The Prize (4 page)

“Dominic Blackwell,” Alice hissed in Georgie's ear. “Cherry has a poster of him on her wall at home. He's a showjumper – he's in the national team.”

It was strange, to see these famous riders right here in front of them, talking and laughing with each other. It was becoming clear that every one of the men and women in the arena was an equestrian superstar.

“Right!” Mrs Dickins-Thomson continued. “We're going to do this class by class, beginning with Tara Kelly's eventing pupils.”

Tara stepped forward and opened the manila folder in her hands.

“I'm going to call you out one by one to come down to the arena to be introduced to your new employer.”

Tara read the first name on her list.

“Emily Tait?”

Emily looked extremely nervous as she stood up and walked down between the seats to the arena. Painfully shy at the best of times, she was almost shaking as she stood in front of the elite riders that were assembled behind Tara Kelly.

“Emily is from New Zealand and she's consistently at the top of my class rankings,” Tara did the introductions. “Emily, I am pairing you with Tina Dixon. Tina, as you are all no doubt aware, recently came third at the Lexington Four-star event and has made the US eventing development squad.”

Tina Dixon stepped forward, waved to the class and thrust out a tanned and sinewy arm to shake hands with Emily. “I've already got a New Zealander grooming for me so you'll fit right in with my team,” she informed her. “Welcome aboard.”

“Alice Dupree?” Tara called the next name on the list.

Alice looked more excited than daunted as she took her turn to join the superstars in the arena.

“Alice is from Maryland where her family breeds eventers and showjumpers,” Tara told the assembled riders. “Jumping is her strength, but her dressage needs work so that's why I'm assigning her to you, Allegra.”

The excited smile on Alice's face slipped. She was being assigned to Allegra Hickman – a dressage rider!

If Tara noticed the look of disappointment on Alice's face she didn't acknowledge it.

“Allegra's achievements include a gold medal at the games in Saumur for her musical dressage performance in the kur,” she read the notes in her folder to the class. “She currently has two Grand Prix mounts and four horses in her stables at Prix St Georges level and is a great supporter of the modern dressage method.”

Allegra stepped forward and gave a stiff wave to the students, then shook Alice's hand and stepped back into the ranks of the riders, taking Alice with her.

“Cameron Fraser?” Tara called out.

Tara consulted her notes. “Cameron, I am pairing you up with Frank Carsey. Frank, where are you?”

There was a general murmur as everyone looked around expectantly for Frank Carsey. Then a small hand appeared, poking up from behind the riders and waving to make its presence known.

“Make way! Coming through.”

Frank was lithe and wiry with pointy features and slicked-back brown hair. But the truly notable thing about his appearance was his height – or rather lack of it. Frank Carsey was a jockey and he was tiny. When Cam stepped forward to shake his hand he towered over him by a whole head.

“Last year Frank Carsey won more division one races than any other jockey in the state of Kentucky,” Tara said. “He has a reputation for turning horses around and if you want to learn how to condition a horse and get it into peak galloping performance for eventing then Frank is your man.”

“You're a bit taller than I'd hoped,” the diminutive jockey told his new apprentice, “but you're light enough to ride trackwork. See you at the yards at four am on Monday.”

“Four am?” Cam squeaked.

Tara confirmed this. “Some of you will be working early mornings as well as afternoons to keep to the timetables of your employers.”

“Daisy King?” Tara called out the next name on her list and Daisy rose from her seat. “Here!”

Daisy and Georgie had known each other back in the UK, but they were never friends back then. Daisy had always been far too competitive to make friends. At Blainford, however, the girls had been thrust together in the same boarding house and Georgie had developed a grudging admiration for Daisy's single-minded will to win. While that made it hard sometimes to be her friend, it also meant that Daisy was someone you wanted on your team.

“Daisy King has been eventing since she was eleven,” Tara introduced her. “She won the national UK secondary schools ODE finals last year.”

Tara paused. “Last term Daisy was on the girls' polo team that won the low-goal award at the Bluegrass Cup. And I think her natural abilities as an all-round rider could further benefit from more polo training which is why I have assigned her to you, Sebastian.”

A man stepped forward from the ranks of the elite trainers. He was devastatingly handsome, in a broad-shouldered and unshaven way. He had jet black hair and startling blue eyes and he wore the number three jersey for his polo team, along with the regulation uniform of polo whites and long brown boots.

