The Auditions (2 page)

At Little Brampton Stables that evening, Georgie checked Tyro over one more time, running her hands down his legs looking for any signs of heat that might indicate an injury. The black pony seemed sound enough, so she threw on his lightweight summer rug, and turned him out in the field with his hard feed.

Georgie watched as Tyro snuffled about eagerly consuming the contents of his feed bucket. He was a greedy pony and a quick eater, and always managed to hoover up every last crumb.

With the now empty feed bucket under her arm, Georgie headed back to the tack room to deal with Tyro’s saddle and bridle. They were caked in mud from the fall so she sat down on a pile of old horse rugs with a cake of saddle soap and a cloth and got to work on the stirrup leathers.

Georgie loved the tack room at Lucinda’s stables. It smelt of horse sweat and leather, and sometimes a little bit of dead mouse, but she didn’t mind that too much. She often sat in here and looked at the walls, covered with her trainer’s rosettes, ribbons and photographs.

As she began to wipe down Tyro’s bridle, Georgie’s eyes scanned the walls. There were photos of Lucinda, taken at school when she was a student at Blainford. Lucinda hadn’t changed much since those days and looked just the same, with her smiling eyes and her brown hair in a messy ponytail. The girl who featured in most of the photos with Lucinda also had long brown hair and a broad smile. She was Ginny Parker, Georgie’s mum and Lucinda Milwood’s best friend at Blainford. After they left school Ginny had gone on to become a famous international eventing rider and it was no secret that Georgie wanted to follow in her footsteps.

Georgie’s favourite picture on the wall was an action shot of her mother riding a bay mare named Boudicca. They were in full flight over a massive stone wall, the mare had her ears pricked forward and Ginny’s hazeleyes were focused intently on the next jump ahead.

Georgie missed her mum so much. She knew it probably wouldn’t have changed the outcome if she had been there today. But she wished more than anything that her mum were here to give her a hug, to tell her that what happened on the cross-country course wasn’t her fault and that everything would be OK.

Hot tears made their way down Georgie’s cheeks. She reached up and brushed them away angrily with the back of her hand. There was no point in being like this, Georgie told herself. No use sniffling and feeling sorry for herself and hoping for things that weren’t going to happen. She had lost at Great Brampton and nothing would change that. And it was no good wishing her mum was here. Because Ginny Parker was gone, and she wasn’t coming back.

G
eorgie’s fall at Great Brampton undoubtedly delighted Daisy King, who rose up from second place in the rankings and rode brilliantly to take first place. Strangely enough however, it wasn’t just Georgie’s rivals who were happy that she’d lost. Her friends were chuffed as well.

“I can’t help it. I think it’s brilliant news!” Lily said when Georgie told her about the water jump disaster at school the following day. “Honestly, Georgie. You’re my best friend and I can’t stand the idea of you leaving to go to some posh, horsey school in America.”

Georgie sighed. She should have known better than to expect sympathy from Lily.

“I mean,” Lily continued, “I don’t even understandwhy you want to go to boarding school anyway. It’s like wanting to go to prison!”

“Blainford’s not just a boarding school,” Georgie countered with exasperation. “It’s an elite training school with horses.” She didn’t know why she bothered. It was the same old argument they’d had a million times. Georgie couldn’t blame her best friend for being anti-Blainford. After all, if Georgie actually managed to get a place at the academy then it would mean moving away from Little Brampton and away from Lily. They had been best friends ever since they met at Little Brampton primary school at the age of four. Now they were thirteen and in their second year at Little Brampton High School.

“They feed you gruel at boarding school, you know,” Lily continued.

“What’s gruel?” Georgie asked.

“It’s like porridge only worse; tasteless and runny,” Lily told her. “I read a book about a boarding school where the children all got gruel and were whipped with a birch stick when they were naughty.”

Georgie groaned, “Maybe if you went to boardingschool two hundred years ago it was like that, Lily. I don’t think anyone gets beaten with a birch stick at Blainford.”

“I bet they still have the gruel though,” Lily was insistent.

