Horse Wise Read online

  “One of the most important factors in having our own Pony Club,” Max continued, “actually, the one essential thing, is parent support. Unless we have a minimum of parents from five families, we won’t be able to have our club. It would be a big time commitment, I know, but I can promise you that if your son or daughter cares about horses, the time you invest in our Pony Club will be well worth it. Has anybody here ever been in a Pony Club before?” Max asked.

  Carole raised her hand. Once, when her father was stationed at a large base in California, there was a Pony Club on the base. At that time, Carole’s father had been doing a lot of traveling, so he hadn’t been able to be involved at all. Now that she knew how little he knew about horses, Carole didn’t think that was so bad.

  She told the other riders how much she’d liked the Pony Club and how much she’d learned. “One of the neatest things about it was that you learn so much about everything—and you’re tested on it, too. You may be the best rider in the stables, but if you don’t know how to mix bran mash for your horse, you’re a D-1 with the eight-year-olds.” Carole couldn’t help smiling to herself. She had the funniest feeling that the arrival of Garnet might have had something to do with Max’s interest in a Pony Club for Pine Hollow. Something good was going to come out of Veronica’s incompetence after all!

  During the next forty-five minutes, Max gave everybody booklets from the USPC, handed out copies of The Manual of Horsemanship, explaining that it was the Pony Clubbers’ bible, and answered what seemed like hundreds of questions.

  One of the parents asked if everybody had to have his own horse to join the Pony Club.

  “Not at all,” Max said. “The fact is that most Pony Clubbers do have their own horses, but it’s not a requirement. Very few of the riders here own their own horses, but they’re all eligible for membership. Pine Hollow will permit the use of its horses for approved Pony Club activities. Pony Clubs are good for riders, but they’re good for riding, too.”

  “Will you do all the instruction?” another parent asked.

  “No, though I’ll usually be part of the meetings. Instruction will come from other experts. Judy Barker, my vet, has agreed to help. Also, the children will learn from other local professionals, the farrier, the saddlery, the grain-and-feed place. But mostly, the riders will learn from you, their parents, and from themselves. Which brings me back to where I began. You parents are a critical part of this. The club needs your help. Do I have any volunteers?”

  There was silence in the room. Carole, who was sitting on the floor near Max between Stevie and Lisa, turned to look. All they needed were five hands to go up, five family volunteers who would make the difference between Pony Club and no Pony Club.

  Nobody moved. Carole crossed her fingers.

  Meg Durham’s mother raised her hand.

  “Thank you,” Max said.

  Carole crossed her legs.

  Betsy Cavanaugh’s father and mother both raised their hands.

  “Thank you,” Max said.

  Carole crossed her arms across her crossed legs.

  A pair of parents she didn’t even know raised their hands. Another mother raised her hand.

  “Thank you,” Max said.

  Carole crossed her eyes.

  Colonel Hanson raised his hand.

  “That’s it, that’s five!” Max announced. “We can have a Pony Club!”

  Dad? What is he doing raising his hand? He doesn’t know the first thing about horses. He doesn’t even know how to lead them! Carole could hardly keep from staring at her father. He beamed back at her proudly. Carole shrugged to herself. What did it matter, anyway? Most of the other parents knew a lot about horses. The only reason her father needed to raise his hand was to keep Max and the USPC happy.

  “Now our next order of business is to come up with a name for our club,” Max said. “A lot of times, the clubs are named after the towns or the stables they’re in. We could call this Willow Creek Pony Club or Pine Hollow, if you like. As far as I know, though, there’s no limitation. This is our club and we can call it anything we like, but I do have to put a name on the final application. Any suggestions?” Max paused, but no one spoke. “I’ll tell you what,” Max continued. “We’ll take a little break now. My mother has set out some cold drinks and we can talk about a name when we reconvene in about ten minutes.”

  “I have a suggestion,” came Veronica’s unmistakable voice.

  “Yes?” Max said.

  “Why don’t we call it The Saddle Club?”

  There were three gasps in the room at once. Carole knew just where the other two had come from. This was Veronica’s revenge for being excluded from their club.

