The Gift Horse

Chapter VI

Meredith's next lesson is on Saturday. As she drives through the gates of the Hunt Club, she notices the different atmosphere that the weekend brings. Children are running around everywhere, in their breeches and collared riding shirts, tugging their ponies along with them. There is double the amount of adult riders and each outdoor ring has multiple lessons going on at once. The riders glide around the ring avoiding collisions, as if following traffic regulations Meredith has never been taught.

Kimberly leads Meredith and Thor to one of the rings in the polo field. A woman on a dapple-grey is already in there. She gives Meredith a stern nod as she rides past. Her posture is immaculate. Meredith tries to align her body that way, imagining the pole down her back, but when she puts her heels down, she feels the sores reopen against her socks. She grits her teeth and presses Thor onward into the trot.

"Good with the diagonal!" Kimberly shouts. "Now sit a few beats." Meredith sits in the bouncy saddle, bobbing like a buoy on Thor's back. "Tuck your tailbone under, legs tight, shoulders back, give him all your weight."

Kimberly has Meredith do a seated trot until she's out of breath and swearing to herself for not bringing a water bottle. She pants, her legs on fire, while Thor moseys around the ring watching the cars driving past on the road.

When Meredith catches her breath, Kimberly tells her to canter. The canter feels so much more comfortable. Kimberly starts shouting "Leg on! Leg on!" But Meredith keeps her legs relaxed, knowing that Thor wants to go as much as she does. He only stops when she leans back and pulls hard on the reins.

* * *

On the walk up from the ring, Meredith passes a group of girls grazing their ponies. They're all shouting at each other about whose pony will marry whose while holding onto their lead ropes as the ponies mow the lawn with their thick teeth.

She swaps Thor's tack for a halter and leads him back outside. He swings his head from side to side, eager and excited, and suddenly he's leading Meredith, tugging her straight to a patch of grass by the pavement.

"No, come on!" Meredith pulls as hard as she can. It's so much easier to demand things of Lemon. Three good tugs and finally Thor brings his head back to her. She marches forward and leads him past the lunch tent that smells like barbecue and smoke, past little girls and their ponies, to the polo field where she stops under a tree to let Thor graze.

Meredith watches as he picks through the blades of grass with his lips. He's a great, big, beast of bronze, tail moving in the wind like a whip, lashing at the flies on his belly so fast that they burst off his skin.

She leans against him, puts an arm over his back and presses her cheek against his coat. The heat from his body warms her skin. She hears a laugh, and turns to see the Jamaican groom from Barn 5 approaching her with a plate of food.

"Nice day," Meredith says, like she's explaining herself. He nods, taking the burger and stuffing it into his mouth. He walks closer; the hot smell of oil now filling Meredith's nose. Thor perks up from the grass and cranes his neck forward—he seems to smell it too.

The groom holds out a French fry to him.

"Hey!" Meredith hisses but it's too late; Thor devours it.

He laughs, his stomach jiggling. "It's okay, hun. One fry never hurt nobody."

"He's a horse," she says. He just smiles, goading her. She grabs a fry from his plate and gives it to Thor. Then she grabs another and eats it.

"Hey!" He hugs the plate to his stomach, hiding the rest from her. Meredith laughs back at him, hoping this means they're sharing a joke.

She holds out her hand. "I'm Meredith, by the way."