Free Bridle Path by Bonnie Bryant Page A

it works.”
    “Well, whatever Mark does, it works,” Stevie said, still impressed with the results of the groom’s ministrations. “I think we could get some pointers here.”
    “You probably could, but I’m going to shoo you back to your seats. The show is starting in a few minutes, and though I’d be glad to have you stay around,the show management discourages visitors during the performance. My event is the last of the evening, so I won’t be seeing you again tonight, but I gather you’ll be at the stable when Doro and I get there tomorrow.”
    Doro?
Stevie thought. Then she realized that, of course, he was talking about Dorothy. She liked the nickname. She smiled.
    “Yes, tomorrow. We’ll be there. Promise,” she said.
    They all shook his hand and listened carefully while he gave them directions to get back to their seats. They made only three or four wrong turns (depending on whether it was Stevie’s count or Lisa’s), but they made it, and by the time the horn sounded to announce the beginning of the first event, they were back in their seats next to Max and Mrs. Reg.
    “Did you meet Nigel?” Max asked Lisa, who sat next to him.
    Lisa nodded. “He’s wonderful,” she said. “Just right for Dorothy.”
    “I think so, too,” Max said.
    The show began.

A LTHOUGH THERE WASN ’ T anything about horses that the girls didn’t like, there were things they liked better than others, and there was one thing they were definitely looking forward to. The classes before the Gambler’s Choice couldn’t hold a candle to it in excitement. Besides that, they didn’t know any of the riders in the other classes, and they knew one in the Gambler’s Choice—three if they counted the two team members that Nigel had introduced them to.
    When it was almost time for Nigel’s class, the ring was cleared and swept, and then the roustabouts took a long time setting up the jumps.
    “They have to be just so,” Carole explained to herfriends, though they already knew something about setting up jumps for a competition. “The woman there with the clipboard is probably the course designer. It’s a very specialized career.…”
    Stevie loved Carole a lot, but she did sometimes wish that her friend wouldn’t go on and on. When the subject was horses, there was almost no way to stop her once she began. Stevie tried, though.
    “Is that one of the careers you’ve considered?” Stevie asked.
    Carole paused and looked at Stevie. The twinkle in her eye told Carole she was teasing.
    “I was doing it again, huh?”
    “Yes, you were. Fortunately, I was here to stop you, and now the event is going to begin, which will stop me from gloating!”
    It was times like that that made both Carole and Stevie glad they were best friends. They shook hands. Lisa joined in.
    The first part of the event was allowing all the riders to walk the course. All the competitors, about twenty-five of them, came out at once. Unlike most jump courses, this one didn’t have a specified order that the riders had to follow. Instead, each jump had a point value, and they could choose whatever jumps they wanted. They could go over any jumps, up to twotimes, during the first fifty seconds of the competition. Then, when the final buzzer rang, they had fifteen seconds in which to decide whether or not they would jump The Joker. That was the highest, toughest jump of all. If they missed, they lost. If they made it, they got seventy points. If they didn’t attempt it, they weren’t penalized, but they also wouldn’t be likely to win.
    “Look, there’s Nigel!” Lisa said, pointing him out to her friends. It wasn’t really necessary, though, because he’d already spotted them and was walking over to measure the part of the course that ran right by them.
    “I’m riding seventeenth,” he told them.
    “Oh, that’s great!” said Max. It was considered an advantage to be riding late because then the rider would know what score he or she had to