In the first week of the holidays, Katy and I were sitting in her living room and making fun of a dumb horse movie when Deb came into the room looking troubled.
“Hon, turn that off for a sec. I need to talk to you.”
Katy rolled her eyes but pressed pause as Deb tapped the cordless phone against her palm.
“Your grandmother’s had a fall, and she’s in hospital.”
Katy paled. “Oh no. Is she okay?”
“She’ll be fine, but she’s broken her ankle and I’ll need to go and look after her for a bit.”
I watched Katy’s face register the news. “How long for?”
“A week. Maybe two.”
Katy’s eyes went wide. “But what about Pukahu? It’s next weekend, and it’s the first Grand Prix of the season!”
Deb frowned. “I know, but I can’t help that. You’ll just have to skip it this year. I’ll be home in time for Feilding at the end of the month.”
“But…” Katy looked distraught, then her face lit up again. “What if I get a ride with the Fitzherberts? They’ll be going for sure, and they might let me squash Lucas and Moll onto the truck. Or they could drive our truck, Bradley has his HT license now. Please Mum!”
But Deb was shaking her head. “I’m not letting that boy drive our truck. No, Katy. It’s one show, it’s not the end of the world.”
Her voice was resolute, and even Katy knew when she was beaten. She slumped back against the couch cushions and scowled at her mother.
“You could come to Wanganui with me,” Deb offered, then smiled at the horrified look on Katy’s face. “Or you can stay here and mind the ponies, but you’re not staying on your own.”
Katy grabbed my arm, squeezing it tight. “AJ will stay with me! She’s very responsible.”
“I was thinking more like asking Yvette to come and stay. Make sure you eat proper meals, and…”
“Oh my God, Mum,” Katy interrupted. “We’re not ten years old, we know how to feed ourselves. And the ponies, which is what you’re really worried about. Don’t stress. I’ll forgive you for not taking me to Pukahu if you let AJ stay here.”
“Well, if it’s okay with her parents,” Deb said, and Katy let out a sigh of relief. “And if she wants to, of course,” she added as an afterthought.
They both looked at me, and I nodded. “I’d love to, and I’m sure it’ll be fine. My parents are expecting me to be here most of the holidays anyway. They’ll be thrilled, honest.”
True to form, neither of my parents minded in the slightest. I think they were glad to have me out of the way for the week, and after a quick trip home to pack the things I’d need, they dropped me at the Pony Club paddock to tack up Squib and ride him over to Katy’s.
“We’re going on holiday!” I told my pony cheerfully as I tightened his girth.
I was about to mount up when I heard hoofbeats coming along the track, and Squib spun around to see who it was, almost flattening me against the fence.
“Oy!” I prodded him in the side with my knuckles, and he moved away from me, reluctantly at first, then more smoothly as I insisted. Maybe all that rope twirling really does have its uses, I thought to myself as I stepped around my pony to see Carrie trotting towards me on the placid Oscar, bouncing loosely in the saddle with a wide grin.
“Hi AJ!”
“Hi Oscar. How’s Carrie today? Behaving herself?” I asked, and Carrie laughed.
“He says yes, and he wants you to give him a carrot.”
“I’m all out of carrots today, sorry mate,” I apologised to the fluffy pony, giving his forehead a quick scratch as Squib strained at his halter, trying to get close enough to say hi to his pony friend. “Maybe Carrie will give you a big bucket of feed instead.”
“Not a big bucket, he might get colic,” Carrie told me seriously, her short legs swinging cheerfully back and forth as Oscar closed his eyes, dozing off.
Sandra was walking down the track towards us, one hand clasping Rebel’s rein behind the bit as the pony tossed his head, wanting to catch up with Oscar. Alyssa was making pathetic whimpering noises and clutching the front of the saddle with one hand, and I quickly turned away and pulled down Squib’s offside stirrup.
“Are you going for a ride?” Carrie asked, flopping forward onto Oscar’s short neck and burying her hands in his mane. “We’ve just been to the river. Oscar couldn’t touch the bottom, he had to swim!”
“That sounds fun,” I said as I snapped up the chinstrap of my helmet. “I’m going to my friend’s place for the week.”
“For a whole week?” Carrie’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. “Are you going for a sleep over?”
“I sure am. And Squib’s sleeping over too,” I added for the benefit of Sandra, who had just come level with us and started snapping at Carrie for leaving her sister behind and upsetting Rebel.
“Mum, Squib’s going for a sleep over,” Carrie said, oblivious to the scolding. “For a whole week!”
