Winter Circuit (The Show Circuit -- Book 2) (12 page)

I was beginning to feel really uncomfortable. Maybe it was only a few moments that had passed but it had felt too long. I caught Chris’s eye and he realized I’d never met Mary Beth.

“Oh, sorry, Mary Beth, this is Hannah. Hannah, Mary Beth.”

She stuck out her hand to shake. Very professional. She gave me a beautiful smile—all white teeth and perfect candy-colored lips. “Oh my goodness, so glad to finally meet you,” she effused. “I’ve heard so much from Chris about you, and I’ve been dying to meet you.”

How much could she have heard from him about me? I mean, why were they even talking? It was like a backhanded compliment, one that got under my skin and made me paranoid.

“Nice to meet you too,” I mustered.

I’d seen the photos and I knew she was pretty but in person Mary Beth radiated a kind of annoyingly genuine beauty. She didn’t have any of the traits that twenty-first century people stereotypically associate with beauty. Her hair wasn’t blonde—it was dark brown. Her eyes weren’t blue—they were brown too. She wasn’t tall and waifish—she was slightly short and average weight. But she had to-die-for tousled ringlet hair, now up in a high ponytail, apple cheeks, and smooth, unlined, evenly tanned skin. She was natural and warm, the type of gregarious, outgoing person that makes normal people seem like they’re lacking social skills. I wanted to hate her so much but part of me was kind of developing a crush on her.

I tried to think, well, at least Chris had good taste. But how could I compete with her? She was so at ease in her own skin, confidently relaxed.

“So I have the horse here—the one I was telling you about,” she said to Chris. To me, she explained, “I’ve got this amazing horse and I can’t ride it to save my life.”

She was humble too. Ugh. Could she appear more perfect?

“I really want Chris to look at the horse. If anyone can help me, it’s him. You wouldn’t mind, would you? I mean that kind of thing doesn’t bother you?”

That kind of thing? My boyfriend helping his ex-girlfriend? What was I going to say? If I said yes, it bothered me, I was confirming that I was that kind of person—the jealous, clingy kind. I had no choice but to act like, of course, I wanted him to help her. Like I was the supremely secure type of girlfriend.

“Yeah, definitely,” I said. “If anyone can figure him out, it’s Chris.”

“I know, right?” Mary Beth said. “This guy is one of our country’s best riders. It’s a crime he doesn’t have better horses right now. He’s got to get back into the big ring.”

“That’s what I’m working on,” Chris said.

“Do you have time now to help me school?” Mary Beth asked him.

Chris gave me another look, checking to see if I really was okay with all this. I gave a subtle nod, like I was so perfectly cool with it. But underneath, I felt myself itching to start biting my nails. It felt like an urgent bodily need, like when you really drink a lot of water and need to pee.

“Let me get on Logan and I can watch you while I’m getting him ready,” he said.

“Which one’s Logan?” Mary Beth asked.

So she didn’t know everything. “He’s my horse,” I said, a little too fast.

“Oh, neat. Can’t wait to see him go.”

“He’s nice,” Chris said. “He’s got some potential actually.”

“You do him in the amateurs?” Mary Beth asked.

“I’m not showing him anymore,” I said.

“She used to do the children’s with him, actually,” Chris added.

If I could have kicked him, I would have. Why not let her think I could jump the big jumps?

“Oh, cool,” Mary Beth said.

But I knew inside she was probably dying a thousand deaths. Chris, dating a children’s jumper rider?

“You going to stay and watch?” she asked.

“Yeah, of course,” I said.

“Great.” She smiled at Chris. “Meet you in the schooling ring.”

From the golf cart I watched them. I thought about standing by the schooling ring but I wanted to act casual. They flatted around and then took turns over the same jumps. I wished I could hear what Chris was saying. Mary Beth nodded a few times like she understood what he was suggesting. Her horse was strong, more like a thoroughbred than a warmblood. He had a canter like an egg-beater and she had to hold him back from the jumps. But at the jumps, he slowed down and jumped sky-high. I could see how it would be a hard ride, though, and different than a lot of the grand prix horses out there.