“The worst bit about yesterday,” Georgie said, changing the subject, “was after I fell off. I was walking back to the horse truck with Tyro, all soaked and grubby and everyone on the sidelines was watching us, and then my dad says really loudly so that everyone can hear, ‘Never mind, Georgina, how about I buy you an ice cream on the way home to cheer you up!’“ Georgie rolled her eyes. “As if I was a four-year-old who’d lost a lollipop–not an eventing rider who’d just taken a fall on the cross-country course!”

Lily giggled. “Your dad just doesn’t get it, does he?”

Georgie shook her head. “He doesn’t understand me, full stop. He never has really.”

“He’s no worse than my dad,” Lily said. “He doesn’t have a clue about me either. At least your dad was willing to let you apply to Blainford, even though the school fees must cost a bomb.”

“It’s not like it was Dad’s idea. He hates the thought of me going there. Mum was the one who had my name down on the enrolment list from the day I was born.”

It had been a massive battle for Georgie to convince Dr Parker to let her apply for Blainford. Her dad didn’t understand why she wanted to go. “You already have a pony,” he told her. “Why can’t you stay here and save riding for after school and the weekends? The local high school is perfectly adequate.”

“No, it’s not,” Georgie had told him. “Not if I want to become a world-class rider. All the best riders in the world have been to Blainford. You get to take your horse with you and you can ride every day, plus there are specialist riding classes and they teach all sorts of horse subjects as well as the regular stuff like English and maths.”

“I think you’re being swayed by the fact that your mother went to school there,” Dr Parker said. “I’m sure if we look around we could find an equestrian school here in Gloucestershire that is just as good. I believe there are several excellent ones in the county. Why doesit have to be this Blainford–on the other side of the world in America?”

“Blainford is the best,” Georgie countered. “It’s not just because of Mum, honestly. It has amazing instructors.” Her dad didn’t seem to understand that half the appeal was the fact that it
was
a million miles away. Georgie loved their village but at the same time she was desperate to get away. Ever since her mother’s accident, she’d been so lonely here. Her dad tried hard, but he didn’t know anything about horses, or how it felt to be a thirteen-year-old girl with dreams of horsey super-stardom, stuck in boring old Little Brampton.

Georgie had nothing in common with her dad. Everyone said she was just like her mum, tall and willowy with a fair complexion and smattering of freckles. Her mum had brown hair, though, and Georgie’s was blonde. “If I were a pony,” Georgie liked to ask her mother, “what colour would I be?”

“Oh, a palomino, I should think,” Mrs Parker would reply, “with your beautiful flaxen mane. Not a boring brown mare like your mum.”

Georgie was ten years old when Ginny Parker tookthe fatal fall that ended her life. The accident happened on the cross-country course at the Blenheim three-star. Ginny Parker had been riding two horses that day. The famed chestnut gelding, The Interloper, generally considered her best horse, and the other her favourite mare, a stunning bay with a white heart-shaped marking on her forehead, whose name was Boudicca.

Mrs Parker always took her daughter to the big competitions. But on this particular weekend Little Brampton was having a gymkhana and so, instead of travelling with her mum, Georgie decided to stay and take Tyro on his first outing. It was a decision she would always regret. If she had known what was going to happen that day she would have been by her mother’s side. Instead, when Ginny Parker fell, Georgie was scooping up prizes on Tyro at the gymkhana, completely oblivious to the fact that her life was about to change forever.

No one really knew exactly what happened on the course at Blenheim Palace. Everyone said that Boudicca was going brilliantly, until she reached a fence known as the Blenheim coffin. Ginny Parker had urged themare over the log at the top of the steep bank, and Boudicca flew the jump with ease, but as she landed, the mare somehow lost her footing. Ginny tried to correct her, but it was too late. Instead of jumping the ditch at the bottom of the bank Boudicca somersaulted into it–with Georgie’s mum pinned underneath her.

Ginny Parker’s death rocked the whole village. Everybody in Little Brampton knew the Parkers. Not only because Ginny Parker was an internationally renowned rider, but also because Georgie’s dad was the local GP.

After the accident, Dr Parker insisted that Boudicca, who had survived the fall, should be sold along with Ginny’s other eventing horses. Even worse, he was adamant that Tyro had to go as well. Georgie, having already lost her mother, was about to lose her best friend in the world.