“Seb Upton-Baker is an eight-goal player,” Tara smiled at him. “We've been friends since school – and we're very lucky that he divides his time between his polo ranch in Argentina, his polo club in London and his small holding here in Kentucky. Seb will be playing this season on a patron team and Daisy is grooming for him.”

Daisy didn't notice the envious looks that she was getting from Kennedy and Arden. In fact, she was a bit miffed about being lumbered with the hunky polo player when all she'd really wanted was to work on Tina Dixon's yard.

Georgie, meanwhile, was on the edge of her seat. With all of her friends already allocated their apprenticeships, she was expecting Tara to call her name next. But instead, Tara worked her way through allocating apprenticeships to every other member of the class. Georgie watched as both Alex and Matt were placed in well-respected Kentucky eventing stables and Arden was put in the hands of a woman named Frisky Newton who ran a famous breaking-in facility for green horses. Even Nicholas Laurent was given a placement at the Bloodstock association offices which ran the Thoroughbred breeding programme.

In the end, only Kennedy and Georgie were left.

“Kennedy Kirkwood and Georgina Parker,” Tara called both their names at once. Georgie had to walk down the stairs with Kennedy so that they were both standing with their eventing teacher in the arena.

“Kennedy comes from the famous Kirkwood showjumping family, and was a showjumper herself before she swapped codes to join the eventing class,” Tara told the assembled riders.

“And Georgie was in the House Team that won the showjumping cup earlier this year…” Tara said.

“So it seemed logical that you should both be placed with Dominic Blackwell. Dominic, as you all know, is a member of the US showjumping team. He has been kind enough to offer to take two apprentices at his stables.”

Instead of shaking hands with his new apprentices like the other riders had done Dominic Blackwell walked over to Georgie and stuck his palm up in mid-air.

“Hey! Team Blackwell! High-five!”

Georgie stared back blankly, leaving Dominic Blackwell holding his hand aloft.

“C'mon!” Dominic Blackwell was undeterred. His enthusiasm amped up even higher. “You'll be working at the best showjumping stables in the whole of the Southern States! Can I get a high-five?”

“Woo! Yeah!” It was Kennedy, doing a peppy little cheerleader skip and barging roughly past Georgie. She made a lunge at Dominic Blackwell and slapped a high-five on his open palm. Then she gave him a perky grin. “Go Team Blackwell!” she cheered brightly.

“Yess!” Dominic grinned like a maniac. He turned to Georgie once more. “C'mon, Julie,” he said, getting Georgie's name wrong. “Give me some skin!”

Georgie rolled her eyes but clearly Dominic was not giving up. She stepped forward and slapped the palm of her hand hard against Dominic Blackwell's.

“Woo! Welcome aboard, Julie! Go Team Blackwell!”

And Georgie knew that she was about to spend the next term in hell.

Chapter Four

T
he track at Keeneland Park was shrouded in fog at five in the morning. Georgie stood at the railing and watched Riley and Marco galloping into the mist, until they disappeared completely at the third furlong. She peered into the gloom, listening to the rhythmic pounding of Marco's hooves, the beat growing ever more distant and then coming closer as Riley and the horse emerged once more.

Georgie marvelled at the feline grace of the golden Thoroughbred and the skill of the boy on his back. As they turned the corner of the track and came down the home straight in front of the grandstand Riley began to urge the gelding on, pumping his arms above the horse's neck and suddenly the hoof beats began to quicken.

The chestnut gelding was responding to his jockey, extending his stride so that his body seemed to flatten out and devour the ground as he thundered down the track.

She was so lost in the beauty of the spectacle that Georgie almost forgot to press the stopwatch as the gelding's nose reached the line.

With an emphatic click, she hit the button. Then she checked the time, popped it back in her pocket and waited for Riley. He had eased Marco down to a canter and then a trot and had carried on around the track to cool the Thoroughbred down before he came over to the railing to join her.

“So?” Riley looked at her expectantly. “How did he do?”

“He covered eight furlongs in one minute forty-one,” Georgie said.

Riley looked pleased and gave Marco a slappy pat. “Hey, not bad, boy!” he told the chestnut.

“Is that time good enough to win the Firecracker?” Georgie asked.

“Maybe,” Riley said, “but there's a big difference between blowing him out like this on the track all alone and riding a real race when sixteen other jockeys are trying to cut in front or ram you off the track. It's not until you're coming down that final furlong with the pack at your heels that you find out what your horse is really made of.”

