First There Was You

Chapter 9: Elle

June 17

Palgrave, Ontario

It's been pissing rain the entire day. I'm soaked to the bone, covered in mud, Kuna looks like a different horse, his previously glossy white grey coat coated in an inch of dirt, splattered across his entire body, but he's happy enough.

He keeps pawing at the ground, trying to kneel down to roll and I fight to keep him on all fours, tempting him with mints to distract him from the soupy arena dirt pool we're standing in.

Looking down at myself, I grimace. Geordie is never going to let me get into his car. He'll probably try to strap me to the roof first. I'll need to rinse off in the wash stall later, which I'm dreading since there's no steady hot water really and with all the horses here needing baths, I'm sure there won't be any left.

Kuna and I are up in twenty minutes, so I need to get on and warm him up again. This day has dragged on, delayed by rain besides the other delays that generally happen when coaches are running between rings, supporting their riders in different divisions with conflicting schedules.

I see my coach, Chelsea and I wave her down. She gives me one horrified look and grimaces, looking over at my mum who looks like the Michelin woman in rain gear, with all her layers, standing on the grass out of the soupy dirt.

"Kid, you look disgusting."

I raise an eyebrow, looking her up and down, she's in no better condition than I am. So, I shrug, "Not much I can do about it, Chels. Mum's got a clean blazer for me in the golf cart, but if I take these boots off now to change my breeches, I won't be able to get them back on." I can feel my legs and muscles pulsing inside the tight leather of my boots and I'm grateful the day is close to finished for me.

Chels yanks the rain sheet off Kuna and he shakes under the heavy onslaught of the rain. She gives me a leg up and sends me to walk around the ring a couple of times. I tighten my girth while walking and warm Kuna up.

We pop back and forth over a few jumps in the warm-up ring, dodging other riders through the heavy curtain of rain. Chels shouts my name, signaling it's enough and I walk to the chute of the in-gate to wait my turn. We go over the course, my path through the ring, the speed limit and areas I can cut time.

We'd walked the course together a few hours ago, but the path would be totally different now in the sloppy, muddy sand.

After slipping into my drier, cleaner blazer, I pin my number to my saddle pad, ready to head in for my final round.

If I go clear and under the time limit, I'll directly head into a jump-off, I've memorized that course too, and I repeat the sequence of numbers and descriptions I've memorized.

Today's course has thirteen jumps, with a seventy-four seconds time limit. The jump-off has eight jumps, with a fifty-two seconds time limit. Jumps one, two, five, six, eight A then B, skip C, then finishing with nine and ten. I repeat both courses over and over in my head, picturing where they all are in the ring.

"Safety first, kid. Stay smart, watch where you're heading, balance him in the turns. Just like we do at home. Go get 'em."

Even in the downpour, covered in mud and blinking rain out of my eyes, every other thought and worry slides from my mind and I focus only on these next seventy four seconds. The buzzer sounds and I nudge Kuna into a smooth canter, circling him once before heading to the first fence.

Kuna can be extremely lazy, but as soon as you point him in the direction of a jump, he flies like a bullet out of a gun. We cross the timer line and soar over the first jump. I bend him to the second fence, a large oxer which he sails over.