Stacy Gregg - Flame and the Rebel Riders

“What about puissance?” Issie said. “That’s a French word.”

“Then I shall refuse to jump them!” Stella said theatrically and the three girls fell about laughing again.

Stella and Kate were Issie’s best friends. Issie’s mum always said the three of them were like sisters — which was funny since the girls didn’t look anything alike. Stella had curly red hair, Kate was tall, with her blonde hair cut in a blunt bob, and Issie had long dark hair and olive skin, just like her mum.

“But inside, where it counts, you girls are identical,” Mrs Brown would say. “You’re all utterly horse-mad!”

It was a short drive from the River Paddock to the pony-club grounds. Avery was up front driving and the three girls sat in the cabin of the horse truck together. Behind them, in the very rear of the truck, were the horses. Comet, Toby and Marmite were all tied up in their partitions with a hay net each and the girls only had to open the back cabin door to walk through and check on them. Not that they really needed to, as the drive to the pony club was a brief ten minutes up the road.

“I can’t believe there’s just one more week of school,” Stella was saying. “Remember this time last year when we were all going to Blackthorn Farm to help Hester with the riding school?”

The three of them had been keen to go back to Gisborne and help out again this year too, but Issie’s Aunt Hester had decided not to open the school this summer. Her business, training movie stunt horses, was booming right now, and she had so much work on she couldn’t do both at once. That meant the girls were on the lookout for new holiday jobs.

As they unloaded the horses from the truck, Issie grabbed Comet’s tack. She had decided to ride the skewbald at the rally today because she knew they’d be doing lots of showjumping. Her other horse, Blaze, was a good jumper too, but was really best at dressage. The chestnut Anglo-Arab mare had once belonged to the famed El Caballo Danza Magnifico riding school in Spain, and Blaze’s son, Issie’s beloved colt Nightstorm, was there right now, about to begin his dressage training, just as his mother had done before him.

Comet, on the other hand, was no dressage horse. He got bored schooling — and let Issie know it by doing a cheerful buck if she tried to spend too much time on flatwork. Comet was a true showjumper and he was happiest when he was in the competition ring, showing off his style to the crowd as he flew over fences that were bigger than he was!

Comet’s jumping prowess could be a problem sometimes. Issie would often turn up at the River Paddock to find him in a different field from the one he’d been put in the night before. No fence could hold Comet. Issie remembered the very first time she met the cheeky skewbald, he had jumped out of his paddock and almost collided with Aunt Hester’s horse truck!

Hester had been driven mad by Comet’s antics when he lived at Blackthorn Farm. When Issie entered him in the Horse of the Year Show, Comet finally put his jumping ability to good use. His spectacular performance in the puissance won them prize money, and attracted the attention of celebrity showjumping trainer Ginty McLintoch, who offered to buy the skewbald on the spot!

But Hester had refused Ginty’s offer and given Comet to Issie instead. Ever since then, whenever Issie bumped into Ginty at showjumping events the flame-haired trainer always repeated her offer to buy the skewbald.

Ginty ran private stables in Chevalier Point where she schooled horses for wealthy clients and also ran a string of competitive showjumpers. Natasha Tucker was one of Ginty’s clients. The sour-faced blonde always made a point of telling the other Chevalier Point riders how brilliant her private lessons were. The way Natasha told it, Ginty was a proper instructor and would never waste her time with a bunch of useless pony-club kids the way Tom Avery did.

Ginty certainly had a reputation for being too posh for pony club. The one place Issie never expected to see Ginty was at a Chevalier Point rally day. So when she spotted the trainer standing over by Natasha’s horse truck talking with Mrs Tucker, she was utterly amazed.

“What’s she doing here?” Issie whispered to Stella and Kate. The three girls were all staring when Ginty suddenly turned round and caught them ogling at her. Surprisingly, the haughty redhead gave them a wave.

“Ohmygod!” Stella said. “She’s coming over.”

Ginty was striding across the paddocks with a determined look on her face. Her gaze was set on Issie and Comet. She had obviously recognised the skewbald pony and was homing in for a closer look.

“Good morning, girls,” Ginty said briskly. “Lovely day for riding!” Having dispensed with the pleasantries, she focused her attention on Issie. “How is Comet doing? Have you changed your mind about selling him to me yet?”

“He’s doing just fine,” Issie replied, “but he’s still not for sale.”

“I see,” Ginty said. “Well, I’ve got a couple of gaps in my team that I’m trying to fill this week before the competition season gets underway. You know where to find me if you change your mind.”

She presented a business card to Issie with her name and number on it, then turned on her heel and headed back to the Tuckers’ horse truck. The conversation was clearly over.

Tom Avery started the rally the same way he always did, with a gear inspection. There were over fifty club members present that morning, and after Avery had worked down the row, checking stirrup leathers and tutting over dirty bits and loose girths, he divided the ride up into four. The junior members were assigned their instructors and sent off to various training areas. Only the most senior Chevalier Point members stayed with Avery in the jumping ring.

There were eight of them. Issie, Stella and Kate were joined by their friends Dan, Ben, Annabel and Morgan, and Natasha Tucker was there too on Romeo.

As a warm-up exercise, Avery had set up four jumps, positioned around the arena in a circle at three, six, nine and twelve o’clock.

“They’re not very big, are they?” Dan said with disappointment as he eyed up the jumps. The four fences were quite low, no more than half a metre off the ground.

“We’ll begin at this height as a warm-up,” Avery told him. “It doesn’t matter what size the fence is, I’m looking for good technique from all of you. You’re going to canter in a circle over the jumps, making sure you keep the rhythm steady between fences and aim for the centre of each jump.”

As the riders rode around the course, Avery focused on correcting their positions. He was particularly keen to observe how well they executed their crest release, making sure that they eased the reins up the neck at the moment the horse took off, giving their mounts enough freedom to stretch out in an arc over the jumps.

“Don’t just fling the reins at him, Stella!” Avery called out. “The release should be smooth.”

“Slow down his canter by sitting back between fences, Natasha,” Avery instructed.

Natasha didn’t look happy to be given advice. She glared at Avery, and then looked over to Ginty, who was leaning against the rails at the sideline watching the riders closely. Ginty’s eyes weren’t trained on Romeo, though. She was watching Comet. When Avery raised the rails of the fences to a substantial one metre high, Ginty couldn’t take her eyes off the skewbald as he jumped each fence cleanly and perfectly, taking off neatly at exactly the right time and maintaining a rhythmic canter stride all the way around the ring.

When the riders had finished their training for the morning, Issie could have sworn Ginty was still watching as she rode out of the arena, but by the time she had tied Comet up to the horse truck, the trainer wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Natasha was at her horse truck unsaddling Romeo, but Ginty had disappeared.