Horse Care Read online

  Lisa gave Carole a look of disbelief. “You mean you actually haven’t noticed?” she said. “Veronica gave up on Simon weeks ago. I guess she decided his family isn’t socially prominent enough.”

  “Either that, or Simon finally realized what Veronica’s really like,” Stevie said. She turned to Carole with a grin. “Hey, that gives me a great idea. We were just talking about getting you a boyfriend. And Simon is free. What do you think?”

  “You were just talking about getting me a boyfriend,” Carole corrected. “And I think I’ll pass on Simon. He may be a lot cuter now than he used to be, but his personality hasn’t changed much. He’s still kind of annoying.” She giggled. “Maybe I’ll take that cute new six-year-old instead.”

  Suddenly Carole noticed that Lisa was looking distracted again. “Lisa?” she said. “Are you still with us?”

  Lisa sighed. “Yes,” she said. “I was just thinking, that’s all.”

  “About how Carole will be going off to college while her boyfriend’s still in middle school?” Stevie guessed.

  Lisa didn’t even notice the joke. “No,” she said. “I was thinking about how my mom still doesn’t understand how important Pine Hollow is. Not just riding, but riding here. She thinks that just because I’ll be in the saddle next Saturday, I’ve got nothing to complain about.”

  Carole nodded sympathetically. She knew exactly how Lisa felt. She had ridden at lots of different stables, and Pine Hollow was special. “Did you explain that to her?”

  “I tried,” Lisa said, “but she just kept talking about this charity auction. She’s really excited about it. I guess it’s a big deal to be invited. Socially, I mean.” She sighed.

  As the three girls reached the end of the stable aisle, a horse looked out of the extra-large box stall on the corner and let out a whinny.

  Carole paused to pat the horse. “Hi there, Calypso,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

  “She’s probably excited,” Stevie guessed. “I bet she already has her baby’s name all picked out.”

  Calypso, a young Thoroughbred mare, was due to foal in the next few weeks. Max had bought her to breed with his stallion, Geronimo. The Saddle Club had been following the course of Calypso’s pregnancy for months.

  “She seems a little bored,” Carole said, looking worried. “Maybe we should spend some extra time with her after the meeting.”

  Lisa gave Calypso a pat, too. “Good idea,” she said. “But right now we’d better get going. If we’re late, the only thing we’ll be spending time with afterward is a manure fork.”

  “OKAY, I’LL START with an easy one,” Judy said at the Horse Wise meeting. The topic had turned out to be equine pregnancy and foaling. “Who knows how long the average mare’s gestation period is?”

  Carole’s hand shot up immediately. She had seen a lot of pregnant mares and assisted at several births, so she knew quite a bit. For one thing, she knew that when Judy asked about a mare’s gestation period, she was talking about the length of her pregnancy.

  All around the room, a lot of other hands were also waving in the air. The question was a pretty basic one. Judy pointed to Polly Giacomin.

  “Polly?” Judy said.

  “Eleven months,” Polly said. “Approximately.”

  “That’s right,” Judy said. “Gestation typically lasts a little more than eleven months. Anywhere from around 320 to 360 days can be considered normal.” She turned and glanced toward the doorway of the indoor ring. “Just a second,” she said. “It looks as though our special guest has arrived.”

  Carole turned to see Red O’Malley standing just inside the doorway. He was holding a lead line with Calypso at the other end.

  “Bring her in, please, Red,” Judy called.

  The stable hand led Calypso slowly toward the spot where Judy was standing. The Saddle Club exchanged glances. Carole smiled as she shifted to a more comfortable position on the sawdust-covered floor of the indoor ring. She could tell that her friends were thinking the same thing she was—now they didn’t have to worry about Calypso being bored!

  A few Horse Wise members scooted aside to give Calypso room. She moved slowly, and Red let her choose her own pace. The mare seemed to place every hoof carefully as she walked.

