Pony Jumpers 6- Six to Ride Read online

  I gritted my teeth against the public allegation that I didn’t have AJ’s pony under control, but I couldn’t really argue under the circumstances. Resigning myself to my fate, I turned Squib away and rode him at a walk around the outside of the arena. He was still a bit spooky but he managed to control his more radical impulses, and I pushed him into a steady working trot, keeping my contact on the reins even and consistent, encouraging him to bend around my inside leg and work into the bridle. After a brief disagreement that involved Squib’s mane almost connecting with my face, he gave up arguing and decided to actually behave like a horse instead of a llama, and did some half-decent flatwork.

  By the end of the ten minutes, I had a reasonably well-behaved pony. He was still getting strong in the canter, and trying to pull my arms out of their sockets, but I rode some trot serpentines and he condescended to bend in both directions without trying to knock my teeth out, so I decided to call it a day. I gave Squib a scratch on the neck as I slid to the ground and ran up my stirrups, mentally re-evaluating my training plans for him. This morning, I’d had no qualms about riding him at Dannevirke in five days’ time, but now I was starting to wonder whether I was setting us both up to fail. And that was the last thing I wanted either of us to do.

  At least Gully behaved himself when I showed him to the prospective buyers, trotting and cantering around happily and popping over a course of metre-ten jumps without batting an eyelid.

  Tayla clearly liked the look of him, so I legged her up into the saddle and was helping her to adjust her stirrups when I overheard her mother asking mine a question.

  “So has he ever done anything naughty? Bucked, or reared?”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Mum, who replied honestly. “When we got him he had a reputation for bucking,” she admitted. “We were at a show and I was watching him in the warm-up, thinking how lovely he was. But he didn’t look happy, swishing his tail all the time and laying his ears back, and I wondered if he was a bit sore. Well, he got three fences into his course before he bucked his rider off, clearly because he was in pain, and the girl was a bit of a novice and didn’t have a very strong seat anyway. He’s never had Katy off, has he?”

  I shook my head, looking up at Tayla. “Nah, and he’s never really tried. How’s that, too short?”

  Gully had thrown a couple of bucks on the first day I’d ridden him, but that’d been at the show and while he was still in his ill-fitting saddle. Once we’d got him home and given him a week’s worth of massages and lunging sessions, then put a saddle on that actually fit him, he’d turned into a different pony. Any pony would buck if its saddle was pinching, so as long as Tayla found him a saddle that fit, she’d never have an issue. Touch wood.

  Mum was still talking, giving Gully’s life story to Tayla’s mum. “So the poor girl came out of the ring crying and her mother bullied her back into the saddle and told her to put him over the practice fence a couple of times so he wouldn’t think he could get away with that behaviour,” she said, shaking her head. “Well, of course Gull just bucked her off again, because the saddle was really making him sore at that point, and his rider refused to get back on, so I intervened.”

  “What she means,” I told Tayla, who was clearly listening in, “is that she walked over there and offered to buy the pony while they were still in a foul mood with him and would be willing to let him go for a song.”

  “I did not!” Mum retorted, sounding scandalised. “Honestly Katy, you make me sound like some kind of unscrupulous dealer. I simply approached them and said I thought their pony might have a sore back, and asked if they would like my daughter to have a ride on him and see if she couldn’t sort him out.” I raised my eyebrows, this part of the story being new to me, but said nothing. “They said he was already on his last warning and they were taking him home in disgrace, so I said we might want to buy him and that changed their tune quickly.”

  “That and the fact you kept telling them he was far too green for them,” I added, winking at Tayla as I spoke. She smiled back at me as she picked up Gully’s reins, and I ignored the rest of Mum’s protests about the legitimacy of her pony purchasing techniques and started directing Tayla to head off on the left rein.

