Bridle Path (2 page)

Dorothy’s fiancé was named Nigel Hawthorne. The girls had been following his career in equestrian magazines as avidly as they followed Skye’s in teen magazines. Both Nigel and Skye were doing very well. As a member of the British Team, Nigel could compete in every important international show in the world. Dorothy would travel with him sometimes. At other times, she would remain at her stable on New York’s Long Island, training show horses. Although she couldn’t compete anymore, she could still train, and she did. Sometimes she trained horses she owned and that Nigel might ride. Other times owners hired her to train their horses. The life that Dorothy and her
husband would live sounded just about perfect to the Saddle Club girls.

“Even their wedding is going to be horsey,” said Stevie. “They’re getting married at Dorothy’s stable.”

“On horseback?” Carole asked.

“I don’t think so,” said Stevie.

“But wouldn’t that be perfect?” Carole asked.

Stevie cocked her head. She’d never thought about something like that, but once Stevie got to thinking about something, she often thought very fast.

“Sure, the flower girls could be on ponies,” she began.

Lisa liked the idea, too. “The bride and groom could wear matching riding outfits.”

“White, of course,” said Carole.

“And the bride’s bouquet could be made with blue ribbons,” Stevie added.

“Maybe the bride and groom would be in a horse-drawn carriage,” Carole suggested.

“No, but that’s how they’d leave for their honeymoon,” Stevie said. She sighed because it sounded so romantic.

“But the reception would have to take place in a paddock,” Lisa commented.

“Unless it rained, in which case it could be in the indoor ring,” Stevie said.

“And the food?” Carole asked.

There was a burst of laughter then from the hall outside Stevie’s room. Stevie yanked on the door and found her twin brother Alex convulsed in giggles. Chad, her older brother, was in no better condition. Her younger brother, Michael, was able to report on what Alex and Chad had found so funny.

“Chad said you should eat hay at the reception,” Michael said earnestly. “Alex thought the bride’s bouquet should be made of manure. And I said that—”

Stevie didn’t give him a chance to finish. She pounced, shrieking loudly as she landed amid her brothers. It was hard for Lisa and Carole to make out who was winning, but it seemed clear that Stevie was getting in some licks.

She didn’t have time to get many in, though, because Mrs. Lake arrived.

“What’s going on here?” she demanded.

“They were snooping outside my door!” Stevie said. “They were listening in and making fun.”

Mrs. Lake looked at the boys. Annoyed as she was about the condition of Stevie’s room, privacy was important, and in their house a closed door required respect. The boys had been breaking a household rule.

“Mom, she was talking about getting married on horseback!” Alex said in defense.

“And having flower girls on ponies!” Michael added. This brought another wave of laughter from the three boys. Mrs. Lake sighed. She looked into Stevie’s room. It looked better. Not good, but better. And good enough to allow her to stop the fight that would no doubt continue the minute she left the scene. She glanced at her watch.

“Isn’t it time for your Pony Club meeting?” she asked.

“Got to run!” Stevie said. She, Lisa, and Carole were out of the house in five minutes flat.

T
HE ENTIRE
P
ONY
Club was mounted on horseback shortly after the Horse Wise meeting began. This was Stevie’s kind of meeting. Studying horse poses was important—even Stevie knew that. But riding was
fun.
Everybody knew that. Not only were they on horseback, but they were playing games. Max wanted to see if he could make a relay team from Horse Wise that could compete outside their own district. The Saddle Club girls decided immediately who the first three members should be, and they appreciated every opportunity to demonstrate their abilities.

They ran a tennis-racket relay race. For that one, each rider in turn had to carry a tennis racket with a
ball balanced on it through a course of poles, weaving through them. They weren’t allowed to touch the ball, except when it fell off the racket. That happened a lot, especially to the other riders. Stevie, Lisa, and Carole did pretty well, and their team won the race easily.

They didn’t do quite so well with the Supermarket Sweep. Each rider was supposed to race around the ring, stopping at six different piles where there were stacks of shopping items that they had to put in a bag and carry to the next post. They started out pretty well, but then Lisa broke a box of eggs and that put them in third place—out of four. Carole had trouble with the roll of paper towels. When she dropped it, the roll unrolled and it took her a long time to dismount, roll it up, and get back into Starlight’s saddle. By the time it was Stevie’s turn, the team was a distant fourth. She decided to compensate for her disappointment by eating the cookies instead of putting them into a shopping bag. Normally Carole’s seriousness and Lisa’s competitiveness would have made them annoyed with Stevie, but by that time, they were so far behind in that race that they thought Stevie had a pretty good idea. They shared.

Once the other riders finished their races, they ate their cookies, too. Max, of course, had known this
would happen. He provided plastic glasses and milk. It seemed to Stevie, Carole, and Lisa that no matter how hard they tried to outfox Max, he was always a step ahead of them.

“Now, while you’re all quiet—and the only way I can be sure of that is to see to it that your mouths are otherwise occupied—I’m going to tell you some good news. We’re going to have a visitor next week. Dorothy DeSoto will be here. She’s bringing a friend—a
special
friend—”

The Saddle Club exchanged glances. This did sound like good news.

“A gentleman who is a member of the British Equestrian Team, Mr. Nigel Hawthorne. Mr. Hawthorne is here because his team is competing in the Washington Horse Show.”

“Here?” asked Meg Durham, one of the Horse Wise members.

“Well, near here,” Max said. Pine Hollow was in Willow Creek, Virginia, about twenty miles from Washington, D.C.

Everybody knew about the Washington Horse Show. It was a major event on the horse-show calendar, drawing the best riders from all over the United States, as well as international competitors. In certain events, national equestrian teams, usually
the same riders who competed in the Olympics, participated.

