Horsemen Trials, A Fantasy Story about Horses

“I did it! I did it!”

Mr. Blair grinned calmly at my enthusiasm. “Yes you did, calm down or Destiny is going to freak out.”

I turned and wrapped my arms around her neck. “Good girl,” I whispered into her neck.

“Good job,” said Lillian, coming up with a bucket of water.

“Thanks,” I said as I took it from her and held it up to Destiny, who drunk from it.

We sat with our horses on the grass as we watched the rest of the Trials. Some of them were really good, and others, while they may have earned the cheers of the crowd, made me cringe. It was fun having Mr. Blair there because he’d point out what the riders were doing right or wrong.

Sometime he’d actually get physically agitated, tapping his foot and working his jaw in and out as he muttered. Those were the times I got upset too.

When Nadia Veldworth showed up for her round, that was one of those times. Her horse was in a lather and looked half dead. Yet Nadia’s face was pale and she kept a much tighter hold on the reins than what she needed to.

Mr. Blair started tapping his foot, and his jaw muscle bulged. I myself wanted to scream. I wanted to scream, “For goodness sake let your poor horse have some rein, he’s not going to run off with you!”

But I couldn’t.

She started in on her test and when she did, it drove me up the wall. Scratch that, it drove me up the wall and off the other side, sending my screaming down into a pile of bricks.

She demanded a quick fast showy trot from the horse, but held him so tightly and in such a way he was forced to bend his head back behind the vertical. She leaned way too far back and stabbed at him with her seat.

When she roughly kicked him with her outside leg where the judges couldn’t see for canter, I turned away.

“I can’t watch this Mr. Blair.” My voice was low. I stroked Destiny’s neck.

He nodded, but didn’t say anything. I think if he had he would exploded. There was a vein bulging on his forehead and he sweated profusely, almost as if he was the horse himself.

I did venture a peek over my shoulder in the freestyle. I sucked my breath in. “No.”

The horse was piaffing, but it wasn’t the lovely soft collected piaffe that Mr. Blair did with Rejem, the type that Rejem seemed to enjoy himself in.

Rather he was behind the vertical, the steps were jerky and uneven. His hindlegs bounced up and down like they were on springs, instead of taking the full weight of his hindquarters.

But that wasn’t what necessarily made me sick.

It was the fact that he was piaffing at all that made me sick.

There was no possible way you could take a horse like what that one had been and make it be able to piaffe properly in three months. There was simply no way. That is, no good way.

At this point Mr. Blair turned away, his fists clenching and unclenching. “There is no telling what they did to that poor creature to make him do that,” he ground out.

I was surprised to feel tears coming down my cheeks. “Oh, is there no way we can stop her?”

He shook his head.

Suddenly there was a squeal from the arena and a scream.

I turned and gasped.

The horse was fighting for his head against Nadia’s tight grip, bucking for all he was worth and bolting across the arena.

Suddenly he reared and the whole crowd gasped as Nadia screamed.

But he didn’t tip over and instead landed hard, then spun to the side and bolted. Nadia came flying off, hitting the sand arena with a thump.

She was soon up though, and shaking her fist at the horse as he galloped around, glorying in his freedom. “You good for nothing! We would have won it! I’ll have you-”

“Ms. Veldworth.” One of the judges stood up. “You shall not, in my presence, blame your horse for something that is your own fault. You clearly have trained him poorly. There is no way, even if he had not bucked you off, that we would have placed you first.”

Nadia gaped at him.

“You have misunderstood the values of the Trials, and have ruined your horse, perhaps beyond repair. We can only hope that someone else will be willing to undo the damage you have done.”

Before I knew it Mr. Blair had shoved Rejem’s reins in my hands and was climbing the fence, waving his hand to get the attention of the judge.

“I am more than willing, with your permission Judge, to take on the retraining of this horse.”

The Judge eyed him approvingly. “You are Anthony Blair aren’t you? It must have eaten you alive to watch that hideous performance.”

“Yes sir, it did.”

“Very well, you may take on the retraining. How about starting by catching him?”

The horse was still galloping around the arena frantically.

“Gladly, Judge, and thank you.”

Mr. Blair climbed down the fence and managed to catch the poor frantic creature. He stroked his neck and whispered soothingly to him before leading him out of the arena.

Nadia stood there for awhile, shocked at the turn of events. She shot me a glare that could’ve melted ice and stomped out of the arena.

After that Mr. Blair and I took his new horse home, then came back in time to watch Norah’s and Lillian’s rounds. Both of them did wonderfully, and we were all very happy with ourselves when we parted out separate ways.

The next phrase in the Trials was the jumping phase. The jumps were about two and a half feet tall, it was a fairly simple course, but it wasn’t easy either and consisted of fourteen jumps. One was a bank, one was in water, and another was a sheer drop that I dreaded facing.

But we weren’t going to face that today. No, that would happen tomorrow.

And after tomorrow, if Destiny and I made it through okay, would be the final phase of the Trials, the endurance phase. This was a course running somewhere between thirty and forty miles. It twisted and curved so much nobody could be sure how long it was.

Along that trail were logs, banks, ditches, mountainside cliffs, a bridge, and several creek crossings. It was a test of the horse’s and rider’s ability to work together and of their fitness.

And that was why it was going to be my favorite phase of the the Trials. This was where I knew Destiny and I could excel. There was no need for fancy movements or special looks: it was all about whether or not you could make it through in the fastest time possible.

However, that was not going to happen today or tomorrow, but the day afterwards.

Late that night, as I untacked Destiny and tied to her to her grazing rope, I still couldn’t believe it. I had competed in the Trials. Me, Iris Backwood from a little farm outside of Greenspire.

I wrapped my arms around the horse who had made my dream come true. “Thank you Destiny. Thank you.”

I kissed her on the forehead, fed her a treat, and went to my bedroll to sleep for the night.