Flame and the Rebel Riders (4 page)

“What’s in that one?” Issie asked.

Verity stiffened. “Medicines…stuff for emergencies,” she said, adding bluntly, “Leave it alone. You don’t need to worry about it.”

She finished stirring the feeds using a huge wooden spoon, and then passed one of the big buckets to Issie.

“You can give Flame his feed. He’s in the stall at the end on your left.”

As Issie approached Flame’s loose box, she could hear the horse stamping about inside, pacing and whinnying impatiently as he heard her coming closer. Both the top and bottom half of the Dutch door were shut tight and
Issie wondered what the horse on the other side looked like. All she knew was that with a name like Flame he had to be a chestnut.

When she swung the door open, she was amazed. Flame’s coat was like nothing she had ever seen before. It shone like a newly minted copper coin. He had the most athletic conformation Issie had ever seen, with muscles and sinew rippling as he moved about restlessly in his stall.

Flame was clearly expecting his breakfast. He stomped and nickered, impatiently waiting for Issie to unbolt the door, and then made a beeline for her as she entered the stall. With the feed bin propped under one arm, she had to use the other hand to fend him off, moving quickly through the loose box to deftly slide the bin into the wallfeeder slot at the far end.

As Flame happily snuffled down his feed, Issie was free to stand back and assess the gelding more thoroughly. She guessed that he was around sixteen hands high, but his imposing presence made him seem much bigger than that. He wasn’t a fine-boned Thoroughbred but a heavier breed, perhaps some kind of warmblood or a Selle Francais like Natasha’s chestnut, Romeo. His
shoulders and neck were powerful, and although his hindquarters were well developed his withers were still higher than his rump, which indicated that his power was in his front half, a classic sign of a horse that had been bred to jump. He had an elegant, refined head and thoughtful deep brown eyes. His bold chestnut colour made a striking contrast with the pretty white star on the gelding’s forehead and the white snip on his muzzle.

“You’re really gorgeous!” Issie breathed out loud.

“He should be!”

It was Verity, leaning over the partition of the Dutch door and looking at Flame. “He cost a fortune and it was a total drama getting him here. He had to be imported from Europe. His bloodlines are amazing — he’s by Brilliant Fire.”

Issie looked blankly at her.

“You mean you haven’t heard of Brilliant Fire?” Verity sighed dramatically at this. “He’s a Hanoverian stallion, a warmblood from Germany. Brilliant Fire has sired more Olympic showjumpers than any other stallion. All of his progeny — his sons and daughters — are worth a fortune because of their bloodlines.”

“So how much did Ginty pay for Flame?” Issie asked.

“Oh, Ginty didn’t buy him!” Verity said, looking at Issie as if she were the most naïve person on the planet. “Ginty could never afford him—or any of the other horses here for that matter.”

“You mean she doesn’t own any of the horses?” Issie was confused.

“She doesn’t even own Dulmoth Park!” Verity said. “Ginty’s in charge, but she’s not the one with the money. Cassandra Steele, you know, the millionairess? She owns the stables and most of the horses. Ginty also stables a few ‘weekend rides’ for clients with loads of money and no time. Ginty keeps their horses for them here at an exorbitant cost. It’s a total luxury—some of the clients only ride their horses once a month. Imagine having your own horse and only bothering to ride it twelve times a year!”

“Don’t the horses go bonkers if there’s no one riding them?” Issie asked.

“Oh, we ride them,” Verity said. “Ginty charges even more money for that. Penny and I exercise the horses on the owner’s behalf so that they’re kept in regular work.”

“You’re so lucky. It must be amazing, being paid to ride really fab horses every day.”

Verity looked at Issie as if she were an idiot. “The owners have high expectations. It’s up to us to make them happy,” she said flatly. “It costs a fortune to keep your horse at Dulmoth Park, but the rich ladies love it, because it’s so exclusive and Ginty treats them all like rock stars. We keep their horses fit and do everything for them. Ginty always says that her clients pay top dollar so that they can step out of their car and get straight on to their horse.”

Issie thought about all those times Natasha had turned up at rally days with Romeo immaculately groomed and plaited — quite boastful about having done none of the work herself. No doubt Penny and Verity were the ones who did it for her.

“Why is Natasha working here?” Issie asked. “She’s one of Ginty’s clients, isn’t she?”