As they came up to the gate, Chris was explaining to her about trying not to hold him off too much at the front rail. To let him try to figure it out. He was saying the horse was careful enough and she had to trust him.

Mary Beth went in. Chris watched her round and I found myself feeling jealous and irrelevant on the side, like I wasn’t even part of the picture. He watched MB intently, like he’d watched me in Vermont. He cocked his head to the side slightly and I could see he was earnestly trying to figure out what would help her with the horse.

She had eight faults—from what I could tell with my more limited knowledge she spent most of her time fighting the horse and then found herself on top of the jumps.

She came out and Chris told her he thought she needed a different bit. I immediately thought he’d suggest a more severe bit but instead he told her the gag she had on him was too much for him, that it only made the horse angry, and also made him curl up. “Have you tried a hack-a-bit?”

“No, I thought I’d die if I did.”

“I think it’s worth a try. He might respond to the pressure on the nose better.”

“I still think I might die.” She gave him one of her beatific smiles. She had an almost incandescence to her when she smiled. She was one of those women that are so pretty even other women stare at them.

“You won’t. I really don’t think you will.”

“Will you come over to the farm and we can try it? So someone will be there to call the ambulance?”

The groom could call the ambulance, as far as I was concerned. But as much as I didn’t want Chris going over to Mary Beth’s farm, I also could understand how she would want someone to help her. It must be hard to be a professional like Chris or Mary Beth. You got help sometimes from more experienced grand prix riders, but you didn’t exactly have a trainer anymore. I could see why a lot of the grand prix riders relied on their colleagues to help them.

“Probably,” Chris said. “If I have time.”

Mary Beth stayed to watch him ride Logan. Logan went so well. His stride stayed the same the whole time around and he never looked like he didn’t want to jump. It was amazing what the months of training under Chris had done. I was so proud that he was my horse. He looked ride-able and smooth and he jumped super, easily clearing the course and the jump-off. I made a mental note to video him next time and send it to my dad.

I met Chris at the gate this time. Dale could deal with it. Logan was my horse after all.

I gave Logan a mint and told him how good he was.

“What a difference,” I said to Chris.

“I know, he’s going well.”

Mary Beth rode over, still on her difficult horse. “What a nice horse,” she said to both of us. Her horse was looking agitated, frothing at the mouth, and jigging. She couldn’t get that close to us and called, “Chris, I’ll text you later.”

“Okay,” he said.

“What are you up to now?” I asked Chris. I didn’t need to be back right away. “Stay a little while if you want,” Linda had said. “Tomorrow it gets busy and by the end of the day you’re not going to know what hit you.” I could go get a cup of coffee with Chris, hang out a little. I hadn’t seen him much since lunch on Monday and I desperately wanted to reconnect with him. After seeing MB in person, I was pretty shaken.

“I gotta go teach Susan and Jon,” Chris said.

Susan and Jon were a married couple who rode with Chris now. They showed against each other in the low amateur-owner jumpers. They were in their fifties, their kids had gone off to college, and they had decided to make their hobby horse showing. They lived close to Chris’s farm in Pennsylvania.

“I’ll catch up with you later?”

“Sure,” I said. “Of course.” I tried to act like I wasn’t disappointed. Like the whole thing was just peachy—him helping Mary Beth, her being so annoyingly attractive, and now him having to go teach. But it felt anything but fine.

Chapter 16

Linda said she refused to go crazy like that for just six stalls, but she did make an effort. She had hired someone to install paneling on the stall doors and she made a cute little sitting area outside the tent with wicker furniture. It had a carpet of fake turf and an adorable bathtub size pond with a tiny bubbling fountain and a few rubber duckies floating around.

