Burning Desire

Chapter Thirty-One

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The sky was heavy with rainclouds and shades of grey during the first day of our next three-day event; oceans pouring from the monochrome vault of the heavens. Fog clung to the air like a thick greyscale blanket, and through it the iridescent orange lettering on the electronic scoreboard flickered over and over, the names of contestants blurred by the rain.

Brenna was terrified of the score-board. I was certain she'd encountered them plenty of times before, but a combination of the weather and the fact that she was having an 'off-day' resulted in a paranoia of the board. The warm-up arena ran parallel to the actual dressage arena at this event, unusually close to the grand-stand, and so Brenna could see it as we warmed up. I couldn't get her anywhere near it; she would side-step agitatedly whenever we got close, and it made her nervous and on her toes.

The only part of Holly that was visible from beneath her huge umbrella and coat hood was her frown. I pulled Brenna up beside my trainer, on the opposite end of the arena to the score-board, and blinked raindrops off my eyelashes.

"There's nothing you can do about it," Holly said gravely. "Just ride as best you can and we'll have to condition her to flashing score-boards before Kentucky."

I nodded solemnly and pushed Brenna into a trot, trying to work her through some serpentines and transitions to keep her supple. When the steward beckoned us into the arena for our test, the heavens offered an extra violent outburst of icy rain crystals, each cutting my skin and leaving me a numb feeling in its place until I could barely tell the difference between them and me.

The test went as predicted; Brenna was tense throughout and shied away from the score-board whenever we came close to it. We received a score that wasn't our worst, but certainly wasn't our best either.

Callum and I spent a solemn evening huddled under a blanket on a tiny bunk in the horse lorry, sipping hot chocolate from steaming travel mugs in an attempt to defrost the caverns of ice dug into our bones. It had been a cold and disheartening start to the event, but Callum whispered sweet reassurances in my ear that filled me with hope for the cross country the next day.

Brenna felt soft and responsive the next day; she popped over the warm-up fences neatly and cantered around the warm-up paddock cool, calm and connected. I offered Callum an assured grin as we passed him on the way to the start-box, and Holly's last minute advice didn't require anything more than "Good luck!"

But the spectators were closer than normal and much noisier; dogs yapping, children shrieking, cameras flashing. There were many of eventing's big names competeting here today, producing younger horses that were destined for top level success. Eventing's biggest fans were trying to see those horses in action before they hit the big time.

There was a hold-up in the start box as the rider before me had fallen in the first half of the course. This wasn't reassuring, but I was quietly confident that today's cross country would go better than yesterday's dressage for us.

When we were finally allowed to begin our round, Brenna exploded into a rapid pace. The crowd surrounding the first fence cheered us on jubilantly and, on any other horse, the atmosphere would heighten the excitement. But, on Brenna, it didn't work in our favour. Her eyes came out like stalks and her head shot up like a giraffe, and she sprinted so hard at the first fence that I didn't have time to steady her. She jumped out of an unmeasured, forward stride and it resulted in an awkward cat-like leap over the first fence. We landed off-balance on the other side, but before I had time to recompose us, Brenna was taking off again.