  “Not bad,” Max said. Carole realized he’d seen the looks of concern on the girls’ faces and was stalling for them. “Let’s have our break now,” he said. “We’ll take other suggestions and then vote.”

  Carole, Lisa, and Stevie looked at one another and nodded. They knew what had to be done. It was time for an emergency Saddle Club meeting. They gathered in an isolated corner of the room, far away from the apple cider and homemade cookies.

  “We’ve just got to vote it down, that’s all,” Lisa said. “I mean, The Saddle Club is our name. It’s special and it’s not something I want to share with Veronica. She just wants to steal our name.”

  “I don’t think so,” Stevie said. “I think she just wants to know what The Saddle Club is. She’s forcing our hand so we’ll have to tell everybody. Frankly, I don’t mind telling anybody about The Saddle Club, but I do mind being forced into it by Veronica.”

  “Same here,” Carole said. “But it’s a terrific name. How do we get it voted down?”

  “Simple,” Stevie replied. “We come up with something better!”

  “But what could be better?” Lisa asked. “The Saddle Club is a just about perfect name!”

  “For us it is,” Carole said. “But when you think about it, it’s not really what Pony Clubs are about. Pony Clubs are about learning about horses, not just riding. It wises you up on subjects like stable management and horse care, safety, training. The whole idea is to teach everything. The qualifications aren’t just to be horse crazy, like our club, but to learn all the whys and wherefores of horses.”

  “That’s it!” Stevie interrupted her. Carole and Lisa looked at her in surprise. “You said it,” she told Carole.

  “Me? What did I say?”

  “You said it twice, in fact. You said this club will wise us up and teach us all the whys of horses. The proper name of the club, therefore, is Horse Wise.” Stevie smiled beatifically, and folded her hands on her lap.

  Lisa and Carole, laughing, had to agree. The Saddle Club meeting was over. It was time to return to Max’s meeting. They took the last three glasses of cider and returned to their places near Max.

  When Max asked for other suggestions, Carole raised her hand. She stood up and explained what she knew about Pony Clubs, stressing the idea of how they made riders wise and didn’t just teach them about riding, as the name Saddle Club might suggest. She tried to sound very polite to Veronica, but she knew Veronica knew she wasn’t being polite. She used every bit of debating skill she had to convince people to vote on their name. Only four people in the room really knew what was going on. It didn’t matter, though. The fact was, Carole was winning and she knew it.

  “… so, my friends and I would like to suggest that we name our club Horse Wise.”

  “Hey, great idea!” Max said, publicly casting his vote. That was what they’d needed. By voice vote, their Pony Club got its own, unusual name.

  Carole felt so good at the end of the meeting that she didn’t even care when Veronica make a nasty remark on her way out. “Nice job, Carole,” she snapped, “but it means that the first time you ride Garnet will be when it snows in July.”

  WHENEVER THE SUBJECT was horses, Carole was happy. This evening, she was especially happy. Even Veronica diAngelo hadn’t been able to ruin it. Pine Hollow was g
oing to have its own Pony Club!

  “We’re having our first meeting next week,” she told her father as they headed for the car.

  “I heard,” he said. Carole thought maybe he was teasing her a little bit, but she didn’t mind.

  “It’s a mounted meeting, you know,” she said as she took her place in the front seat of the car, next to her father.

  “I heard, but what does that mean?” he asked.

  “It means we’ll be mounted—you know, on horseback.”

  “Oh.” Colonel Hanson started the car. “With your saddles, right?”

  “Sure we’ll have saddles. If there weren’t going to be saddles, we’d call it bareback.”

  “That makes sense,” he said, pulling the car out of Pine Hollow’s driveway. He turned the car toward the base, where the Officers’ Club and navy-bean soup awaited them.

  Carole couldn’t stop talking about the Pony Club. “Then, at other times, we’ll have unmounted meetings. I can’t wait until the farrier talks to us. That should be neat.”

  “What’s a farrier?” Colonel Hanson asked. “Someone who makes fair coats?”

