Free Showjumpers by Stacy Gregg

talking about it? Does it earn us points for the class ranking?”
    “No, Daisy.” Alice looked at her like she was from Mars. “It’s for fun.”
    Daisy wrinkled her nose up. “Yeah, whatever.”
    “It’s not fun so far,” Emily groaned. “It’s torture. The other day Alex came over at lunch and I thought he was finally going to ask me, but then he just said, ‘Are you going to eat your pudding or can I have it?'”
    “Well, if you want to go with him, why don’t you ask him?” Alice said.
    “Yeah, well, why don’t you ask Cameron?” Emily countered.
    Alice turned bright pink. All the girls in Badminton House suspected that Alice had a crush on Cam, but she would never admit it.
    “So, let me get this straight,” Georgie said. “None of us have dates for the Formal?”
    The other girls nodded glumly.
    “After your performance last week,” Daisy said. “I’d spend more time worrying about cross-country elimination Georgie, if I were you.”
    “Daisy!” Alice said.
    “What?” Daisy frowned. “Oh, come on! Georgie knows it’s true – she’s at the bottom of the class.”
    Daisy was brutally honest and dead right. Georgie had to raise her game if she wanted to be in Tara’s class beyond the end of term.
    “We’re going to take the horses out to the steeplechase section of the course today,” Tara told them. “The jumps are not big, and they’re not complex. This is all about getting the horses working at a nice, regular gallop through the course.”
    The steeplechase was the same course they had ridden for their mid-term exam, a series of low natural fences like spars and hedges that could be taken at a fair speed. As Georgie headed over to the start of the course, she recognised the wiry, hunched figure of the school’s caretaker, Kenny, moving jump stands from the arena to the equipment shed nearby.
    Kenny did odd jobs around the Academy and was the school’s driver. When Georgie had first arrived in Lexington it had been Kenny who had met her at the airport to drive her to Blainford, and although Georgie sometimes had trouble understanding his Kentucky drawl and was a bit grossed out by his habit of mulching his chewing tobacco around in his mouth as he spoke, she really liked him.
    “Hi, Kenny!” Georgie called out.
    “Georgie!” Kenny grinned at her and put down the jump stand he was carrying to come over and say hello. “Hey, how’s that mare of yours goin'?”
    “We got into the House Showjumping team,” Georgie said proudly.
    “Good for you!” Kenny said.
    It’s funny,
Georgie thought,
even when he’s talking to you, he always has at least one eye on your horse.
As they chatted, she could see he was watching the way Belle was behaving, crab-stepping beneath Georgie, incapable of standing still.
    “She’s restless, ain’t she?” Kenny said. “She always like this when you’re on the course?”
    “She was too fresh last week,” Georgie admitted, “but I’ve given her loads of work since then. She’ll be totally different this time.”
    Kenny didn’t look convinced. “A lot of Thoroughbred in her,” he observed. “She’s got the build – and the temperament too. A hot-head. Got your hands full with this mare, that’s for sure.” He paused to spit out his chewing tobacco. “I got a nephew, he’s a jockey. Rides trackwork at Clemency Farm, out past Pleasant Hill,” Kenny said. “Riley Conway’s his name. That boy has a way with horses I’ve never seen before. If one of the other jockeys has a horse they can’t make headway with, they send ‘em to Riley. There ain’t a horse that boy can’t figure out. He’d be able to help with this mare, for sure.”
    “Thanks, Kenny,” Georgie said, feeling slightly resentful to be given advice when her horse hadn’t even done anything wrong yet. “But Belle isn’t a racehorse. She doesn’t need to learn how to go around a track.”
    “You know what my dad always used to say?” Kenny smiled. “He’d