CHAPTER 7

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When we arrived at the show grounds, Squib was so excited to be somewhere new that he literally launched himself off the truck ramp, tearing the rope from my hands. Fortunately when he landed he was so overcome that he stopped to look around, and Katy quickly grabbed him, laughing cheerfully at his antics. I hurried down the ramp behind him, nursing my rope-burned hand, and tied him to the side of the truck, where he spun around and whinnied loudly.

To make matters worse, we’d parked only a few vehicles down the row from Donna, who was standing behind her float with her hands on her hips, looking at Squib with a disparaging expression. She took two steps towards me, and I hurried back up the ramp to help Katy unload the rest of the ponies. By the time I was leading Fossick down the ramp, Donna had disappeared again, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Deb was amazing. Whenever I’d been to a show before, I’d had to try and organise myself, and I never really knew what I was doing. As a result, I’d been eliminated before I’d even started more than once, and was usually either stupidly early or really late for my classes. But Deb had a whiteboard on the wall of the truck that she wrote the names of all the ponies on, with their class numbers and approximate start times. She’d gone over to the office first thing to put my late entry in, and when I was once again dressed in Katy’s borrowed riding clothes, and she led Squib up to me with his mane and tail as white as snow, his hooves painted black and his socks so blindingly clean that I could hardly stand to look at them, I almost couldn’t believe that this was my pony. With his borrowed martingale, jumping boots and saddle blanket, which Deb had shoved at me and insisted I used, the only thing letting the side down was the Wintec saddle, but once I was sitting in it, nobody would even notice that.

“He looks amazing,” I gasped as Deb gave me a leg-up into the saddle.

“He’ll look even better when he gets some proper muscle,” Katy told me as she tightened Fossick’s girth. “Once we get rid of that ugly muscle on the underside of his neck and get some real power over his hindquarters, he’ll be a completely different shape. And then you’ll really have a show jumping powerhouse.”

“I’m not sure I need any more power than I already have,” I replied as we rode towards the ring, side by side. “It’s hard enough keeping up with him as it is.”

“That’s just because he’s green, mostly. And he gets so overexcited about jumping. Once he gets more used to it, he’ll settle down and become more rideable. Besides, what a problem to have – your pony’s too talented. Poor you!”

Deb held the ponies while we walked the course for the first class. Katy had scoffed and insisted she didn’t need to walk such a baby course, but Deb had told her to go with me, so she’d reluctantly complied.

“That’s the first jump there,” I said, pointing towards the yellow and white oxer with the jump number 1 next to it. “Then the blue and white.”

I started strolling towards the second jump, but Katy pulled me up.

“Where are you going?”

“To the second jump.”

“You haven’t walked the first one.”

I looked at her, confused. “I know where it is – right there.”

A slow smile crept over Katy’s face. “Yeah, but you have to actually walk to it. Haven’t you done a course walk before?”

“Um…”

“Okay. First we find the start flags. Which are about three strides away from the first fence, so that’s easy.” Katy walked towards the yellow oxer, and I hurried to catch up. She strode purposefully towards the jump, walking right up to the middle of the pole and then turning her head towards the second fence.

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