  “Very funny, but no,” Carole said patiently. “A farrier is a blacksmith. He makes horseshoes and fits them properly to the horse’s hooves and nails them on.”

  “Nails them? Doesn’t that hurt?”

  “No, the horse’s hoof is like a toenail. As long as the nail just goes into the toenail part, the horse can’t even feel it.”

  “You mean there are other parts to the foot?” her father asked.

  “Oh, sure, there’s the frog and the bulbs and the sole and that’s just the beginning. Horses’ feet are very complicated.”

  “I guess they are,” the colonel said. He was quiet for a while and seemed to be thinking. It gave Carole some time to think as well. Carole knew a lot about horses. She’d read a lot of books, but mostly she’d learned because she spent time with people who knew a lot about horses and who had taught her about them. That was one of the best things about a Pony Club. All the members were there to learn and all the volunteers were there to teach them.

  But what about a volunteer who didn’t know anything? One who didn’t know the difference between horseback and bareback? What good was he going to be? There was something else bothering her, too, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  Her father began singing. He loved music from the fifties and sixties. He started in on an Elvis Presley medley, beginning with his favorite, “Big Boots.”

  Carole looked at him from the corner of her eye. Usually, she liked it when he sang or told his silly old jokes. Usually, she liked almost everything he did. But was she going to like it when he became part of her riding and showed everybody that he didn’t know anything?

  Carole was very proud of her skill in riding and her knowledge. She loved it when people asked her questions and she knew the answer. She knew she had a tendency to give them more answer than they might want. It was something her friends liked to tease her about, but she didn’t mind. She still liked just plain knowing.

  So now, how were people going to feel about her when they saw that her father, her wonderful father who could do so many other things, was a total ignoramus when it came to horses? And how was that going to make Carole feel?

  “Dad?” she said, interrupting “Heartbreak Hotel”

  “What, honey?”

  “I have a couple of books you might want to look at about horses,” she said.

  “That’s okay, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m sure that whatever I need to know, you can tell me.”

  Carole sighed. That was what she was afraid of.

  AFTER THE MEETING, Lisa’s parents were more enthusiastic than ever about buying a horse for her. Lisa suspected it was because they had seen how few of the riders there actually did own their horses. She didn’t think that was a very good reason for buying a horse, certainly no better than buying one because Veronica diAngelo had one. Still, she herself wanted to own one very much, and as long as her parents wanted to buy a horse, she didn’t really care why.

  The very next day, they picked her up after school again. The secretary from the vice-principal’s office had given Lisa a strange look when she’d given her the second note about meeting her parents after school in less than a week, but that was another thing Lisa decided not to worry about.

  This time, the farm was really a horse farm, not just a farm with a horse for sale. Lisa liked the place immediately. It had big, airy, light stalls for its horses. They all opened onto individual outdoor paddock areas. Those areas, in turn, opened to a large field. The horses had plenty of room to move, but their movements were controlled. The place seemed like a good combination of stabling and pasturing.

  The owner, Mr. Jenrette, greeted the Atwoods. He explained that he’d just acquired a horse, Brinker, as part of a package deal, but he wasn’t a breeding horse so Mr. Jenrette wanted to sell him right away.

  “He’s a real beauty,” Mr. Jenrette said. “I know you’ll love him. I’ve already had three other phone calls about him. You’re lucky that you called first.” Mr. Jenrette led them over to the paddock. Brinker was a bay, which meant he was brown with a black mane and tail. Brinker’s nose and ankles were black as well—that was called having black points—and he had a white blaze on his forehead.

  Brinker was in his paddock. Lisa approached him slowly. He looked up and walked over toward her. It was as if they were already friends. The horse gazed at her curiously, and she patted his forehead. He seemed to like it, so she did it some more. Then she patted his neck.

  “Here are some carrots,” Mr. Jenrette said, offering her a handful. Lisa took one and gave it to Brinker. She loved the sound of a horse crunching on carrots. Brinker loved the carrot.