“But aren’t they about to get married?” Lisa blurted out, recalling the conversation the girls had while cleaning Stevie’s room. “I mean, shouldn’t there be parties and dress fittings—stuff like that?”

Max smiled. “Yes, they are about to get married, but business has to come before pleasure. This is going to be Nigel’s last show before the wedding. His team is going on to Italy for a show in Milan after this. He and Dorothy will return to her stable on Long Island for their wedding the following weekend.”

“You mean Nigel won’t go to Italy?” Stevie asked. “What’s the team going to do without him?”

“They’ll manage,” Max said. “All of these teams have a couple of alternate riders so that if one member has to be someplace or if a rider’s horse is lamed and can’t compete, they’ll still have a full team. Nigel has somebody to stand in for him while he and Dorothy get married and have a honeymoon. Then it’ll be back to business as usual. Anyway, Dorothy will be here for our meeting next week. Nigel may have to be at the show or he may be here. I’ve asked Dorothy to talk with you all about training championship show horses. Since we’re all working together on training our colt, Samson, I’m sure we’ll get a lot of useful
information from her. Now, that’s enough of this talking”—he said the last word as if it were something bad—“it’s time to get to work and untack your horses. Each rider must groom his or her horse, and we’ll have an inspection in exactly one half hour. Will you be ready?”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Carole said, saluting him sharply. Her father was a colonel in the Marine Corps, and she knew how to give a proper salute. Max clicked his heels together in acknowledgment and dismissed the riders to their chores.

Carole dismounted and led Starlight to his stall. She loved to ride every bit as much as Stevie did, but she also loved all the work that went with being a horse owner. Grooming was almost as much fun as riding. She liked how shiny and wonderful Starlight looked when she did the job right. Even more, she liked how much the horse enjoyed the attention he got as she worked on him. He seemed to know when he looked good and loved to show off his gleaming coat.

First, she removed his tack and brushed it clean before she returned it to the tack room. Then she got out her grooming bucket and got to work cleaning him up.

“Don’t forget to clean his hooves,” Max said, looking
over the door to the stall. Carole was surprised he was there. She was even more surprised that he was giving her such a basic instruction. Everybody knew that a grooming should start with picking the horse’s hooves.

“No problem, Max,” Carole said. She took the hoof pick out of the bucket and began the job. Max watched.

“Are you checking to see if I know how to do this or watching to see if you can pick up some pointers?” Carole asked.

“Neither, really,” Max said, smiling at her attitude. “I’m just thinking. This seemed as good a place as any to do it.”

“What are you thinking about?” Carole asked.

“Dorothy,” he said.

“Me, too,” said Carole. “I can’t wait until she gets here. Nigel, too.” She paused for a second. “Nope, I mean Nigel
especially.
I always like it when Dorothy’s here. She’s wonderful. But it’s just the neatest thing that Nigel—should I call him Mr. Hawthorne?”

“Don’t bother. He’ll tell you to call him Nigel,” Max said. Carole liked that, both about Max and about Nigel.

“Anyway, it’s neat that he’s this championship international
competitor for England. He must be just about the
best.
”

“Just about,” Max agreed. “But there’s something else, too. Dorothy has a stallion she wants me to buy.”

This was really news.

“She’s been training him for another stable, and he had an accident that will keep him out of the ring for a very long time. It’s too long as far as the owners are concerned. Dorothy tells me his bloodlines are excellent, and she should know because she owns his full brother and has used him for breeding.”

Carole didn’t have to ask what Max meant by that. It meant that there were a lot of champions in the horse’s family, and it also meant that it was likely he could sire champions, even if he never could be one himself.

Carole could hardly contain her excitement. “Are you thinking about doing more breeding here?” she asked. If a stable had a championship stallion, people who had mares would bring them to be mated with the stallion. That often meant that the mares would come to the stable to have their foals so they could be mated with the stallion soon after the birth of the foal. All of this sounded wonderful to Carole.

“Maybe,” Max said. “I’m not really set up here to
be a major breeding farm, but I might do it somewhat as a sideline. What would you think about it?”

Carole didn’t have to think about her answer to that question. “It would be the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world! Imagine—foals being born here all the time. It’s wonderful!”

Carole and her friends had been present at the birth of Samson, the colt they were now beginning to train. It had been a little scary for them, but it had also been exciting and beautiful. Carole didn’t think there was anything more exciting in the world than watching a foal take its first few steps and its first taste of mare’s milk.

“Look,” she said. “There are two stalls over there that we rarely use, and we can knock down one wall to make a single big stall that we can use as a second foaling box. I think the stallion will need a paddock of his own, and it shouldn’t be far from the stable because stallions tend to be moody and unpredictable, so it would probably be best to have it open directly from his stall. I think the best candidate for that would be the stall on the other side, across from the tack room. It has a big window. It shouldn’t be hard to turn that window into a door, and that’s right by the large paddock. The stallion can make do with half that paddock, can’t he? Max?”

Carole stopped because she noticed that Max was laughing. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

“You,” he said. “I ask you a simple question, like what do you think of the idea, and the next thing I know, you’re moving walls and shifting paddocks around!”

“You don’t like my ideas?” Carole asked. Her feelings were a little bit hurt.

“Oh, no, it’s not that,” Max said. “What’s really funny is that everything you said was something I’ve already decided is the right way to handle this. Only it took me about a week of thinking to come up with it!”

Carole’s feelings weren’t hurt anymore. She was very pleased, indeed. She was even embarrassed now because she thought she might have hurt Max’s feelings a little bit by being so very clever. She didn’t have a chance to say anything, though, because their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of one of the stable’s adult riders, Judge Gavin.