week was going to be the most testing time of her life.

“Issie! Issie! George keeps poking his tongue out at me! Make him stop!”

Issie sighed. She had been expecting this week to be gruelling, but she hadn't figured on this! Not only did she have a heavy training schedule, but she still had her riding-school duties to contend with as well. That included keeping George in line when he tried to tease his sister.

“I wasn't doing anything!” George objected when Issie told him to stop pestering Kitty.

“George, please circle Glennie through the arena so that you are at the rear of the ride,” Issie instructed. “If you two can't behave when you're riding next to each other then it's better if you stay at the back. Kitty? Can you get Timmy trotting a bit more rhythmically please?

He's moving like a slug at the moment. Put your leg on and get him striding out. One-two, one-two! Excellent! Much better!”

For the past week, Issie, Stella and Kate had been leading a double life, training the young riders during the day, grooming and cleaning the stables and feeding the kids their dinner before saddling up their own horses and riding their evening training sessions with Avery.

“I feel ready to drop,” Stella complained as the girls lay on Issie's bed that evening. “Those kids are a total nightmare. George is out of control and Kelly-Anne has such a bad attitude.”

“Well,” Issie said, forcing herself to stand up again, “forget about them for now. It's time to get down to the stables and get ready for team training.”

Stella groaned and didn't move. “I don't know why I'm even bothering with training. I'm not even riding in the stupid Horse of the Year.” Coco and Stella had managed two very good rounds at the qualifying competition–unfortunately, neither of them were good enough.

“I only got twelve faults,” Stella whined. “Can you believe that wasn't enough to qualify?”

“How do you think I feel?” Kate said. Toby, Kate's
rangy bay Thoroughbred, was a well-schooled jumper, but when they got to the showgrounds on the day he had trotted up lame. Avery thought it was probably just a stone bruise. There was a farrier working at the showgrounds who had come straightaway and replaced the shoe, but Kate hadn't been convinced that Toby was one hundred per cent so she decided not to compete.

“He doesn't seem to be lame now though, that's the main thing,” Kate said, trying hard to be cheerful about it. “Hopefully he's totally sound again and we can do the training for the rest of the week.”

As Avery had promised, the fences had got bigger this week. The riders had been doing substantial showjumping courses, working on getting their striding correct between jumps and learning how to hold their horses back between fences.

The showjumping course had grown too. Avery had packed his horse truck with his own equipment from Winterflood Farm. One of the new jumps that he had built was a wall constructed out of red painted “bricks” that were made from lightweight wood. Avery had even added the finishing touches by putting a tall conifer plant at either corner of the wall.

On Thursday night Avery lined up the riders in front
of the brick wall and they watched as he added in an extra row of bricks to make it higher.

“Now, I know none of you are actually entered in the Puissance this weekend,” Avery said, “but we're going to practise it anyway. It's a good way to find out what your horse's limits are, just how high they can really jump.”

“So how does it work?” asked Stella. “We just take turns jumping the wall until someone has a refusal or knocks down a brick and then they're out?”

“That's pretty much it,” Avery said. “There are actually two fences in the Puissance. You have to jump a basic painted rail fence before you turn to take the wall. The painted rail will stay at the same height for the whole of the competition. Only the wall gets bigger each time. And actually, you are allowed a refusal. You'll only be eliminated if your horse refuses three times, or if you knock a brick or choose to withdraw because the jump gets too high.”

Avery looked back at the wall. “I've set it at a metre ten to begin with. There's a maximum of five rounds in a Puissance, so tonight we'll be raising the height by ten centimetres each time. We should finish at a metre fifty–if anyone makes it that far. OK,” he said, “who wants to go first?”

“I will!” Aidan and Dan both answered at once. The boys glared at each other.

“Aidan, you can go first,” Avery decided before they could start squabbling. “The rest of you, start warming your horses up.”

The first round, unsurprisingly, saw all six riders go clear. “Too easy!” Ben called out as he cantered back to Avery after clearing the wall without any trouble on Max. He was eating his words a few minutes later when Max knocked a brick out in the second round.

In round three, Kate withdrew on Toby, who seemed to be having a problem again with the same leg that had gone lame the other day. “He's probably fine and I'm just being a fusspot,” Kate said to Avery, “but I don't want to jump him too high if he is a bit sore.”

That left Stella, Issie, Aidan and Dan still in the competition. The wall had been raised to a metre forty for the fourth round. On the sidelines the Blackthorn Riders were all cheering and shouting.

“Boys against girls! Boys win!” called a voice from the arena railing. Issie turned around to see Arthur's cheeky face staring up at her.

“Don't count on it, Arthur!” she shouted back.

There was whooping from the girls on the sidelines as
Stella turned to face the wall at one metre forty–and then cries of dismay as Coco refused and Stella flew forward on to the mare's neck and had to struggle to stay on. She turned her pony away from the wall and trotted her back over to Avery. “I think that's Coco's limit,” she said. “That's way the highest we've ever jumped in our whole lives!”