  “He’s not a purebred or anything,” Mr. Jenrette said. “But he’s got good lines. You’ll love riding him for a long time to come.”

  “What does that mean?” Mrs. Atwood asked. Lisa explained that calling a horse purebred meant that it was registered as part of a breed, such as Thoroughbred, Arabian, or Quarter Horse. Both of its parents had to be registered and had to have the papers to prove it. It was a guarantee of quality breeding, though not necessarily of a good horse, and it was a guarantee of cost.

  “You know something about horses, don’t you?” Mr. Jenrette asked.

  “A bit,” Lisa said. “And I read a lot, too.”

  “I can tell,” he said. Then he turned to her parents. “So, do you want him?” he asked.

  “Oh, I think so,” Mr. Atwood said, and he turned to Lisa for confirmation. “Is this the right one?” he asked.

  “He certainly looks good,” she said. “And I think I like his disposition—at least his stable manners. But there are lots of things we have to check first.”

  “Like what?” her mother asked. “The horse is pretty, you like him, he’s for sale. What else is there?” Mrs. Atwood turned to Mr. Jenrette for an answer. The answer he gave was to look at his watch, as if he were waiting for the next buyer to show up and make him a better offer. It was a small gesture, but it told Lisa a lot. Lisa had a few doubts, and that little gesture gave her the confidence to follow up on them. Mr. Jenrette seemed to be very anxious to sell his horse.

  “I need to check a few things,” she said, climbing over the fence into the paddock. It made her even more suspicious that Mr. Jenrette didn’t join her and help her. She wanted to check the horse’s conformation, to make sure he had no obvious physical defects. She was no expert, so she could have used some expert advice. Why didn’t Mr. Jenrette want to give it to her?

  An expert could determine a lot of things by looking at a horse. There were many small things that could be wrong that might not mean much at the time of a purchase, but could cost thousands of dollars in veterinary bills over time. There were also lots of things that could seem odd, but not mean anything at all. So why didn’t Mr. Jenrette want to show Lisa how good Brinker’s conformation was?

/>   Her parents watched, confused, while she checked the points she could. Mr. Jenrette just kept looking at his watch whenever he thought somebody was looking at him. Lisa definitely smelled a rat. Now, instead of being doubtful, she was sure there was something significantly wrong with the horse, and it became a challenge to her. Would she find it before Mr. Jenrette sprained his wrist looking at his watch?

  It was almost like a game of Hot and Cold. When Lisa was looking at Brinker’s head and neck, his body and his flanks, Mr. Jenrette had his hands on his hips. As soon as she picked up a hoof to examine Brinker’s foot, Mr. Jenrette began looking at his watch. She let go of the hoof and the man’s hand went into his pocket. When she knelt to study the foot as it sat on the ground, he spoke.

  “Did you hear a car come in the drive?” he asked. He wasn’t being subtle at all.

  The problem had to be in Brinker’s feet and legs. Lisa thought she spotted it. There was a complex set of bones at what might be called the horse’s ankle, leading up to the main lower-leg bone, the cannon. Lisa didn’t know the names of all the parts, but she knew that the lowest portion of the leg was supposed to be at approximately the same angle as the hoof, almost as if it were a continuation of the hoof. That wasn’t the case on Brinker. His leg went straight up right above the hoof.

  “Hmmm,” she said.

  “Next people are coming in about five minutes,” Mr. Jenrette said.

  “I’d like to try riding him, and then we’ll have our vet check him out tomorrow,” Lisa told him.

  “He’ll be sold by then,” Mr. Jenrette said.

  That was when Lisa decided it didn’t matter whether she was right or wrong about where the problem was. If Mr. Jenrette expected to sell the horse to somebody who would not have it checked by a vet, he was definitely hiding something a vet would find. Brinker was a pretty horse, and he seemed to have a sweet disposition. But Brinker was not a horse she was going to own.

  “No, thank you,” Lisa said.

  Mr. Jenrette shrugged. “Your loss.”

  “What’s going on here?” Mr. Atwood demanded, suddenly realizing he’d been missing out on an entire drama.