Georgie stood up and wiped her hands on her jods. “Yeah,” she said, “tough luck, Kennedy. And after you went to all that trouble of sabotaging me.”
“Wow!” Kennedy put her manicured hands to her face in mock horror. “That really hurts, Georgie. You know, it’s such a shame the way things have turned out with us.”
“Yeah,” Georgie agreed. “You’re right Kennedy. Where did things go wrong? Do you think it was when you tried to split up me and James by writing fake letters or when you nearly killed me by barging into my horse on the cross-country course?”
“Oh, poor Georgie!” Kennedy sighed. “It’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it? You’re always looking for someone to blame for your failures. Playing for sympathy because you’ve got no breeding, no money, no talent and no mommy.”
Georgie was speechless. Even by Kirkwood standards it was vicious.
Kennedy looked Georgie right in the eye, her voice as cold as steel. “You’ve been a thorn in my side ever since you got to this school. I’ve watched my lame brother fall for your British act like he’s Prince William and you’re Kate Middleton. And I’ve watched Tara treat you like you’re something special. But the truth is you don’t deserve to be at Blainford. You think the past three terms have been tough, Parker? You’ve got no idea how miserable I can make your wormy little life.”
“Is that a threat?” Georgie asked in disbelief.
“Duh!” Kennedy pulled a face. “I’m a Kirkwood. We don’t make threats. We have staff to do that stuff for us.”
Smirking, Kennedy turned to leave and then swung back around. “By the way, my boyfriend asked me to remind you you’re on Fatigues this week. He hasn’t forgotten, and he’s got something special planned, just for you.”
Typical Kennedy, Georgie fumed as she led Belle out of her box, she waits until now to confront me so that she’ll throw me off my game right before Tara’s class.
She knew Kennedy well enough to recognise her transparent tactics, but that didn’t make it any easier to calm down. She was still bristling with latent fury as she rode towards her classmates who were already assembling on the cross-country course.
“What’s up with you?” Alice asked when saw the look on Georgie’s face.
“Kennedy is what’s up,” Georgie hissed. She could see the showjumperettes watching and she didn’t want to give Kennedy the satisfaction of knowing they were talking about her. “She’s a total witch!”
“And this is news how?” Alice muttered back. “Georgie, you know she only has it in for you because she thinks you’re a threat…”
The students suddenly fell silent as a young woman wearing dove grey jodhpurs and a crisp white blouse walked to the front leading a bay gelding. Her demeanour made it clear that she was in charge.
“Welcome back,” Tara Kelly said. “I know your horses are fresh from having two weeks’ holiday, and Alice has a new horse who has never done cross-country before, so we are going to spend the day doing confidence-building exercises.”
The eventing mistress mounted up on the handsome bright bay, which Georgie now recognised as Lagerfeld, Nicholas Laurent’s well-bred Selle Francais. Tara was keeping the horse in work while Nicholas was in plaster.
“Our basics today consist of three classic ‘bogey’ fences,” Tara said, “and the twist is, we’re going to be jumping them at a walk.”
Daisy looked at the ditch that Tara had nominated as their first fence. “She can’t be serious!”
Alex Chang raised a tentative hand.
“Yes, Alex?”
“I don’t get it,” Alex said. “We’re never going to walk over jumps in a real-life cross-country, are we?”
“No,” Tara agreed. “But there are many things that we do when we are schooling that we wouldn’t do in actual competition. Can anyone tell me what the benefits are of schooling over jumps at a walk?”
“It’s slower?” Emily said.
The others sniggered but Tara confirmed that she was right, “Exactly! The slower the pace that you come at a fence, the more time you have to think and react. Any other reasons?”
No one else raised a hand. “Keeping our horses in a walk allows them to stay cool and calm,” Tara said. “It gives them a chance to negotiate the fence. Remember, it’s the horse’s job to get over it, not yours! They must learn to be clever jumpers.”
Tara walked Lagerfeld over towards the first jump, a narrow ditch.
“It’s not a big ditch,” Tara said. She adjusted her reins to prepare the gelding. “I’m going to let Lagerfeld take a good look as he approaches it.”
Lagerfeld walked forward until he was just a couple of metres in front of the fence. Then the big bay suddenly realised that there was a channel in the ground ahead of him and with a stricken snort he tried to back off. Tara kept calm her legs firmly on at his sides. Lagerfeld lowered his head so that he could get a really good look, with his nose almost down in the ditch and then with a grunt he took one more step and then vaulted it with an ungainly deer leap. Tara stayed with him in the saddle and pulled him up neatly on the other side of the ditch.
“Good boy!” Tara said giving the big bay a slappy pat on his glossy neck.
“As you can see, the key is to let them look but keep them moving forward. Right! Mr Fraser, I think we’ll have you over it next. No jogging, no trotting and absolutely no cantering. And on no account do we ever turn them away or let them refuse!”
One by one, the riders took their turns walking over the ditch. When the time came for Caspian’s turn he seemed quite spooked by the jump, giving guttural snorts that sounded like a steam train being channelled through his nostrils.
“Don’t turn him away, Alice!” Tara was firm. “Back him up three strides and then push him forward again!”
Alice did as she was told, and with much dramatic snorting and fretting Caspian took three steps and popped over the ditch.
“Excellent! Make a fuss of him!” Tara called out.
The water jump was next. The horses had to step off a ledge less than half a metre high and into the pond below. Again, the novice Caspian snorted and fussed on the water’s edge. “Keep him moving forward, that’s it!” Tara encouraged as Alice urged the horse with a brisk bounce of her heels against his sides.
Surprisingly, some of the other riders with more experienced horses also had trouble at the water. When Cameron and Paddy stopped dead on the edge of the pond and the big piebald dithered on the bank Tara wasn’t very impressed
“Come on, Mr Fraser!” she commanded. “If you can’t get your horse to walk through this little puddle then how on earth do you expect it to leap into the lake at the Burghley Horse Trials?”
The last fence the horses had to tackle was a downhill staircase, a series of three low steps cut into a bank, each with a stride between them. Tara encouraged the riders to walk their horses down the tiers on a loose rein. When Matt Garrett’s horse, a handsome dun called Tigerland, managed to lose his footing and trip down a step, Tara praised Matt for staying still in the saddle and letting the horse find his feet again.
“That’s right!” Tara said, “Give him a pat. Making mistakes like that is natural – that’s how they learn.”
Georgie had thought that walking Belle over obstacles would be a bit dull, but this was a trust-building exercise and the mare seemed to blossom as she tackled the jumps with Georgie’s gentle