“Hey, dizzy Issie!” the rider at the front called to her as he cantered closer. “About time you got here. Ben and me have already walked the showjumping course.”
Dan and Ben were Chevalier Point Pony Club members. Dan had a flea-bitten grey gelding called Kismit, while Ben rode a grumpy Welsh pony called Max.
“Are the jumps very big?” Issie asked nervously.
“Huge!” Dan teased her. “And you’ve got to ride fast too, if you want to beat the clock. The best time with no faults wins.” He was grinning from ear to ear. Dan was a speed demon. He and Kismit would be the ones to beat in the jumping ring today.
No time to walk the course now, Issie decided. It was nearly time for the first event. She would have to check out the jumps with Stella and Kate during the lunch break.
“Hello, Kismit.” Issie reached out a hand to pat the slender grey on the nose. “I suppose you’ve been promised extra carrots for dinner if you go fast today?” She smiled at Dan.
“Hey! I don’t need to bribe my own horse to win.” Dan grinned back. “Anyway, we’re going to fill in our entry forms now. Do you want to come?” he asked.
Issie was about to say yes when she heard her mother calling her name.
“Isadora! Isadora!” Mrs Brown cried out as she strode across the field towards her. Issie groaned. She couldn’t stand the way her mother insisted on using her full name. Isadora. It sounded so snobby and girly, not at all the sort of name for a serious horse rider. Sure, Avery called her Isadora sometimes too, but only when he was telling her off during a riding lesson. Apart from that, everyone else, even her teachers at school, called her Issie.
“I’ve filled in your entry forms,” Mrs Brown explained. “Doesn’t Mystic look wonderful?” She gave the grey gelding a very nervous pat and held on to the reins, extending her arm so that she was standing as far away from Mystic as possible while Issie did up the girth.
Everyone said that Issie was exactly like her mum. It was true that they were both tall, tanned and lean with long dark hair. But Issie didn’t think they were alike at all. How could they be when Issie loved horses so much and her mother didn’t even like them?
Issie wished her mum would give riding a try. Maybe if she could experience for herself the thrill of cantering across open fields with the wind in her hair, she’d finally be able to understand why Issie adored riding so much. But her mum was way too scared to even sit on a horse, let alone canter one.
“What’s your first event?” Mrs Brown asked, still reluctantly hanging on to Mystic’s reins as Issie finished adjusting her stirrups.
“Paced and Mannered. We’re due in the ring any minute now,” Issie told her. She gave Mystic a stroke on his dark, velvety nose and her mum gave her a leg up.
“Come on, boy,” Issie murmured softly, leaning low over Mystic’s neck, “let’s show them what we can do.”
In the ring, several horses were trotting around warming up. Dan and Ben were already there. A girl that Issie didn’t recognise rode in on a skewbald with a peppy trot, a young girl on a chubby chestnut mare following behind her. The chestnut pony had a vicious temper. Her ears were lying flat back against her head—a warning to other horses not to get too close.
The prettiest by far in the ring, thought Issie, was a golden palomino with a star on her forehead and high, lively paces. “Wow! Isn’t that palomino gorgeous,” Stella said, reading Issie’s mind as the two riders sat at the edge of the arena checking out the competition. “I wonder who that rider is? I’ve never seen her here before but she’s wearing our club colours…”
The girl on the palomino had golden hair, almost the same colour as her pony, tied back in two severe plaits. She wore a tweed hacking jacket over her club jersey and had a sour expression on her face.
“I know who it must be,” Kate said as she rode up beside them. “That’s Natasha Tucker. Her family have just moved here. I bet she’s joined Chevalier Point Pony Club!”
The three girls were still eyeing up the palomino with envy, when it suddenly spooked at a plastic bag blowing across the ground. The girl with the sour expression jerked back in the saddle, wrenching on the reins and jagging the little pony sharply in the mouth with the bit. Regaining her seat, she raised her riding crop in the air and brought it down hard on the pony’s golden flank. “Stand still you brute!” she squealed.
Issie was stunned. “I can’t believe she just did that!”
“Don’t worry,” muttered Stella, “the judge saw it too and she can’t believe it either. Paced and Mannered? More like bad manners! There’s no way she’s going to get a ribbon for that behaviour. And neither will we for that matter if we don’t get in the ring pretty quickly. Come on! The event is about to start.”
“Trot on!” ordered the judge, a sturdy woman in blue stockings and a matching straw hat, standing in the middle of the arena. The riders obediently trotted around in a circle.
Issie urged Mystic into a trot and tried to look her best. Heels down, hands still, head up, she chanted to herself as she rose up and down to the rhythm of Mystic’s trot.
“Canter!” called the judge. Mystic cantered eagerly around the ring, ears pricked forward, tail held high. Unfortunately his canter was a little too keen. As he got closer to the chubby chestnut mare in front of him she flattened her ears and lashed out with her hind legs. Mystic squealed and shied to one side. Issie let the reins slip and had to grab a handful of mane to stay on his back.
“Halt!” commanded the judge. But there was no hope of that right now. Issie snatched the reins back up but it was too late. Everyone else had stopped their horses and Mystic was still doing an ungainly trot around the ring. She sat down heavy in the saddle and finally he came to a halt. Too late, though—the judge had been watching her mistakes.
When the winners were called into the centre of the ring Issie knew she didn’t stand a chance. Kate rode out with a grin on her face and a red ribbon tied around Toby’s neck. Behind her was the skewbald in second place and a boy on a brown pony came third.
The haughty girl with the palomino hadn’t got anywhere either. As the riders left the ring she barged past Issie and Mystic in a huff. “Get your stupid horse out of the way,” she snapped. Then she halted the palomino and turned in the saddle to glare at Issie. Her face was so bitter it looked like she’d been sucking lemons. “It’s all your fault anyway” she continued. “If your horse hadn’t run wild in there and scared Goldrush I would have won this dumb event. You obviously have no idea how to ride. You shouldn’t even be here.”
Issie opened her mouth to protest her innocence, but it was too late. The sour-faced girl turned the palomino again and set off at a canter, leaving Issie reeling in shock and anger.
“What was that all about?” Stella rode up to join Issie.
“Well, Stella,” Issie said sarcastically, “it looks like I just made friends with the new girl.”
As Issie reached Avery’s truck she was still deep in thought, mulling over all the things she should have said to nasty old Natasha instead of just sitting there with her mouth hanging open. Then she heard Natasha’s shrill voice again. This time, thankfully, she wasn’t yelling at Issie. She was talking to someone on the other side of the truck where a silver horse float was parked behind a matching silver sports car.
“Mum, I hate this horse,” the girl wailed as she slid off the palomino’s back and threw the reins to a tall blonde woman wearing black sunglasses.
“Natasha Tucker!” scolded her mother. “Do you know how much money we’ve spent on that horse?”
“I don’t care!” Natasha barked. “She’s useless!”
“Sweetie,