Road To Victory

Surprise!

It had been 5 days since mine and Rachel’s huge blowout, but it had made us stronger friends, as cheesy as that sounds. My dad drove me to the barn that afternoon with a sly smile on his face. My mom, who was sitting in the passenger seat, whispered something into his ear every few minutes, and she was always texting.

My mother doesn’t text. Ever.

Maybe Dynamites getting here today, I thought, shrugging to myself. I was positive that I was getting him, even though I wasn’t so excited. He was going to be difficult.

I felt a lurch as our van got off the paved road and onto the dirt road of the stables. I couldn’t see anyone outside. It was eerily quiet, you could say. Maybe everyone was going to jump out and yell “SURPRISE” and all that.

“Mom, what’s going on?” I asked, raising my eyebrow suspiciously.

She shrugged and didn’t answer me. I pretty much knew what was going on, but huffed, sounding annoyed. I jumped out of the van, and waited for my parents. “Guuyysss,” I pouted, stomping my feet dramatically.

My mom giggled and shook her head. “I can’t say anything. Not yet.” She raised her eyebrows playfully, watching my dad as he led us to the barn. I peered inside, but couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. People were chatting; horses were in cross-ties – the typical. Nobody seemed to acknowledge the fact that I was getting a horse.

Or maybe they didn’t know? Or maybe I wasn’t getting a horse?

My shoulders fell down as I sighed unhappily. Then what was the surprise, if it wasn’t me getting Code Red? Maybe there was no surprise and my mom had decided she was going to start texting and acting weird around me.

Suddenly, I heard a piercing whinny and the not-so-familiar-sound of hooves kicking a stall door. Horses here were usually well behaved, especially in their stalls. A few of the people there muttered incoherent words under their breath and rolled their eyes.  

I ran over to the stall from where the loud sound had come from and found myself staring into the wild eyes of a tall chestnut gelding. He whinnied loudly, mini-rearing in his stall and lashing out with his back legs again. The horse was clearly frazzled and his caramel eyes told the story of a frightened horse.

He pranced in place in his stall and I couldn’t help but notice his natural collection. He was insane but was definitely gorgeous. The gelding reared again, this time striking the wooden wall with his front hooves and tossed his head proudly.

My eyes traced down to the golden plate that was on his stall.

“Code Red – Dynamite

Owned by Katherine Collens”

My worst nightmare had finally arrived.

“What do you think, Katherine?” I heard Lauren comment from behind me. I jumped at her voice slightly, but responded quickly.

“He’s a bit … uh … mad…” I tried my hardest to hide my insecurity about this horse. Standing next to him, I didn’t know how I would ever trust him to carry me over 5 foot fences.

“No, he’s actually very docile,” Lauren insisted. I hid back my snort. Someone had obviously forgotten to watch his videos. “He’s just scared because he’s far away from home. He’ll quite down soon.”

I failed to believe that he would calm down, but before I could say anything back, my mom showed me all the new equipment she had bought me. There were two bridles, both supple and beautiful. One even had crystal accents on the browband. There were about five saddle pads, each one different. I loved the striped pink one, but I couldn’t picture any gelding being happy in pink.

Apart from that, she had gotten me a few boots for him, along with a martingale.  At least I was happy about a few things.

“So, are you excited to start working him?” Lauren asked me, studying my face intently. Was she catching on that I didn’t really like Dynamite?

“Yeah, totally!” I lied through my teeth. “He seems really challenging, but he’s got a lot of potential. Plus, he knows dressage too!”

Lauren beamed at me. “I’ll lunge him for a few days to see how he moves. You’ll be on him by Tuesday!”

I exhaled loudly, hoping Tuesday wouldn’t be how I had it pictured.