Free The Fox Hunt by Bonnie Bryant Page A

schooling as soon as she was sure he was limber and ready. She had been riding for so long and had learned so much that it seemed she could feel every muscle in the horse when he moved. There was a very different feel to Starlight’s gaits when he was warmed up than when he was still tense and stiff from a day and a night spent in his stall. By the third time he’d circled the large indoor ring, she could feel him relaxing. Part of it was the fact that he was just getting used to having Carole in the saddle. Part of it was that his muscles were now ready to work. So Carole put them to work.
    She brought him back to a walk and then spent fifteen minutes systematically changing gaits, from walk to trot to canter to trot and back to canter, then down to a walk. The signals for each gait were very different from one another. Starlight certainly knew them all, but as with any young horse, and Starlight was only four, he sometimes resisted changing gaits. A well-trained horse had to learn to respond instantly. Carole hoped very much that one day she would be able to ride Starlight in shows—maybe even at the level of national competition—and for that, she was going to need a very well-trained horse.
    She was so focused on what she was doing that shedidn’t even see Stevie arrive. When she looked up, Stevie was leaning on the fence with her chin in her hands, watching everything her friends were doing.
    “I love seeing you work with Starlight,” Stevie said.
    “All it takes is patience,” Carole said.
    “And skill,” Stevie said. “You’ve got a lot of that. Fortunately, Starlight also seems to have brains, so sometimes he remembers the things you teach him.”
    “Repetition. That’s the secret to training a horse,” Carole said. “They learn something one day and then forget an awful lot of it by the next day. As long as you keep repeating the lesson again and again and again, eventually most of it stays in their memory banks.”
    “I wish it were the same way with people,” Stevie said.
    “That’s just what Carole and I were talking about earlier,” Lisa said, bringing Samson over. Actually, she followed the foal to where Stevie was. Samson was a very curious young horse, and he was eager to greet Stevie. Lisa knew she ought to be in charge when she had him on a lead line, but he seemed so glad to see her friend that she couldn’t say no. His eagerness might have had something to do with the sugar lump Stevie was offering him.
    “You’ll spoil him,” Lisa cautioned.
    “No way,” Stevie said. “Besides, if I do, Carole will just finish the training properly and get rid of all the spoiling
I
do.”
    “Thanks,” Carole said. She rode over to where her friends were now standing and leaning forward, patting Starlight on the neck. He’d been working hard and deserved a break.
    Stevie patted him, too, and then gave him a sugar lump as well. Then she patted Samson. The foal nuzzled her neck and tickled her. She loved it. She giggled. “What’s neat about Samson is that even when you’re working him and training him, he’s still sweet. I wish that were the case with brothers.”
    Lisa and Carole looked at one another. This had a distinctly ominous sound.
    “Did something happen?” Carole asked.
    “No, but it’s going to. I mean something is definitely up,” Stevie said.
    “What makes you think so?” Lisa asked.
    “It’s Chad,” Stevie said. “He’s apparently got a new girlfriend.”
    “What’s so strange about that?” Carole asked. “The average life span of a romance for Chad is about four days, right? So it seems like it’s time for a switch.”
    Stevie smiled. It was true. Chad was notably fickle in his relationships. “I guess you’re right,” she admitted. “His lacrosse stick actually looks like a bowl of leftover alphabet soup! Anyway, what’s funny isn’t that he’s got a new girlfriend, but who it is. Stand back, girls. It’s Veronica diAngelo.”
    “
Our
Veronica