  “Wow,” Simon Atherton commented loudly. “She looks even huger out here than she does in her stall, doesn’t she?”

  A few of the other students snorted or giggled. It was just the kind of ridiculous comment that Simon always made. Still, Carole had to admit that she knew what he meant this time. Calypso looked gigantic. Her belly was taut and swollen and looked ready to explode.

  Carole studied the mare, observing the way she moved and trying to see whether her udder had begun to increase in size, which would be a sign that the foal was coming soon. But she couldn’t see any such changes yet.

  Before long Calypso was standing at the front of the group. Red kept a good grip on her halter, but the mare didn’t seem interested in acting up. She stood quietly, her ears flicking back and forth.

  “All right,” Judy said. “I think you all know Calypso, our resident mother-to-be. And I hope you’ve all been following her progress during the past few months.”

  Carole nodded. She had made a point of looking in on the mare as often as she could. All around her, she could see others nodding, including Stevie and Lisa.

  “Good,” Judy said. “I’ve been following this pregnancy closely, too. And it looks like Calypso’s gestation is going smoothly this time.”

  For a second, Carole just nodded again. Then she frowned. This time? What did Judy mean by that? Calypso was a young mare, and this would be her first foal. Carole exchanged glances with her friends. A few other students were murmuring as they, too, wondered about the comment.

  “Oops.” Judy shot Max a guilty glance. “I guess you all didn’t know. Calypso had some trouble the first time Max bred her. She lost the pregnancy early on. That’s not uncommon—it happens with up to twenty percent of mares.”

  Carole gasped. She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe that something that important had happened and she hadn’t even known.

  Stevie was just as shocked as Carole. The members of The Saddle Club spent practically all their free time at Pine Hollow. It was incredible that they hadn’t known about this. Stevie raised her hand. “What happened to make her lose the foal the last time?”

  Judy shrugged. “It’s hard to say,” she said. “It wasn’t anything specific in Calypso’s case as far as I could tell. Some common reasons include problems with the embryo, advanced age in the mare, or even just plain stress.”

  “Stress,” Carole whispered to herself. She gazed at Calypso. The mare certainly didn’t look stressed at the moment. Her eyes were half closed and she seemed to be falling asleep. Still, Calypso was a Thoroughbred, and like many Thoroughbreds she could be high-strung. Could stress have caused her problems last time? The stable was awfully busy and noisy a lot of the time, with riders rushing around and horses coming and going.

  Judy was still talking. “As I said, that loss wasn’t especially unusual. However, we know that Calypso’s dam had some trouble during all of her pregnancies, so we’re keeping a close eye on Calypso just in case she has similar problems.”

  Judy went on to discuss other aspects of mare care, but Carole wasn’t really listening. She was still staring at Calypso, thinking hard. She could hardly believe that Max and Judy hadn’t said anything before about Calypso’s first pregnancy. Now that she knew, it seemed more urgent than ever to help look after the mare as her foaling time grew near. She decided to talk to her friends about it after the meeting. Maybe they could make Calypso a new Saddle Club project. They could spend time with the mare, soothing her and keeping her company. They could see that she got the proper amount of exercise—Carole knew that pregnant mares needed to stretch their legs regularly, just the same as other horses. Maybe she would even talk to Max about moving Calypso to a quieter stall. He had probably pu
t her in the corner stall to make it easier to keep an eye on her. But if The Saddle Club promised to check on her frequently, he might agree to give her more privacy.

  Once she had decided on her course of action, Carole tuned back into Judy’s lecture. The vet was listing some of the ailments that could strike a pregnant mare, along with their symptoms. Carole already knew about most of the problems, but hearing them listed all together was a little disheartening. The list seemed to go on and on. Anatomical or genetic defects. Tumors. Infections. Breech births. There was so much that could go wrong! It was a wonder any foals were born at all.

  Finally, Judy gave Calypso one last pat and nodded to Red. “I think that’s enough for today,” she said. “I hope you’ve all learned something new. And I hope you’ll all be waiting as eagerly as I am for the arrival of Calypso’s foal.”