Sandra looked at me through narrowed eyes. “Is that right? You do know you’ll have to pay grazing for the week, even if the pony isn’t actually on the property, don’t you?”
I nodded, checking Squib’s girth once more before swinging into his saddle. He surged forward, almost flattening Rebel, who jumped sideways onto Sandra’s foot. As she cried out and swore at the poor pony, I realised belatedly that Squib’s halter was still tied to the fence, but I decided that it was in my best interests to just leave it there. I closed my legs around Squib’s sides and he trotted eagerly up the track and off on our adventure.
“Finally! I thought you would never get here,” Katy cried when I trotted up the driveway twenty minutes later. “Chuck him out in the orchard when he’s untacked, he can hang out with Robin. I’d let him go in with the young ponies but Forbes will play silly buggers and I don’t want either of them getting kicked.”
I turned Squib out with Forbes, then helped Katy mix feeds and distribute them to the ponies. We leaned on the fence and watched Lucas eat, his pale yellow forelock luminescent as the sun set behind the hills, bathing everything in a pink-orange glow .
“He really is the best pony ever,” Katy sighed. “It’s going to break my heart to have to give him back when I age out of ponies. Good thing that’s not for a couple of years yet.”
“Why don’t you ask if you can keep him?” I suggested. “His owner might let you. You look after him really well.”
Katy shook her head. “No way. She’ll want him to go to someone else to compete, or she’ll have him at home. She loves him too. And it’s kind of better this way. If I owned him we’d have to sell him, because it’d be a total waste to have him sitting in the paddock and Mum would be screaming out for the money he’d go for, but then he might end up going to someone horrible and it would break my heart if he got ruined. At least Abby’s rich enough not to have to sell him, and she can always take him back from whoever’s riding him if he doesn’t go well.”
I thought about that for a moment. “That puts a lot of pressure on you to keep him going well.”
Katy groaned. “Don’t I know it.”
She straightened up and we headed back to the house, leaving Lucas to finish his dinner in peace.
“Is it the same with Molly?” I asked, and Katy shook her head, then shrugged.
“Kind of. I got her on lease when I was twelve because she wouldn’t jump very well for Steph, and they thought she’d never make Grand Prix. So she came to me to do Pony Club stuff on, because we couldn’t afford anything decent at the time and I was getting sick of riding half-broke ponies and having Mum sell them as soon as they started going well. But Molly and I clicked from the start, and we’ve had heaps of success together. It was because of how well she went for me that I got Lucas. So I’ve been really lucky, because we could never afford ponies as good as them. They’re both really well-bred with top jumping bloodlines.”
“Squib’s not,” I said as we walked past my pony’s paddock.
He was following Robin around and annoying him by nipping at the tail flap of his cover, but the patient bay pony was just plodding along a few steps ahead of him.
“What is he, Connemara?” Katy asked as we kicked our boots off at the front door.
“Half Connemara, half Welsh Cob.”
Katy laughed. “Man, no wonder he’s so naughty. Way too smart for his own good. I was thinking we should build some grids this week, one-strides and bounces and stuff, teach him how to collect for them, so that you’re all set for your next show and you won’t crash and burn. Sound good?”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Cool. Now, what should we make for dinner?”
The week without Deb flew by. We got up early every morning and went to bed late each night, spending our days riding and schooling and looking after the ponies. Katy showed me how to trim fetlocks and pull manes and clip out a bridle path, and I taught her how to make macaroni cheese and the merits of a bacon sandwich with mayonnaise.
One day the farrier came, and we spent the whole morning listening to him tell us dirty jokes and pretending that we understood all of them. One afternoon it poured with rain while we were out riding on the farm, and we got absolutely drenched, coming in shivering and looking like drowned rats. We rode over to visit her friends one afternoon, the people who owned Puppet, and jumped our ponies in their arena, which was heaps bigger than Katy’s and was full of brightly-painted, professional fences.
Squib was improving every day, and Katy and I took turns jumping him. He loved going up into the pines and jumping the cross country logs, and one morning we built an obstacle course in the arena that included the mounting block, a wheelbarrow, a row of tyres standing on their sides, and an old kayak with a hole in the bottom, balanced on two sawhorses. Squib jumped everything without hesitation, as did Lucas and Molly, but Katy’s other ponies weren’t quite so brave.
“Come on Fossick,” Katy urged the roan pony as she pointed her towards the kayak. “This is not an optional exercise. Participation is compulsory!”
Fossick approached the jump sideways, then grabbed the bit and flung herself into the air, clearing the kayak by miles. She bucked on landing, and Katy laughed as she pulled the pony’s head up.