That was when Lucinda Milwood stepped in. Lucinda ran the local riding school just five minutes down the road from the Parkers’ cottage. When Georgie turned up there in tears over losing Tyro, Lucinda managed to convince a reluctant Dr Parker to allow herto keep the black gelding at the riding school instead of selling him.

Lucinda’s riding school soon became like a second home for Georgie. In exchange for Tyro’s board, she went there every morning before school to muck out the stables and groom the ponies to get them ready for the day’s lessons. Straight after school, she would change out of her uniform and into her jods to exercise the horses. Afternoons were often busy with riding-school lessons, but if there was time Lucinda would instruct Georgie on Tyro.

Georgie had ridden lots of other horses, but there was something special about Tyro. He was a handsome pony, with a solid, muscular conformation and stocky limbs that made him a jumping machine. His jet-black colouring was unusual for a Connemara, and he had an indefinable presence, a look-at-me quality, that made him stand out in the show ring. The partnership between them really clicked. In three short years Georgie had schooled him up through the grades so that he was one of the best eventing ponies in the district.

In preparation for the Blainford auditions Georgie and Tyro had trained every day. Sometimes, when her schedule had been tight, Georgie had even got up at 5am to ride before school so that she could get the black pony into top shape. But it turned out her efforts were all for nothing. When Tyro went down at the water jump he had taken Georgie’s hopes and dreams down with him. She had failed to ace the audition, in fact she had come at the very bottom of the field. Georgie truly believed her chance of a place at Blainford had gone. So she was shocked on Monday afternoon when, not long after she arrived home from school, Lucinda called her on the phone, breathlessly excited.

“I’m down at the stables,” Lucinda told her, “come straight away and meet me! And wear your jods!”

Lucinda had hung up before Georgie had the chance to ask what was going on. By the time Georgie arrived at the yard she found Lucinda working Tyro around the arena on the lunge rein. When she caught sight of Georgie she gave her a grin. “He’s totally sound!” Lucinda called out. “The accident didn’t hurt him at all–he’ll be ready to jump in time for the weekend.”

“Which is great, Lucinda, except we’re not entered in anything this weekend.” Georgie screwed up her face. “The auditions are over.”

“No,” Lucinda shook her head. “They’re not. There’s still one more semi-final audition left. Next weekend in Cirencester.”

“Another one-day event?” Georgie was stunned.

“No,” Lucinda said. “It’s showjumping.”

“But I’m not a showjumper!”

Lucinda wouldn’t be deterred. “For goodness sake, Georgie, don’t be wet! You know how to jump, don’t you? Tyro always goes clear in the showjumping phase at one-day events. OK, so he’s never jumped as high as a showjumper and he lacks some technique, but we have a week to train him. Isn’t it better than just giving up? At least this way you still stand a chance!”

“But I don’t want to be a showjumper! I’m an eventer.”

Lucinda rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t matter! All you have to do is make it through the showjumping audition to get yourself a place at the grand finals. Andonce the academy accepts you, you can revert back to being an eventing rider.”

Georgie’s heart was racing. “Is there enough time for me to enter?”

“Already done!” Lucinda said. “Your name is on the audition list. We’ll have to leave very early on Saturday to make the drive to Cirencester.” she paused, “.and there is one other tiny detail that might be a problem.”

Georgie groaned. “What is it?”

“I’ve just found out that the head of the Blainford selection panel will be there.” Lucinda hesitated. “Have you heard of Tara Kelly?”

“Tara Kelly!” Georgie couldn’t believe it. “I remember seeing her on TV when she won the Lexington Horse Trials. She’s an amazing rider.”

Lucinda nodded. “She’s also the head of admissions for Blainford and she’s got a reputation for being extremely hard-nosed. One year, she was supposed to take five riders from the UK but she decided only two were up to scratch so she cut the list and left the other three behind.”

“OK,” Georgie said, “so she’s tough. Then Tyro and

I will just have to impress her.”

Lucinda hesitated. “There’s more to it. The thing is, Tara will be watching you. She knows who you are, you see. Because she knew your mother.”

“She knew Mum?” Georgie perked up. “But that’s great! If she recognises my name it might help my chances of being selected.”

“I doubt it,” Lucinda said darkly. “Georgie, when I say that Tara knew Ginny that might not necessarily be a positive thing …”