Georgie looked at the little chestnut gelding dancing and fretting anxiously beneath Riley. Less than six months ago if you had asked any racing pundit in the country whether this scrawny, diminutive horse stood a chance of winning the coveted Firecracker Handicap, a race worth $232,000 in prize money, they would have laughed at you. Marco's racing career was all but washed up when Georgie purchased him for $150 from his former trainer Tommy Doyle. The dirt cheap price tag reflected the total failure on Marco's part to win any races – and the fact that the four-year old Thoroughbred had a reputation for doing lethal 180 degree turns in the middle of the track which meant that even the bravest jockeys refused to get on him.

Georgie had bought Marco in the hope that she might be able to put his turning tendencies to good use and train him as a polo pony. But Marco was even more lethal on the polo field than he was on the racetrack and Georgie didn't have a clue what to do with him – until Riley had offered to swap him for a more suitable polo mare.

At the time, Georgie's boyfriend was doing her a favour. But it had never occurred to her that Riley could actually see any potential in this difficult and temperamental Thoroughbred. Everyone else had given up on Marco, but Riley persevered with the little chestnut, retraining the horse, experimenting with his feeding and workout schedule, and making friends with the complicated little gelding.

Then, last month, he entered Marco in his first race and the chestnut won by a clear two lengths with Riley on his back.

Looking back, Georgie wasn't surprised that Riley had turned Marco around. Her boyfriend had a way of getting a song out of the most difficult horses. Sometimes Georgie could swear that he had the ability to read their minds. How else could you explain the change in Marco?

“The talented horses are always temperamental,” Riley told Georgie. “Marco just needed someone to believe in him.”

Riley's belief in Marco was proven justified when the horse won again in his second race. This time the win was hard-fought. Riley had been boxed in behind a clutch of riders on the railing all the way to the three-quarter marker. Things had looked impossible but somehow he had found a hole and driven the chestnut hard towards it to break free of the pack, putting on a burst of speed in the home straight to edge out in front of the favourite by a nose.

Even with two wins under their belt, Riley wasn't content.

“He's still holding back. There's more speed in him,” Riley told Georgie as they walked together back to the stables. “Look at him! He's hardly even breathing hard.”

Jogging and skipping alongside Riley, Marco was bounding about as if the track beneath his feet were made of hot coals. Riley didn't pay any attention to the Thoroughbred's dangerous antics and eventually Marco stopped larking about and settled down. By the time they had reached the stables he was walking sedately at his jockey's side.

That was the way it was with Riley and horses
, Georgie mused. He was real quiet with them, but somehow he always got them to do exactly as he wanted. She had seen that from the moment she met him. She'd been having trouble with Belle in her first term at Blainford and it was Kenny, the Academy's caretaker, who suggested that she get some help from his nephew.

Georgie had been expecting some wizened guy like The Horse Whisperer but it turned out that Riley was a teenager just like her. Riley's dad, John Conway, was the owner of Clemency Farm and Riley worked for him riding track most mornings before his classes at the local High School.

Riley and Georgie had been dating for a term now – despite predictions of doom from Daisy who said it was plain crazy even trying to go out with a boy who didn't attend Blainford. Georgie knew that Riley had his own reservations about dating a girl from a private equestrian school. It didn't help that total numnahs like Conrad were determined to cause trouble. The last time Riley had clashed with Conrad, the Burghley House head prefect found himself pinned to the wall with a polo mallet at his throat. Georgie hadn't asked Riley back to a school event since then. And she was hardly going to tell him about the fatigues that the prefect had given her last week.

Riley led the gelding into his loose box back at the stable block, and Georgie bolted the door after him.

“Did I tell you that I'm going to enter him in the Hanley Stakes?” Riley asked. “I figure he needs one more outing before the Firecracker, just to keep him on form.”

“What sort of race is it?” Georgie asked as she undid Marco's girth.

“A grade three, over a mile and a half,” Riley told her as he slipped the gelding's bridle off. “It's a big distance for him, but I want to see how he handles it. He'll be up against The Rainmaker.”

Georgie had heard of The Rainmaker.
Thoroughbred Magazine
had called the jet-black stallion “one of the most perfectly put together Thoroughbreds the sport of racing has ever seen” and the smart money was on the big black horse to win at Churchill Downs. At sixteen-three hands high, The Rainmaker was a massive horse compared to Marco who stood at a mere fifteen-two.