Verity shrugged. “Her dad has some sort of money trouble. Ginty says it’s only temporary. He’s a big-deal property developer and a deal fell through. Natasha’s parents are making her work here for the holidays to cover the cost of her horse’s board, otherwise Ginty wouldn’t be able to keep stabling Romeo.”

Issie knew exactly what ‘trouble’ Mr Tucker had
got himself into. In fact, Issie was the one who had uncovered his dodgy business dealings while she competed on Fortune to win the Golden Trophy! It was ironic, Issie thought, that she should end up stuck with Natasha for the school holidays—and in a strange way it was her own fault!

“Ginty still sucks up to the Tuckers because of their money,” Verity continued. “You saw the way she treated Natasha, letting her arrive late this morning. The rest of us would have been hung, drawn and quartered…” Verity stopped in mid-sentence. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking to you like this. You and Natasha both go to the same pony club, don’t you? You’re probably best friends.”

Issie gave a hollow laugh. “Hardly! Natasha can’t stand me!”

Verity looked surprised at this. “Really? I thought you were…You know, you have to be careful,” she said darkly, “you never know who your friends are around here…”

Verity looked like she was about to say something else, but Issie never found out what, because at that moment Ginty suddenly appeared beside her at the stall door.

“Come on!” the trainer said briskly. “Morning exercise is already behind schedule, we don’t have time to stand around chatting.”

“I better go get Tottie ready,” Verity said to Issie. “Check the blackboard roster to see which horse you’re working first. I’ll see you in the arena.”

Issie found the blackboard on the back of the door in the tack room. Riders’ names were listed along the top of the board with the horses they were assigned written down underneath. Issie noted with disappointment that Flame had been given to Natasha. She had been hoping that she would be the one to ride the big chestnut. Penny was down to ride Vertigo, and Verity was supposed to ride a horse called Tottenham Hotspur, which Issie figured must be Tottie’s show name. The first horse on Issie’s list was “Tokyo”. Issie searched through the saddle racks fixed to the wall and found Tokyo’s name plate with a saddle, bridle and numnah.

Tokyo’s saddle was made from warm honey-coloured leather, finished with orange stitching and a single word stamped elegantly into the flap at the front:
Hermès.

Issie was almost scared to touch it. She had never seen a real Hermès saddle before — they were worth
thousands and thousands of dollars. And now she was going to ride in one!

Picking Tokyo’s saddle up carefully, she carried it with the numnah over her arm and the bridle slung on her left shoulder, back out into the stable corridor. It wasn’t until she was standing there looking at the row of stalls that she realised there was a problem. The loose boxes didn’t have name plates. How was she supposed to find her horse?

Still carrying the gear, she strode down the corridor towards the end stall. Verity would be in there saddling up Tottie. She could tell Issie which stall held Tokyo.

The door to Tottie’s loose box was unlocked, so Issie pushed it open and walked straight in to see Verity standing alongside a nervous-looking dapple-grey mare. Verity was bent down over the horse’s hocks. Her right hand was gripping a hypodermic syringe.

As she held the syringe aloft, Verity’s face was tight with determination. She took aim, and then with all her strength she hammered her fist down hard, forcing the hypodermic needle deep into the upper muscle of the horse’s hind leg.

“Verity! What are you doing?” Issie cried out. But it
was too late. Verity had already pushed down the plunger of the syringe and injected the contents of the hypodermic into Tottie.

With a quick yank, she pulled the needle back out again, capped the empty syringe and then she slipped it into her pocket. She let the mare go and walked over to Issie.

“Verity,” Issie said, “what was that?”

The head groom raised a finger to her lips. “Say nothing about this,” she warned. “Trust me. If you know what’s good for you, you don’t want to get involved.”

Verity’s face was stony as she pushed past Issie in the doorway. Then she turned round and added bitterly, “Welcome to Dulmoth Park, Issie. You really have no idea what you’re in for.”

Issie was still shaking with shock when she stepped out into the corridor a few moments later and bumped right into Penny, almost knocking her over.

“Sorry!” Issie squeaked.

“It’s all right,” Penny insisted. Then she saw the startled look on Issie’s face. “Are you OK?”

“I’m…I’m trying to find Tokyo,” Issie stammered. “Do you know which stall I’m looking for?” She wanted to tell Penny about what she’d just seen, but Verity’s warning made her think twice — after all, she still had no idea who to trust in this place.