  Whenever people come to try one of our ponies, I try to give the potential buyers a bit of a riding lesson. I’ve found that if I don’t step in right away, they’ll either wander around the arena looking a bit vague while their parents stand at the gate and watch nervously, or their parent will step in and start barking orders at the poor kid until both they and my pony are completely confused. But we’d got it down to a fine art over the years – I’d take care of the kid while Mum chattered away to the parent, distracting them with the entire history of the pony since it came into our possession – every show we’ve taken it to, every fence it’s jumped, every supplement she’s ever pumped into it, and about a thousand other things besides.

  I stood in the middle of the arena and watched Tayla ride around the outside track, liking what I saw. She had a nice position, sitting straight with her eyes up and heels down. At first I was a bit worried that she was one of those ramrod-straight children that has been taught to ride by someone who only knows how to bark orders like shoulders back and hands down, which results in rigid posturing and no real feel for a pony, but once I got Tayla trotting, I could see that she’d had some miles in the tack. I told her to make a twenty metre circle, and overheard our mothers’ conversation as they came into the arena and perched themselves on one of the jumps.

  “Tayla’s a very confident rider, always has been, and she has a lovely natural position,” her mother was saying in a rather sickening way. “It’s such a shame that she’s outgrown Apache, but she’s looking forward to having a pony that knows a bit more than she does about flatwork. Dressage was never Apache’s strong point!”

  That was pretty obvious from watching Tayla ride. She sat well, but she clearly had no idea about contact. She’d started out on a fairly sloppy rein, which Gully was quite happy about, but while I was distracted by her mother’s nattering, she started trying to get Gully on the bit by see-sawing against his mouth in that horrifying way that half the Pony Club kids I’ve ever met seem to think is correct.

  “Hey, no, cut that out!” I said sharply. Time to put a stop to that. “What’re you doing to his mouth? No see-sawing, thanks very much. How would you feel if you were a pony and someone was yanking back and forth on the reins like that?”

  Tayla looked embarrassed, and I softened my approach. “If you want to get your pony on the bit, you start by getting them engaged from behind. Has anyone ever told you that?” I waited for her to shake her head, but instead she nodded. “Really?” I asked, surprised. “Who?”

  “One of my instructors at Pony Club,” Tayla told me. “But I didn’t really know what she meant. She said ride with more leg but when I did that Apache would just go faster or break into canter. Then she said to hold the reins tighter at the same time and he just got really strong and angry.”

  “It’s a fine balance,” I told her. “It’s about knowing when to ask and when to soften. It’s all about timing and feel. But it’s not rocket science,” I added, seeing her defeated expression. “It’s about forward, contact, bend. Here, I’ll help you. Take up a contact on the reins. Not a strong one, just a consistent one so that you can feel the corners of his mouth.” I watched as Tayla took up a contact. “Good, but close your fingers. They’re reins, not butterflies. You’re not going to crush them.” She smiled, and obliged. Gully halted.

  “That’s okay, it just means he’s listening,” I reassured her. “When you want him to go forward, you ride with an allowing hand. That means you release through your elbows and soften your fingers a fraction. Literally only a fraction, just one finger at a time. If you open your whole hand you’ll drop the contact and lose the connection, then you’ll have to start all over again. So put your leg on and walk him forward. Yeah, like that. Now just close your fingers ever so sli
ghtly on the reins until he accepts the contact. That’s good.” Gully dropped his head and softened his jaw, looking relaxed. “Super, now just a bit more leg so he doesn’t fall asleep on you. It’s easier in trot, but I wanted you to get the feel of the consistent contact in walk first. Don’t worry about all the people who tell you about having a softer inside hand and stronger outside hand – that’s just confusing, and by the time you get to the point in your riding where you need to worry about that you’ll already be doing it instinctively. For now, just focus on keeping the contact consistent through both reins. Okay, trot on.”

  I stood back and watched as Tayla rode Gully forward into a rising trot. At first she had the reins too tight, not letting the pony go forward, and he shuffled along in a pathetic baby trot until I made her get her leg on. Then she opened her fingers on the reins and let the contact go, which Gully thought was the perfect opportunity to stretch his neck down and pull the reins right out of her hands. But once she’d gathered them up and closed her fingers properly, I got her on a circle around me.

