Bridle Path (3 page)

“I say there, Regnery,” he said rather unpleasantly. “Have you got a decent horse for me today?”

Carole cringed on Max’s behalf.
All
of Max’s horses were “decent,” and most of them were a lot more than that. Experience had shown Carole and her friends that it was important to match horses and riders carefully.
Carole had taken on the job at the stable once while Max was away and discovered that she was pretty good at it. Max turned to her for advice now.

“Carole, what do you think?” he asked. “Judge Gavin has a lot of experience. He’s a good rider and enjoys a spirited horse—”

“Comanche?” Carole suggested.

The judge grunted and then scowled. “I tried that one last week,” he said. The look on his face told Carole that it had not been a successful attempt. Comanche was a spirited horse, but he wasn’t difficult for a good rider. Apparently Max was hinting to Carole that Judge Gavin wasn’t quite as good a rider as Judge Gavin liked to think he was. He needed a horse he
thought
was spirited. This was going to require some tact.

“Do you think he could handle Delilah?” Carole asked.

“Hmmmm,” Max said. Delilah was a mare—the mother of Samson. She was a fine horse and very responsive. She was not spirited the way Comanche was. She was also quite beautiful, being a palomino, with a silvery mane. A lot of riders were awed by her beauty. “Delilah,” Max said, as if he were mulling the idea some more. “Yes, I think so. A rider with the judge’s experience … definitely, Delilah.”

“Is she going to be too much for me?” the man asked, suddenly concerned. Max turned to Carole.

“Oh, no, Your Honor,” she said. “I know your reputation. And I’ve watched you ride. You’re tough. Delilah will recognize that right away. She’s a good horse, though. I don’t think she’ll give you much trouble. And she hasn’t been ridden yet today. Max wouldn’t put any of the Pony Club children on her, so she’s fresh. I think you’ll be able to control her just fine.”

Carole didn’t look at Max. She knew that if she did, the two of them would burst out laughing.

“All right. I’ll try her,” the judge agreed. “Can you have her saddled up for me?”

“Certainly,” Max said. “I’ll get right on it. Get yourself a hat from the wall in the locker area, and we’ll have you mounted up and riding in no time.”

Judge Gavin followed Max away from Starlight’s stall. Carole was pleased with herself until she realized that sending the judge to the hat collection might backfire. All the spare hats were hung on nails on one wall. Stevie sometimes thought it was a fun idea to arrange them to spell things, and he might not share Stevie’s sense of humor. However, there was no outraged “harrumph” from the locker area, so Carole assumed that Stevie hadn’t been mischievous or else the
judge hadn’t noticed. She sighed with relief. Judge Gavin was an important man in town and an important customer to Max. It wouldn’t help Max to offend him.

Carole picked up her grooming tools and began working on Starlight’s coat in earnest. She’d finished about half the job when there was a knock at the stall door. Carole looked up.

“Saddle Club meeting at TD’s in half an hour?” Stevie asked.

“Sure,” Carole agreed. It seemed that there were a lot of things to talk about with her friends, especially the stallion Max might buy. Lisa and Stevie were going to love this news as much as she did.

Carole applied herself to Starlight’s grooming so she wouldn’t keep her friends waiting. When he was shiny as could be, when his water bucket was filled and he had a fresh tick of hay, when his stall had been mucked and there was clean straw for him to stand in, then she was ready to leave. She met Lisa and Stevie in the locker area. They each changed into street clothes. They would have been perfectly happy to wear riding clothes that carried the wonderful rich smell of horses all the time. They had found that not everybody shared their love of that scent, and so they usually changed before they left Pine Hollow, especially
if they were going to TD’s—an ice-cream shop at the nearby shopping center.

The three girls were about to walk out the door when Mrs. Reg appeared and stood in their way. Mrs. Reg was Max’s mother and served as the stable manager. She was a good friend and an occasional surrogate mother to the riders, but she was also a stickler for completed chores.