“She’s in the third stall up there on your right,” Penny said.

Tokyo turned out to be a very pretty bright bay mare with black stockings and a white star on her forehead. At seventeen hands high the mare towered over Issie, and she had to lead her over to the mounting block at the arena entrance to get up high enough to put her foot in the stirrup and climb on.

Natasha was already in the arena when Issie rode Tokyo in. Natasha was mounted up on a bay as well. He was much darker than Tokyo, and smaller too, a neatly put-together Thoroughbred whose name turned out to be Sebastian.

Issie had been expecting Penny and Verity to be riding with them as well, but instead the two senior grooms were on foot, standing like sentries on either side of the single upright rail in the middle of the arena.

“Right! This morning is already running behind schedule. Let’s get started,” Ginty said. She looked at Issie. “We’re going to be doing rapping today. Have you done it before?”

Issie frowned. “You mean, like, singing with hip-hop music?”

Natasha let out a gleeful snort. “Rapping is a jumping technique. I thought everybody knew that!”

“Natasha has done it before, of course,” Ginty smiled indulgently at her pupil. “Since she’s already familiar with my methods, it’s probably best if she goes first to show you how it’s done.”

Ginty instructed Natasha to take Sebastian to the other end of the arena. “Get him into a canter and then bring him back over the jump,” she told her.

“Aren’t we doing flatwork exercises first?” Issie couldn’t help asking. She was used to doing dressage as a warm-up with Avery before their jumping sessions, but Ginty clearly had different ideas.

“They’re showjumpers, not
haute école
schoolmasters,” she said dismissively. “They don’t need to warm up.”

Issie didn’t say anything more. She sat on Tokyo and kept her eyes on Natasha as she turned Sebastian and rode him in hard towards the upright rail.

“Use your stick!” Ginty instructed. Natasha already had her whip raised, and gave the horse two solid thwacks with her riding crop right in front of the jump.

At the touch of the whip, Sebastian leapt. Issie could see straight away that he was an athletic jumper. The gelding lifted his front legs up neatly and began his arc.
He would have cleared the rail easily — if it weren’t for Penny and Verity.

At the exact moment that Sebastian took off, the two girls positioned on either side of the jump both grasped on to an end of the top rail. They waited until Sebastian had his front legs over the jump and then they lifted the rail out of its cups and quickly hoisted it up another twenty centimetres in the air.

Sebastian didn’t know that the rail had been raised, or that his hind legs were no longer lifted high enough to make it over the jump. He bashed both fetlocks hard against the painted pole. Issie could hear the crunch of bone scraping the wood as Sebastian literally didn’t know what hit him. He landed on the other side of the jump looking quite shaken and bolted forward to get away.

Natasha was prepared for his reaction. She yanked hard on the reins to pull him back and then brought the dark bay gelding around to rejoin the others. She had a smile on her face as she rode back towards Ginty. “Good, Natasha!” Ginty said. Then she turned to Issie. “That’s how it’s done. Your turn!”

Issie was stunned. “Are they going to lift the rail when I jump too?”

“That’s the plan,” Ginty confirmed.

“But Tokyo will hit it!” Issie didn’t understand.

“That’s the point,” Ginty told her. “If the horses lift their legs up high enough, they won’t hit the rail.”

“But the horses don’t know that the rail is being moved.”

“Not at first,” Ginty agreed, “but after they get a few bangs they exaggerate their leg lift and soon they’re clearing the rail with room to spare. That’s why we rap them. It makes them nice clean jumpers who never graze the poles.”

Natasha, who had been listening to Ginty’s explanation, was compelled to stick her oar in. “Rapping is what the professional riders do,” she told Issie with a know-it-all tone. “All the showjumping stables do it.”

“Come on, Issie.” Ginty seemed so self-assured that Issie felt silly for making a fuss and being unprofessional. “You’ve got half a dozen horses to ride today, so let’s get moving!”

Issie’s heart was racing as she rode Tokyo to the other end of the arena. Had Natasha been telling the truth when she said all the proper showjumping stables did this? It seemed so cruel to hit the horses in the legs on
purpose, but Issie had to have faith in Ginty. She was one of the best trainers in the business. She must know what she was doing.