Georgie slid the saddle pad off Marco's back, and nearly collapsed under its weight. “Ohmygod!”

“Are you OK?” Riley rushed to take the saddle from her. “Be careful. It's heavy.”

How could such a tiny jockey's saddle weigh so much? Georgie stuck her hands into one of the pockets stitched into the brown leather and pulled out a round metal disc.

“What are these?”

“Lead weights,” Riley said. “All horses have to carry a certain weight when they run. It's a handicap to even out the odds.”

“So will Marco have to carry weights when you race him in the Firecracker?”

“Nah,” Riley pulled two more weights out of the lead pad. “I'm already heavier than most of the other jockeys anyway. And Marco and me aren't the favourites by any stretch. But all the same, I've been training him to carry the maximum – just in case.”

He went to take the saddle out of Georgie's hands, but she refused.

“I'm going to be Dominic Blackwell's groom this week,” she said. “So I might as well get used to doing all the work.”

“So this Blackwell guy, he's, like, a top showjumper?”

“Uh-huh,” Georgie said. “I'll be working for him for six weeks and if he gives me a good grade then I'm through into the second-year eventing class – otherwise, well, I'm just through.”

“So you're working for him during school?”

“Uh-huh,” Georgie said. “And after school and weekends – you know, helping out at the competitions.”

“So I should expect to see you again when? Next Christmas, maybe?” Riley said sarcastically.

“It won't be that bad!” Georgie was taken aback. “We'll figure something out.”

Riley looked doubtful. “I hardly get any time with you, Georgie. All the other guys at my school are always taking their girls out on dates. We never go anywhere together.”

“We're together now,” Georgie said. “I bet most girls don't get up at four a.m. to be with their boyfriends!”

Riley looked hurt. “I thought you liked coming to Keeneland Park.”

“I do!” Georgie groaned. “And I don't need to go on a date with you. I'm happy just being here like this. It's not my fault that I have school and this apprenticeship – this is who I am, Riley.”

“I get that,” Riley said. “I guess I was hoping you'd be able to help me out over the next few weeks with Marco's training.”

“I'll try,” Georgie said, “but this apprenticeship is really important.”

“So the Firecracker isn't important?” Riley frowned. “It's a $232,000 race. I think it's a bit more important than impressing some showjumping guy.”

Georgie felt herself getting flustered. She took a deep breath. “Listen, can we not get into a fight about this?”

Riley didn't say anything. He cast a surly glance at his watch. “It's almost six thirty. I'll mix Marco's feed and then we'll go.”

The drive back to Blainford was tense and silent. But eventually, as they got closer to the school, Riley's mood seemed to thaw a little.

“So, anyway,” Riley said, as he pulled up outside Badminton House to let her out. “I could really do with someone for Marco to race against. I was thinking that maybe you could come out again with me and ride Talisman?”

“When?” Georgie asked.

“Monday? Pick you up after dinner? We can give them an evening workout under the lights.”

Georgie was going to be crazy busy on Monday. It was their first day of the apprenticeships and she had Belle to look after and schoolwork too, but after the conversation she'd just had, she didn't really see how she could say no to Riley.

“OK,” she smiled and kissed Riley goodbye. “See you then.”

At midday on Monday Alice and Georgie were waiting in front of the red Georgian brick buildings of the Academy for the minibus to take them to their apprenticeships.

“I can't believe I've got stuck with dressage,” Alice groaned.

“I can't believe I got stuck with Kennedy,” Georgie said as she watched the showjumperettes approaching.

Georgie noticed that Kennedy Kirkwood had somehow managed to substitute a pair of expensive navy Animo breeches with Swarovski crystals on the pockets for her regulation jods. She wore her glossy red hair loose and flowing over her shoulders as well – not very practical when she was about to spend the afternoon mucking out Dominic Blackwell's stables.

As the minibus pulled up in front of the school buildings, Kennedy tried to push her way past Georgie and Alice.

“What's the hurry, Kennedy?” Alice said. “There's no first-class section on a minibus. You'll have to sit in economy with the rest of us.”

There was a titter from the crowd of eventers waiting to get onboard. Kennedy shot the girls a filthy look.

“Tell your sidekick to watch her mouth or she'll end up on Fatigues with you,” Kennedy told Georgie.