“We should get this on video, for her Trade Me ad. She’s going on next week, once Mum gets home. Can you go up to the house and get the video camera?”
Ten minutes later, I filmed Fossick jumping around the entire course, although she had a couple of refusals and still jumped the kayak like a lunatic, no matter what Katy did to dissuade her.
“We’ll just edit out all the bad parts,” Katy told me cheerfully. “Nobody ever has to know that she doesn’t like jumping boats, or that she throws her head up in the canter transition, or bucks if you kick her. Look.”
She kicked her heels against Fossick’s round sides, and the pony pinned her ears and bucked angrily, making Katy laugh.
“She’s so funny.”
“They might notice those things when they come and ride her,” I pointed out, but Katy shrugged.
“We’ll just hope we get lucky and someone wants her sight unseen. It does happen sometimes. If not, oh well. They’ll soon learn.”
“It’s not very honest though, is it?” I asked later that evening as Katy composed a sale ad for Fossick.
She’d edited the footage I’d taken together seamlessly, and I had to admit that based on the video and the photos that she’d selected, Fossick looked like a bold, promising young jumping pony.
“What’s dishonest about that?” Katy demanded, turning her laptop screen towards me.
I scanned the text of the ad, trying to find something in there that wasn’t true. There wasn’t anything, really. Fossick was a clever, smart jumper with good technique, she was easy to handle and straight-forward to ride, and showed promise for show jumping or eventing. I searched the words for an outright lie, but there wasn’t one. And yet…
“It just doesn’t sound like Fossick.”
Katy raised her eyebrows. “What would you have written?”
I shrugged, and she opened a blank document and shoved the laptop towards me. “You write her ad then.”
“I don’t know her well enough,” I hedged, sensing that I’d offended my friend.
“Write one for Squib, then.” Katy got up and went to the pantry to get some biscuits. “I’m making Milo, do you want one?”
“Sure.” I looked at the blank screen for a moment, then started typing.
14.2hh Connemara x Welsh Cob gelding, 6 years old.
That was the easy part. I muddled through the rest, being as honest as I could. Katy came back and read over my shoulder as the hot drinks heated in the microwave, and when I was done she shook her head at me.
“That is the worst For Sale ad I’ve ever read in my life.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Look at all these negative words. Strong. Wilful. Needs experienced rider.”
“It’s true.”
“Yeah, but you don’t need to say it like that.”
“What would you put?”
Katy cracked her knuckles and sat down next to me, pulling the laptop back towards her and deleting everything I’d written after the first sentence.
Amazing Grand Prix prospect with talent to burn, she typed. Huge scopey jump, exceptionally brave and honest. Winning easily at 1.05m with very limited outings, will go all the way to the top with the right rider. Fantastic to work with, 100% sound, straight and clean legs.
She sat back in satisfaction as I stared at the ad. “That’s really what you’d write?”
“Yep. Then I’d put POA at the bottom and let them fight it out.”
“POA?”
“Price on application. Then they have no idea whether you want five or fifteen thousand, but when they ring up and ask about it, you just say that you’ve got heaps of interest in him and you’re actually thinking of maybe keeping him a bit longer because he’ll be worth heaps more in a few weeks with more mileage under his belt, and they start falling all over themselves to make you an offer, and the next thing you know you’ve got twenty-five grand in the bank for a pony that’s only ever been to a handful of shows in his life.”
I stared at her. “Wow. Is that really how it works?”
“Sometimes. Not always. Sometimes you get the ponies that you just can’t get rid of, like this ugly little chestnut thing I had last season which we basically gave away in the end because we were so sick of him. Or the ones that everyone wants but every time you get them ready to sell they injure themselves again, and every time you take them out it’s like Russian roulette whether or not you’ll have a sound pony at the end of the day. We had one like that. Managed to sell her eventually, after about six or seven stupid injuries that cost us loads in vet bills, and we let her go for a song because we just wanted rid of her while she was still sound. Of course she’s never been lame a day in her life with her new owners,” Katy lamented. “Typical.”
She got up to fetch our mugs of Milo as I scanned over the ad she’d written for Squib again.
“Do you really think Squib would sell for twenty five thousand dollars?”
Katy laughed. “Only if you were really lucky. Probably closer to eight in his current state, but give him a season and people will be lining up to pay you the big bucks for a pony like him. He could be a real money spinner for you,” she said cheerfully as she sat down on the couch and kicked her feet up onto the coffee table. “Now, what movie should we watch tonight?”