  “Now that he’s going forward into the contact, you need him bending through his body. We want him bent around your inside leg, so make sure that your hips and shoulders are aligned with his, then apply some inside leg pressure.”

  Tayla overcooked it the first time and sent Gully skittering sideways into the bushes. “Not that much! Do you know the difference between an active and passive leg aid?” She shook her head, and I decided to slow down. “Okay, come back to walk and I’ll explain it. An active leg aid is when you use your leg to ask the pony to do something. It might be to go forward, or sideways, or bend, or do a flying change – whatever floats your boat. A passive leg aid is when you have your leg on the pony’s side, applying a small amount of steady pressure, but not actually asking for anything specific. It’s like a balancing aid, or like your rein contact. It should be consistent and even, not going on and off the pony’s side any more than you’d want the rein contact to be going slack-tight-slack-tight all the time. So when you’re asking for bend, you have a passive outside leg that keeps him from going sideways and keeps his shoulder in line with the rest of his body, and the inside leg is mildly active and asking with a gentle pressure for him to bend his ribcage around your leg. When he does bend correctly, the inside leg becomes passive, unless he stops bending, at which point it becomes active again. When you change the rein, you go across the diagonal and both legs become passive because you’re going straight – unless you need more impulsion, in which case you have an active leg to ask for that – and then as you make the turn, the new inside leg becomes active, because it’s now got to establish bend in the other direction. Once you’ve established the bend, the inside leg becomes passive again. Does that make sense?”

  Tayla nodded, although she might have been faking, so I told her to trot on again and watched her closely to see if she really had got it.

  It took a minute or two of me telling her which leg to use and reminding her to keep her hands steady, and her eyes up, and a little more inside leg, and now change the rein and use the new inside leg, and don’t forget to allow forward from your elbows instead of jamming them up, but then it happened. I love that lightbulb moment when it all comes together, and what has seemed so difficult and pointless for so long suddenly resolves itself into something that really, truly works. I could see it in Gully’s movement, and then on Tayla’s face, as the pony started bending through his body and softened into her hand. His expression relaxed, his stride opened up and I knew that whether she bought the pony or not, Tayla had learned something today that she would never forget. There’s nothing quite like that first moment when you and your pony work in unison, and although it only lasted for a few strides before Tayla took her outside leg off and Gully pushed his shoulder out and came above the bit, I barely had to say anything before she’d corrected it herself, and had him soft and supple again.

  Twenty minutes later, Tayla was patting the pinto pony enthusiastically after jumping neatly around a course of low fences. She was grinning from ear-to-ear, and her mother was looking similarly impressed, beaming at me as we walked back to the yard.

  “I’ve never seen Tayla ride like that before. You should give lessons!” she enthused. “Do you give lessons?”

  I started to shake my head, then hesitated. Mum used to teach a few of the local kids, but now that she was working almost full time and I was competing a large team every weekend, she’d decided there wasn’t enough time. Other than giving me occasional pointers – most of which I ignored anyway because they were things I already knew and was just about to do – and helping AJ from time to time, she’d more or less given up coaching. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t earn some extra money…

  “Sure,” I told Tayla’s mother. “Are you local?”

  “Oh yes, we’re just the other side of Hastings,” she said enthusiastically. “We’d love to bring Gully down for regular lessons, and I know of several other young riders in our area who I’m sure would be keen as well. What do you charge?”

  Mum was looking at me expectantly as I racked my brains for a reasonable price. “Um, I don’t know. Forty bucks an hour?”

  Tayla’s mother looked slightly taken aback, so I clarified. “That includes arena hire, of course.”

  “Of course. I don’t suppose you could come to us.”

  “Katy’s not driving yet,” Mum cut in, and I scowled at her.

