Pleasure Horse (3 page)

“Oh, sure,” Angie said offhandedly. “We’ll never get rid of those two.”

Stevie was about to ask where Angie wanted to ride first when her cousin gave a little cry of excitement. “I almost forgot! You know what else?” Angie asked.

Stevie shook her head.

Angie beamed. “There’s going to be a really cool band from my school. It’s a bunch of guys I know. They played at one of my friends’ sweet sixteen parties, and they were amazing.”

Overhearing, Chad turned to the girls. “Yeah? What kind of music do they play?”

“Everything!” Angie replied. She and Chad began to compare notes on the music and bands they liked. Only half listening, Stevie found her mind straying from the conversation.

“So, isn’t that going to be great?” Angie said finally.

It took Stevie a minute to realize that her cousin was addressing her. “Yeah, it sounds fun,” she answered, hoping that she sounded more enthusiastic than she felt. Somehow Stevie wasn’t all that impressed by the party details. But Angie seemed so excited that the only thing Stevie could do was to try to act excited, too.

It was strange, though. In the past, the girls had spent hours riding and fussing over Sparkles, Bones, and Birdie. Now Angie seemed too preoccupied with the party even to talk about the horses.

Stevie decided to have another try. A couple of years ago, the thing Angie had wanted most of all was to compete successfully on the “A” circuit, the highest level of horse showing. Her parents had bought Sparkles, an experienced show horse, to help her accomplish that goal. Stevie vividly remembered Angie vowing to be one of the top junior jumper riders on the east coast by the time she was sixteen. And that was only two days away. “Angie,” Stevie began tentatively, “how did you and Sparkles do last season on the show circuit?”

Angie looked surprised by the question. “I haven’t been showing him all that much,” she replied.

“Really?” Stevie repeated. “But I thought you were planning to—”

Angie interrupted with a loud laugh. “Planning to go
all the way to the American Horse Show, right? I remember. Boy, that seems like a long time ago.” With that, Angie once again abruptly changed the subject back to her party. She started to tell Stevie about her choice of dresses: green velvet or black silk.

When the two families reached the van, they all piled in, and Uncle Chester headed for the bridge to New Jersey. Squeezed between Angie and her mother, Stevie resigned herself to listening to more party clothing details. Every few minutes she murmured “Really?” or “Wow” to be polite, although it was hard to feign interest about which shoes would match which dress.

Stevie was surprised that Angie wasn’t showing. Sparkles was such a good jumper that he belonged in the show ring. Using him as a pleasure horse was a waste of his talent. Stevie decided to ask Angie about it when they went riding. For now, she could hardly get a word in edgewise.

When they got to the house, Angie showed Stevie to the room she would be staying in. It was a guest room on the second floor, right next to Angie’s. “Oh, good—this means I can sneak into your room so we can talk till all hours,” Stevie said.

Angie nodded, but she didn’t seem thrilled by the prospect. “We can’t stay up too late, Stevie. I don’t want to look all tired for the party, you know.”

If her cousin’s face had not been so serious, Stevie would have burst out laughing. That was a new one: Angie Lake needing her beauty rest.

“This is really a big-deal party, huh?” Stevie asked.

Angie’s face lit up. “It really is. Mom and I have been planning for months.”

Stevie dropped her bag, kicked off her shoes, and sprawled on one of the beds. Angie perched carefully on the other one, smoothing her skirt down over her legs. “How’s school, Stevie?” Angie inquired.

“Boring, dull, boring, and dull,” Stevie replied cheerfully. “How about for you?” One thing she and Angie had always agreed on was that school took way too much time away from riding.

“It’s great,” Angie said. “All my friends and I have so much fun, you wouldn’t believe it.” With that, the older girl stood up and walked over to check her hair in the bedroom mirror.

Stevie sighed.
No, I probably wouldn’t
, she thought.

“M
EET YOU IN
the tack room?” Lisa asked.