“Ahem,” she said, looking straight at Stevie. “I just took a look at Topside’s tack, and it seems to me that it is now more suitable to plant radishes than to put on a horse’s back!”

“I just cleaned it—” Stevie began a protest.

“Well, it just got dirty, then,” Mrs. Reg said. “It must be cleaned before you leave today.”

Carole and Lisa looked at one another and shrugged. “Let’s get to it,” Carole said.

The girls returned to the tack room, where they found that Topside’s tack certainly did need a soaping. It would only take a short time with three sets of hands to do the job. Stevie was pretty sure her friends wouldn’t mind helping her today. Again.

“I
DON
’
T THINK
dusting is going to do the job,” Carole said, looking at Topside’s tack. “This stuff looks as if it got dragged through mud.”

“It did,” said Stevie. “Remember how it rained yesterday and then we went out on the trail ride? I removed Topside’s tack to groom him outside because it was so nice by then, but I didn’t balance the saddle right on the fence—”

Stevie didn’t have to finish the story. Both Lisa and Carole remembered then that the saddle had tipped into the mud, dragging all the rest of the tack with it. They were surprised that Stevie hadn’t cleaned the tack right away. It might have been easier then. But
that would have meant that they would have been late getting to Stevie’s house for their sleepover. Stevie’s motto seemed to be “Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow—especially if you can get two good friends to do it with/for you!”

Carole picked up a brush and attacked the caked-on mud on the saddle. Stevie began working on the bridle. Lisa worked on the metal parts of the tack with another brush and then soap and water.

“Guess what,” Carole said, working on a particularly stubborn mud glob with her thumbnail.

“What?” Stevie asked.

“The other reason Dorothy is coming is because she’s bringing a stallion for Max.”

“Max doesn’t need a stallion,” said Lisa. “They’re difficult to ride. He’d never let one of us kids ride it, and the adult riders like tame horses, too. A stallion would be crazy for riding.”

Stevie saw the other side of the story right away. “You’re kidding! How wonderful!”

“
I’m
not going to ride him,” said Lisa. “No way!”

“He’s not for riding,” Stevie told her.

“What else, then?” She seemed genuinely confused.

“Breeding,” explained Carole. “Max is really considering breeding on a regular basis. This horse has good bloodlines, and there are a lot of people who
would like to have their foals sired by a champion. That way, the foals are more likely to be champions themselves.”

“You mean we’re going to have a lot of baby horses around here?” Lisa asked. Her eyes lit up.

“Sometimes,” said Carole. “Breeding horses can really be a big business. If this stallion is good enough, Max can probably make a lot of money with him.”

“Then why doesn’t Dorothy want to keep him?” asked Lisa.

“Dorothy owns his full brother and uses him for breeding. She doesn’t need another horse with identical bloodlines,” Carole explained. “She was training this one, but he had an accident and isn’t suitable for showing now. He’s perfect for breeding, however.”

“Another wedding!” Stevie mused.

“Huh?” said Carole.

“Well, it seems that everywhere I look these days, somebody’s getting married. First Dorothy and Nigel, then Skye on television, and now a mare will marry this stallion.”

Carole took a deep breath and got ready to explain to Stevie that horses didn’t really
marry.
The sires, as father horses were called, took no part in raising the young, except for in the wild, where young horses were part of a herd of mares and foals that was led by
the sole stallion in the group. On a breeding farm, mares were separated from the stallions except when they were actually being bred, and the foals that were produced would likely never even see their sires. This was not like a traditional family of humans.

“Oh, I know all that stuff,” Stevie said before Carole even began. “But it’s always seemed to me that there should be a little more romance to it. Of course, we don’t even know who this stallion would marry, do we?”

“Sure, what good is a groom without a bride?” Lisa said. “How about Prancer?”

“I don’t think so. Remember that foot?” Stevie said.