If Dakota was showing a horse, it stayed at the show. The horse show schedule was available on your iPhone through ShowNet but part of my job was still to make copies of each day’s schedule with Dakota’s classes marked and have them available at Morada Bay and at the stalls at the show so the grooms, Dakota, Linda, or Dakota’s parents, if they ever made an appearance, could easily grab one. When we weren’t trekking back and forth between the barns, we were trekking back and forth between the different rings that Dakota showed in.

Dakota competed Thursday through Sunday, and fit in school with a tutoring service that came to the house. There was a less expensive option where you went to a place off the grounds for tutoring but, of course, it was too much to ask to make Dakota go to the tutor—the tutor had to come to her.

I was typically supposed to be at the ring with Linda when Dakota was showing, unless there was some pressing need for me to be back at the farm, like if the vet or farrier was coming. At the ring, I tended to Dakota, making sure she stayed hydrated, or getting her an energy bar if she was suddenly overcome by hunger. I also helped the grooms when I could, throwing on a scrim sheet, switching a saddle, or walking a horse. I was Linda’s liaison with the in-gate guy, making sure everything was set with our slot in the order of go or repositioning if we needed to. I tried hard to make friends with the in-gate guys, knowing that if they liked me they’d go out of their way to move us up or down if we needed it, but I stopped short of plying them with money like some trainers did. I was grateful that Nick, the in-gate/budding announcer I’d kissed and then essentially dropped for Chris in Vermont, was working in Ocala.

The in-gate guys held a certain status at WEF. Some became good friends with the trainers, dated some of the riders, and generally were more important in how smoothly the days ran than their pay-checks indicated. Some of the guys had been doing the same gate for going on a decade. Some chose to dress nicely, in a polo and chino shorts, others looked like they’d just rolled out of bed in wrinkled T-shirts and long-hair. The good ones knew everyone’s names, seamlessly managed the day’s entries, so the ring rarely stood empty, and consistently and accurately fed the judges the numbers on the riders’ backs, and somehow managed to small-talk about the Super Bowl with the trainers at the same time.

Often, I stood with Linda in the schooling ring and helped set the jumps. I liked that part especially, listening to Linda and the other trainers. It was like Vermont, only many more different faces. But there were still the Big Name Trainers who walked around with an air of superiority and self-importance like they owned not just the schooling ring but the entire show. There were the tough-as-nails trainers who screamed at their riders and made them cry. There were the sarcastic trainers who cracked jokes and traded disparaging looks with other trainers when their riders chipped. There were the psychologically attuned trainers who spoke just barely above a whisper and talked about things like “riding the whole horse” and “finding your happy rhythm.”

From what I’d observed, Linda was a good trainer. She cared about the horses and did things the right way, so far not going for quick fixes or gadgets for instant results. Every horse got its Perfect Prep when they showed but I hadn’t seen any horse getting something illegal. It probably helped that Dakota had really nice horses, some of the best horses that money could buy, so training them involved keeping them sound, fit, and in a solid program—not desperately trying to make them go well. She didn’t yell at Dakota but she could be firm and raise her voice when she felt Dakota wasn’t listening. For the most part, Dakota wasn’t a bad student either. She was spoiled, that much was clear, and out of the saddle she wasn’t exactly a joy, but she did seem to care about how she did in the ring and most of the time she even seemed to appreciate her horses, patting them when she came out of the ring.

At the rings, I often got to see Mike and I sometimes saw Zoe, although she was usually doing the professional hunter divisions. She was riding for Donnie Rysman, a well-known and generally detested trainer. He was from the Southeast and produced lots of winners in the hunter ring but he was also known for his shady deals, illegal training techniques, unsound horses, and for accosting judges when his horses didn’t win. According to rumors, she was sleeping with him too, even though he was twice her age.

When Dakota did her hunters, it was the most relaxing because no one expected her to win. An amazing junior-pro, Cassidy Rancher, rode a bunch of spectacular horses for a widowed older lady who had inherited all her husband’s wealth. Cassidy owned the top ribbons. All the other riders competed for the whites, pinks, and greens.