Carole nodded. “Right. I want to oil those bridles we cleaned yesterday,” she said. The two girls had just finished another frustrating training session with Samson. But even though she was dejected, Carole was determined to maintain a positive attitude. One way to do that was to help out at Pine Hollow the way she always did. Right now she felt like crawling home and collapsing on her bed. Instead, she would oil some tack and try to work herself out of her funk.

Samson was cross tied in the main aisle, and Carole
gave him a pat on the neck before leading him back to his stall. By patting him and praising him, Carole made sure that she wasn’t holding a grudge against Samson just because things weren’t going well. “I know it’s not your fault, Samson,” Carole murmured, inside the stall. “But can’t you just tell me why you don’t like stirrups? They’re not that bad, you know. Just a couple of pieces of iron. If you don’t get used to them, how are you going to become a nice pleasure horse like your mother?”

Samson arched his neck prettily and blew through his nostrils. “All the good looks in the world aren’t going to get you anywhere if nobody can ride you,” Carole informed him. Reluctantly, she gave the colt a final pat and closed and bolted his stall door.

“I’d say today went a little better,” Lisa said as Carole joined her in the tack room.

“You really think so?” Carole asked anxiously.

“Yes. He seemed more under control.”

Carole smiled. “Spoken like a true friend, Lisa.”

“No, I mean it. He was wilder yesterday.”

Carole sat down beside Lisa and picked up a pair of reins to oil. In one sense, Lisa was right. Samson had been calmer today. But Carole thought that that was just a fluke. Maybe he had run around more in the pasture and had less energy. The fact was the colt wasn’t
responding to their training. Every time they put the saddle on him, he acted as if the whole thing was a big game. A couple of times he had practically run right over whoever was leading him.

“What do you think our next step should be?” Carole asked.

“I was thinking about that. Obviously we can’t go on the way we have been … unless we want him to learn some very bad habits.” Lisa paused to see how Carole would react to what she was saying.

“I agree,” Carole said, her face serious.

“Okay, then,” Lisa continued, “we have to do what we always do when something isn’t working: change tactics. I thought maybe we could put one stirrup on the saddle, and someone could walk alongside him holding the stirrup in place so it wouldn’t bang against his side. Then slowly we could stop holding it and see what he does.”

“Okay, and then next week when Stevie’s back, we could try both stirrups,” Carole said.

As they worked oil into sets of reins, nosebands, and cheek straps, the girls brainstormed on other ways to get past Samson’s problem with the stirrups. Both of them were optimistic that something would work soon. “But even if it takes a while, it doesn’t matter. We have as
much time as we need. We could even put the stirrups aside for a few weeks and see if Samson forgets about not liking them,” Lisa pointed out.

Carole nodded. “I keep forgetting that, but you’re right. We don’t need to rush him at all.”

The tack room door swung open and Max stepped inside. “I thought I heard voices, and I’m glad to see that the voices belong to tack cleaners,” Max said approvingly. “But wait … where’s the third musketeer?”

Like everyone else at Pine Hollow, Max was so accustomed to seeing The Saddle Club together that he always noticed when one of the girls was missing.

“She’s visiting relatives in New Jersey,” Carole explained.

“I see. So the two of you are doing the work of three, hmm?” Max inquired.

“Naturally,” said Lisa, without missing a beat. “We both rode, we took Belle out for a walk, we worked with Samson, and now we’re oiling one and a half times our normal number of bridles.”

Max grinned. “Just what I wanted to hear. I’m taking a few of the adult students to a dressage show this weekend, and I’m not sure they understand the meaning of the word ‘preparation.’ I haven’t seen any of them cleaning tack yet.”

The girls laughed. They were glad to help Max out in a pinch.

“Oh, and I’m glad you mentioned Samson,” Max continued. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that I’ve decided to send him to Mr. Grover’s to finish his training. Since I don’t have the time to train him myself, I think he’ll do nicely there.”