  Max stepped forward. “Thanks, Judy,” he said. “You’ve been very informative, as always.” He looked out at the students. “We’ve still got about thirty minutes left of this meeting. We’ll continue in just a moment. Keep it to a dull roar, okay?”

  He hurried over to help Red with Calypso. Stevie turned to her friends, looking somber. “Are you two thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Only if you’re thinking we have a new Saddle Club project on our hands,” Lisa said. “We have to do everything we can to help Calypso through the rest of her pregnancy.”

  Stevie nodded eagerly. “I was thinking about what Judy said about stress,” she said. “I wonder if that corner stall is really the best place for Calypso. We should talk to Max about it.”

  Carole smiled at her friends. She should have known they would have the same ideas she had. “I was going to suggest the same thing,” she said. “Max might let us move her to someplace quieter if we promise to keep a close eye on her. I mean, we’ve helped take care of pregnant mares before, right? We can definitely help guide Calypso through this.”

  Stevie and Lisa nodded. “Definitely,” they said in one voice.

  “OKAY, CAROLE, IT’S your turn,” Max said a few minutes later. He glanced at his clipboard. “Here’s your question. Name at least five kinds of plants that are poisonous to horses if ingested.”

  Stevie crossed her fingers on her friend’s behalf. Carole was winning the new game Max had invented, but Stevie figured she could still use a little extra luck. As with all Max’s games, this one tested students’ knowledge of horse care. First he’d asked all the students to line up across the center of the ring. Then he’d started going down the line, asking each student a question from the list in his hand. A correct answer earned one step forward. An incorrect answer meant a step backward. If a student ended up more than three steps behind the starting line, he or she was disqualified.

  So far it had been a challenging and exciting game. Simon and a couple of the younger riders had been knocked out within the first few rounds. Many others had spent most of their time hovering around the starting line, taking as many steps backward as forward. Even Lisa, who normally did well at this sort of game, had been disqualified after a few minutes. Stevie was pretty sure it was because Lisa was still distracted by her conversation with her mother. But she didn’t have much time to think about it, because Max kept her busy answering question after question.

  The questions grew harder as the game went on, and before long only half a dozen players were left. Carole was about halfway to the finish line Max had marked across the ring. Nobody else was even close to catching up to her. Stevie herself was just two steps ahead of the starting line.

  Carole thought for a second about the question Max had just asked. “Well, let’s see,” she said. “There’s rhododendrons and azaleas. They can both cause a bad case of colic. And yew trees are really poisonous.”

  Max nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “Three down, two to go.”

  “Um …” Carole paused.

  Stevie crossed the fingers on her other hand. Belle was allergic to several kinds of weeds, so Stevie knew more than most people about horses’ reactions to plants. Like any good rider, she could recognize the most common poisonous plants and trees by sight. But she wasn’t sure she could come up with two more names off the top of her head. It was the kind of thing she usually looked up in a book if she needed to know it.

  “I’ve got another one,” Carole said. “Oleander shrubs.”

  Max nodded. “I need one more.” He glanced at his watch. “Five seconds.”

  “Um …,” Carole said, “I know I know some more. There are a couple of trees that can be poisonous, like that one that turns red in the fall.…”

  “I need a name,” Max said with a smile. “Three seconds.”

  Stevie held her breath. Carole hadn’t missed a single question yet. Would she have to take a step back? It didn’t seem fair. Stevie would bet her entire allowance for a year that Carole could pick out any poisonous plant she passed along a trail. You didn’t have to know their names to keep your horse from eating them. Why should she have to know them now?

  At that moment a voice came from the doorway. “Do you mind if I jump in and help her out? I think I know a few more.”

  Stevie turned along with everyone else to see who had spoken. There was a boy about her age leaning against the wall by the doorway. He was dressed in riding clothes, and he was one of the cutest boys she had ever seen. He had sparkling brown eyes, a wide smile, and jet black hair.