Prancer was a Thoroughbred mare that Max and the stable’s vet, Judy Barker, owned together. She had been bred and trained as a racer, but a fracture in her foot had ended that. She was now being retrained as a stable and show horse. However, there was a history of weak feet in her family, and the fracture she’d suffered confirmed that. It wasn’t wise to use her for breeding, because it would mean that her foals would have a good chance of acquiring the same fault.

“Okay, so if Prancer’s out, then who?”

“
If
Max wants to breed one of Pine Hollow’s mares at all,” said Carole.

“Of course he will,” Stevie said, dismissing Carole’s
caution. “Or maybe just a horse that boards here. How about Garnet?” Garnet was an Arabian mare owned by a young rider, Veronica diAngelo—the one young rider the Saddle Club girls really couldn’t stand because she was such a snob.

“I hope not,” said Lisa. “I wouldn’t want anything that nice or that exciting to happen to Veronica.”

Stevie laughed because she agreed.

“I don’t think so,” said Carole. “If Garnet was carrying a foal, Veronica wouldn’t be able to ride her for a long time. I can’t see her giving up the opportunity to ride a horse as nice-looking as Garnet. And besides, all her riding clothes have been designed to coordinate with the color of Garnet’s coat.”

Lisa chuckled, not because Carole had said a funny thing, but because what she had said was true. Veronica was more concerned with the look of her horse than with how well she could ride it. She definitely had her priorities upside down when it came to horses, and everything else.

“Delilah!” Carole said.

Both Lisa and Stevie looked up at her.

“Definitely Delilah. Remember, she’s already foaled successfully, and that’s an important thing to know about a mare. It’s a while since Samson was born, and he doesn’t need her anymore, although, of course, a
mare can foal every year, no problem. Anyway, that’s got to be the mare that Max would choose first.”

It made sense. And one of the nicest things about it was that since Delilah belonged to the stable, she would definitely have her foal here, and the girls could be helpful, as they had been when Samson was born.

“What are you three doing here?” That was Max. “Aren’t you supposed to be shoveling down your sundaes by now?”

The girls were a little surprised to learn that he knew about their traditional stop at TD’s. When they stopped to think about it, though, it wasn’t so surprising. Max always seemed to know everything.

“Ah, the tack,” he said, confirming their suspicions. “I did notice that it needed work. A lot of it.”

“It’s getting it,” Stevie assured him. “With a little help from my friends.”

Max nodded. “Well, your friend Carole has been helpful to me today, too, so I’m glad to get a chance to thank her.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Judge Gavin was crazy about Delilah. He’s a fussy man, and I haven’t been able to please him at all. You managed nicely. He says he wants to ride her again, and he kept telling me what a bright and talented young woman you are. You really impressed
him in a way I haven’t. I don’t usually think it’s a good idea to coddle my riders, but Judge Gavin is an important man in town, and I was pleased when he said he wanted to ride here. He’ll probably bring me other new riders. That’s good for all of us, so, thanks, Carole. Thanks very much.”

“You’re welcome, Max. I think I was just lucky, though.”

“ ‘Tactful’ is probably the word. The man’s convinced that it’s his riding skill that’s tamed that spirited palomino.”

Lisa and Stevie thought it was pretty funny when they heard the details, but they were glad that Carole had done something good for Max.

“Listen,” he said. “One of the events that Nigel is going to be competing in is called the Gambler’s Choice. It’s really exciting. Mom and I are planning to go with Dorothy, although there’s so much work to be done around here that I’m not sure we’ll be able to take the time off. Anyway, if I could get some extra tickets, would you three like to come along?”

Would they! The looks on their faces answered Max’s question.

“Well, I’m not sure,” he said. “There is a lot to be done. I know I’d need some help from you all—I mean like major chores, not just the routine stuff.”

“We’ll help,” Carole said.

“Promise,” Stevie added.

“Whatever it is,” promised Lisa.

“And, of course, there are Pony Club jobs that need to be up-to-date.”