Carole and Lisa both stopped polishing in midstroke. They looked at each other as if to make sure they had heard right. Unaware of the bombshell he had just dropped, Max began checking over the tack he needed for the weekend, whistling as he worked.

Carole cleared her throat nervously. “So, is this decision definite?” she asked.

“Why, yes, it is,” Max replied. He gave Carole and Lisa a sharp look. “Why the long faces? Scott Grover’s an excellent trainer—one of the best.”

“I know, but—” Carole began, but stopped herself. She knew better than to argue with Max, but she was shocked that he would take the colt from his home and from the people who knew and loved him and put him in an unfamiliar barn to be trained by a total stranger.

“So it doesn’t matter that Mr. Grover doesn’t know Samson?” Lisa asked. Carole was glad to find that Lisa’s thoughts mirrored her own.

“Not really, no. That’s what it means to be a professional: You can train any horse. Of course, in an ideal world, the trainer would know the horse from the very beginning—say, from birth even, but it’s not necessary.”

Lisa and Carole exchanged glances again. They
had
known Samson from birth. Didn’t that count for anything?

“We sure have watched Samson grow up,” Carole said pointedly, hoping Max would get the hint.

“Yeah, I’ll never forget the day he was born,” Lisa chimed in. “We were all there.”

“It was an exciting day. You girls were with him from the beginning,” Max agreed. He paused and his eyes rested on Lisa and Carole. “You know how much I appreciate all the work you’ve done with the colt, don’t you?”

“Ye-es,” Carole said tentatively. She wasn’t sure what Max was getting at. If he appreciated it so much, why wasn’t he going to let them continue? Did he know about the problems they’d been having lately?

“Good,” Max said briskly. “Because you’ve been a great help—all three of you.”

Finally Carole couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. “But then—”

“Look,” Max cut her off. “I think I know what’s coming,
but you have to understand that there comes a time when a horse needs to be professionally trained. Samson has reached the point where he needs the hand of an expert guiding him. Think about it: That stirrup problem isn’t just going to go away on its own. Okay?” With that, Max turned on his heel and left the room.

Carole stared after him in shock. So Max had known! But then why hadn’t he said something instead of springing this on them?

“He obviously doesn’t think we’re up to the job,” Carole said grimly, when Max was safely out of earshot. “So he’s decided to take Samson away.”

“Gosh, I guess you’re right,” Lisa conceded. It seemed odd that Max had reacted so fast to their difficulties without informing them of his plan.

“So much for forgetting about the stirrups for a few weeks. We’ve got to straighten things out this weekend or else,” Carole said.

“You mean you think if we get Samson to tolerate the stirrups Max will let him stay?” Lisa asked.

“Definitely. I’m sure that’s why he suddenly decided to send him to a trainer—he thinks we can’t solve this problem.” Carole stood to hang up the bridle she’d been oiling. “Luckily, Max is going to be at that dressage show, so we’ll have plenty of time.”

Lisa nodded thoughtfully. “I guess it can’t hurt.”

“Can’t hurt? It’s our only chance to keep Samson here,” Carole replied.

“Okay, then,” Lisa said after a minute, “count me in.”

“L
ILA
,
YOU
’
VE OUTDONE
yourself,” Stevie’s father remarked, putting his fork down. The two families had just finished a huge steak dinner. “If the caterer on Sunday is half as good, there won’t be a bite left.”

“I hope you still have room for dessert—it’s éclairs,” Stevie’s aunt replied.

Stevie licked her lips in anticipation. “I for one can definitely squeeze in a few bites of an éclair,” she said, grinning.

“Not me, Mom. No matter what dress I wear Sunday, I have to be able to fit into it,” Angie said. “And besides, I’m saving myself for the chocolate mousse and the hazelnut torte we’re having then.”

Suddenly Stevie didn’t feel quite so hungry. If Angie was turning into one of those thin girls who always acted like she had to go on a diet, Stevie didn’t want to hear about it.

“Two desserts, huh?” Alex asked, sounding impressed.

“Three if you count the birthday cake,” Angie replied.