  “And whose fault is that?” I muttered. I’d been wanting to sit my Learner’s licence for ages, but Mum kept muttering that I was too immature and I didn’t need my licence anyway because all I ever did was stay home and ride, which was beside the point even if it was true. I turned back to Tayla’s mum. “But sadly she’s right, so it would have to be here. We have all the facilities though, and I can set up different grids and exercises that would help.”

  “Can we, please?” Tayla interjected. “That was the best lesson I’ve ever had!”

  Her mother smiled at her, then at me. “Well, I can’t argue with that!”

  That evening when we sat down to dinner, I eyed Mum across the table. She’d been suspiciously silent for much of the afternoon, and I wondered what she was thinking.

  “So, what d’you reckon?”

  “About what?”

  “About me giving lessons.”

  Mum shrugged. “It’s fine by me.”

  “Tayla’s coming back on Thursday, and bringing two friends and their ponies for lessons as well, so at forty bucks each that’s like a hundred and twenty bucks,” I said proudly.

  “Steady on,” Mum corrected me. “They haven’t bought Gully yet, so you can’t charge them for the time they’re spending trying him out. And do these friends want a joint lesson or a private one? Because you can’t charge the same amount for both.”

  “Oh.”

  “And you’ve forgotten the arena fee,” Mum went on. “Shouldn’t that come to me?” My astonishment must have shown on my face, because she laughed. “Lucky for you, I’m kidding. But I think you’d better clarify what your rates are for joint or group lessons, as opposed to private lessons. And until they buy Gully, no asking for payment.”

  “What if they don’t buy Gully?”

  Mum shrugged. “That’s up to them. But they’re pretty keen on him. They’ve already scheduled a vetting, and I’d be very surprised if they change their minds.”

  She set down a bowl of pumpkin soup in front of me and I picked up my spoon. “Do you think I should’ve asked for more?”

  “Do you think you’re worth it?” she countered, sitting down to her own dinner while scrolling through emails on her phone.

  “Yes,” I said to get her attention back on me. Her eyebrows lifted, and I slurped my soup defiantly, burning my mouth. “Look how well I got Tayla riding today. She had no idea how to get a pony on the bit correctly but within minutes she was rock solid in all three paces and the Seagull was looking like a wee dressage pony.”

  �
��Well then, what were you thinking only asking forty dollars an hour?” Mum asked me. I couldn’t quite tell if she was being serious or sarcastic, although I was leaning towards the latter.

  “Dunno. It’s still pretty decent money though,” I reminded her as I stirred my soup to cool it down. “You don’t make forty bucks an hour at your job.”

  “True, but…” she started to say, but the phone rang and cut her off. I jumped to my feet and grabbed the receiver, wondering if it was news about AJ, or Anders.

  But it was just Dad. “Evening Katy, how are you?”

  “Fine thanks,” I told him, because how I was really feeling would’ve taken far too long to explain, and wasn’t something I wanted to share with him anyway. I could never seem to feel one thing at once, but was always raging between several emotions. Right now I was tired, and worried, and a bit scared, but also triumphant and determined. And hungry. I sat down at the table again and picked up my spoon. “How’re you?”

  “A lot poorer than the last time we spoke.”

  I put my spoon back down as I registered the smile in his voice. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “I expect so. I hope you still want her, because she passed her vet check with flying colours, and she’s officially all yours.”

  Better add incredibly excited to that list of emotions. I let out a girly squeal that I’d never have let AJ hear come from my mouth, but she wasn’t here and would never know. “That’s so awesome! When’s she coming?”

  “Thursday,” Dad said, sounding almost equally excited. “Marlene is going to arrange for her to go down on a transporter. She should be there some time that afternoon.”

  “That’s so cool!” My heart was pounding at a million miles an hour, and all I wanted to do was dance around the room. And tell AJ. I realised suddenly that I hadn’t even mentioned Tori when I’d seen her today. Did she still have her phone? Did she even know that my father had had a spasm of generosity and bought me an incredible new horse to produce?