  Max didn’t look as surprised as everyone else at the new arrival. “Hello, Tate,” he said. “I’m glad you could make it today after all. Welcome to Horse Wise.” He turned to address the group. “Everyone, this is Tate Ryan. His family just moved to town, and he’ll be riding here at Pine Hollow.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Stevie saw Veronica give her a smug look, but she didn’t acknowledge it. So Veronica had been right for a change. So a gorgeous new boy had turned up to join Horse Wise. Big deal.

  Tate grinned and gave a little wave. “Hi there, everyone.” He turned his grin toward Carole. “You seem to be having a little trouble. Mind if I jump in? The tree you’re trying to think of is the red maple. In summer and fall, the leaves can cause jaundice and anemia in horses.”

  “That’s it!” Carole said, looking appreciative. “I just couldn’t remember the name. I get all those trees mixed up—you know, maple, beech, oak—”

  “Actually, oak leaves are bad for horses, too,” the new boy broke in. “So are the acorns. They can cause liver damage and other problems.” He moved farther into the ring and kept smiling at Carole. “Also, you didn’t mention mountain laurel—that can cause colic or diarrhea, which is why one of its common names is sheep kill. Then there’s locoweed or sorghum or Russian knapweed.”

  Stevie’s jaw dropped. Up ahead, she could see that Carole looked just as surprised as she felt. Russian knapweed? Stevie had never even heard of the stuff.

  Tate wasn’t finished. “And, of course, there’s deadly nightshade, also known as belladonna. That’s poisonous to horses, just like it is to people. Even buttercups are mildly poisonous to horses. But only when the plant is alive. Once it’s dried it’s not a problem.”

  Carole just kept staring at Tate, her mouth open, but Stevie was grinning. The boy had sounded exactly like Carole launching into one of her lectures! Had Carole just met her match?

  Max was smiling and nodding at the new boy. “Those are all correct, Tate,” he said. “I can see that you’re going to be a fine addition to our group.” He gestured toward the starting line. “We were just playing a little game. Would you like to join in?”

  “Sure,” Tate said, stepping forward eagerly.

  Carole finally closed her mouth. She even managed to give Tate a friendly smile, though she still looked a little stunned. She turned to Max. “Shouldn’t we start over?” she asked. “It’s not fair to make Tate start at the beginning.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Tate said before Max could answer. “I’ll do my best to catch up. It’s just a game, right?”
He listened and nodded as Max quickly explained the rules. “Got it,” Tate said. “Fire away.”

  TEN MINUTES LATER, the unthinkable had happened. Tate was within one step of catching up to Carole. Stevie couldn’t believe it. She was now a step behind the starting line, thanks to a tough question about the equine skeletal system. Andrea Barry, one of the best riders in Horse Wise, was only a step ahead of her. Polly Giacomin, Adam Levine, and several other students who had been riding for a long time had all been disqualified. Max’s questions were really hard.

  But Tate hadn’t missed a single one since joining the game. He seemed to know everything there was to know about horses and riding.

  Max looked down at his list again to find another question for the new boy. “Okay, Tate,” he said. “I want to know the proper name of a horse’s tailbone.”

  Stevie groaned. It was a pretty obscure question, even for Max. She was glad that Carole hadn’t gotten it.

  Tate didn’t seem fazed at all. He didn’t even pause to think before answering. “The caudal vertebrae,” he replied calmly.

  Max seemed a little surprised. “Correct,” he said. “All right, Carole. Here’s yours. Name at least five tools that you would find in a farrier’s kit.”

  Carole nodded, looking relieved. The question wasn’t a particularly difficult one. The farrier, or blacksmith, was a familiar sight around the stable. So were the tools he used. “Okay, there’s the rasp,” she said. “And a hammer. And a hoof knife. And a buffer. And, um, what’s that thing called?…”