Free Show Horse by Bonnie Bryant Page B

never felt the annoyed tugging on the lead rope. The only thing in her mind was anger.
    This time it wasn’t my fault, she thought. Prancer is far and away the finest horse in the ring. The only way Prancer would have bucked and kicked the judge would be if the judge provoked her.
    That was it, then, Lisa was sure. It had to be the answer. She decided the judge must have somehow resented the fact that an Intermediate rider had such a fine and valuable horse and had found a way to get her out of the competition. Maybe it was because the judge had always wished
she
could have ridden a horselike Prancer. Or maybe somebody she’d known when she was a kid did have a horse like Prancer and she was jealous. Or maybe the judge actually didn’t like young riders and wanted to be mean. Or maybe—
    “I knew another young rider who had that happen once,” a voice said to Lisa. She looked up. It was Mrs. Reg. She was standing by Prancer’s stall. Lisa realized with a little surprise that she’d apparently been waiting for Lisa and Prancer there.
    Lisa didn’t say anything. There wasn’t any point in it. Some days there wasn’t any point in anything at all.
    Mrs. Reg didn’t seem to notice that Lisa hadn’t answered. She went on talking.
    “He was a fine young rider with great potential.”
    Lisa groaned inwardly. Mrs. Reg was well-known for her endless supply of stories. The stories were always about horses; they were always about something that happened a long time ago; and they always related to something that had just happened. Usually, the trick was figuring out exactly how they related to what had just happened.
    Right now Lisa wasn’t interested in what Mrs. Reg had to say—unless it had to do with a judge who had it in for a rider in a show. That didn’t seem to be what this was about.
    “So this young boy fell for a new horse that came to the stable—Lightning was his name, I think. The boy was bound and determined to take him out on a trail ride. Max—
my
Max, that is—” She meant, then, thatit was her husband Max, not the current Max, who was her son. “Max told the boy the horse wasn’t ready. He hadn’t finished his training. The boy said the horse had all the training he needed to go out on the trail. In a way, he was right. The horse knew what he was doing. Didn’t need the boy to tell him anything. As a result, he didn’t listen to anything the boy told him.”
    Mrs. Reg stopped talking. Lisa was annoyed because the story didn’t have anything to do with a judge, but her curiosity was piqued. She couldn’t help herself. She asked the question.
    “So what happened?”
    Mrs. Reg looked confused, as if the story was totally self-explanatory and no question should have been asked. Then she shrugged her shoulders and continued, briefly. “Oh, the boy got out of the hospital in a week or so. He’s fine now.”
    That was it. Mrs. Reg’s story was finished, and she wasn’t going to say anything more. She held the stall door for Lisa and Prancer. Once the horse was inside and Lisa was out, Mrs. Reg closed the door and fastened the latch. She walked off, muttering something about saddle soap, leaving Lisa to herself.
    Lisa was by herself. In fact, she felt as alone as she could ever remember feeling. All her dreams had been shattered in one quick kick and a simple word from a judge. “Disqualified.” Now it seemed that it was going to get even worse. She couldn’t leave. Her mother and father were coming, but not until the afternoon, and she couldn’t even reach them to have them come gether now. She had to stay. But she didn’t have to stay where anybody could see her or talk to her or try to comfort her or tell her dumb stories about riders who ended up in the hospital. She decided that she wanted to be as much by herself as she felt.
    She looked around the temporary stalls and didn’t see anyplace to go. She wandered into Briarwood’s stables and found what she was looking for—a