no worse than my dad,” Lily said. “He doesn’t have a clue about me either. At least your dad was willing to let you apply to Blainford, even though the school fees must cost a bomb.”
“It’s not like it was Dad’s idea. He hates the thought of me going there. Mum was the one who had my name down on the enrolment list from the day I was born.”
It had been a massive battle for Georgie to convince Dr Parker to let her apply for Blainford. Her dad didn’t understand why she wanted to go. “You already have a pony,” he told her. “Why can’t you stay here and save riding for after school and the weekends? The local high school is perfectly adequate.”
“No, it’s not,” Georgie had told him. “Not if I want to become a world-class rider. All the best riders in the world have been to Blainford. You get to take your horse with you and you can ride every day, plus there are specialist riding classes and they teach all sorts of horse subjects as well as the regular stuff like English and maths.”
“I think you’re being swayed by the fact that your mother went to school there,” Dr Parker said. “I’m sure if we look around we could find an equestrian school here in Gloucestershire that is just as good. I believe there are several excellent ones in the county. Why does it have to be this Blainford–on the other side of the world in America?”
“Blainford is the best,” Georgie countered. “It’s not just because of Mum, honestly. It has amazing instructors.” Her dad didn’t seem to understand that half the appeal was the fact that it was a million miles away. Georgie loved their village but at the same time she was desperate to get away. Ever since her mother’s accident, she’d been so lonely here. Her dad tried hard, but he didn’t know anything about horses, or how it felt to be a thirteen-year-old girl with dreams of horsey super-stardom, stuck in boring old Little Brampton.
Georgie had nothing in common with her dad. Everyone said she was just like her mum, tall and willowy with a fair complexion and smattering of freckles. Her mum had brown hair, though, and Georgie’s was blonde. “If I were a pony,” Georgie liked to ask her mother, “what colour would I be?”
“Oh, a palomino, I should think,” Mrs Parker would reply, “with your beautiful flaxen mane. Not a boring brown mare like your mum.”
Georgie was ten years old when Ginny Parker took the fatal fall that ended her life. The accident happened on the cross-country course at the Blenheim three-star. Ginny Parker had been riding two horses that day. The famed chestnut gelding, The Interloper, generally considered her best horse, and the other her favourite mare, a stunning bay with a white heart-shaped marking on her forehead, whose name was Boudicca.
Mrs Parker always took her daughter to the big competitions. But on this particular weekend Little Brampton was having a gymkhana and so, instead of travelling with her mum, Georgie decided to stay and take Tyro on his first outing. It was a decision she would always regret. If she had known what was going to happen that day she would have been by her mother’s side. Instead, when Ginny Parker fell, Georgie was scooping up prizes on Tyro at the gymkhana, completely oblivious to the fact that her life was about to change forever.
No one really knew exactly what happened on the course at Blenheim Palace. Everyone said that Boudicca was going brilliantly, until she reached a fence known as the Blenheim coffin. Ginny Parker had urged the mare over the log at the top of the steep bank, and Boudicca flew the jump with ease, but as she landed, the mare somehow lost her footing. Ginny tried to correct her, but it was too late. Instead of jumping the ditch at the bottom of the bank Boudicca somersaulted into it–with Georgie’s mum pinned underneath her.
Ginny Parker’s death rocked the whole village. Everybody in Little Brampton knew the Parkers. Not only because Ginny Parker was an internationally renowned rider, but also because Georgie’s dad was the local GP.
After the accident, Dr Parker insisted that Boudicca, who had survived the fall, should be sold along with Ginny’s other eventing horses. Even worse, he was adamant that Tyro had to go as well. Georgie, having already lost her mother, was about to lose her best friend in the world.
That was when Lucinda Milwood stepped in. Lucinda ran the local riding school just five minutes down the road from the Parkers’ cottage. When Georgie turned up there in tears over losing Tyro, Lucinda managed to convince a reluctant Dr Parker to allow her to keep the black gelding at the riding school instead of selling him.
Lucinda’s riding school soon became like a second home for Georgie. In exchange for Tyro’s board, she went there every morning before school to muck out the stables and groom the ponies to get them ready for the day’s lessons. Straight after school, she would change out of her uniform and into her jods to exercise the horses. Afternoons were often busy with riding-school lessons, but if there was time Lucinda would instruct Georgie on Tyro.
Georgie had ridden lots of other horses, but there was something special about Tyro. He was a handsome pony, with a solid, muscular conformation and stocky limbs that made him a jumping machine. His jet-black colouring was unusual for a Connemara, and he had an indefinable presence, a look-at-me quality, that made him stand out in the show ring. The partnership between them really clicked. In three short years Georgie had schooled him up through the grades so that he was one of the best eventing ponies in the district.
In preparation for the Blainford auditions Georgie and Tyro had trained every day. Sometimes, when her schedule had been tight, Georgie had even got up at 5am to ride before school so that she could get the black pony into top shape. But it turned out her efforts were all for nothing. When Tyro went down at the water jump he had taken Georgie’s hopes and dreams down with him. She had failed to ace the audition, in fact she had come at the very bottom of the field. Georgie truly believed her chance of a place at Blainford had gone. So she was shocked on Monday afternoon when, not long after she arrived home from school, Lucinda called her on the phone, breathlessly excited.
“I’m down at the stables,” Lucinda told her, “come straight away and meet me! And wear your jods!”
Lucinda had hung up before Georgie had the chance to ask what was going on. By the time Georgie arrived at the yard she found Lucinda working Tyro around the arena on the lunge rein. When she caught sight of Georgie she gave her a grin. “He’s totally sound!” Lucinda called out. “The accident didn’t hurt him at all–he’ll be ready to jump in time for the weekend.”
“Which is great, Lucinda, except we’re not entered in anything this weekend.” Georgie screwed up her face. “The auditions are over.”
“No,” Lucinda shook her head. “They’re not. There’s still one more semi-final audition left. Next weekend in Cirencester.”
“Another one-day event?” Georgie was stunned.
“No,” Lucinda said. “It’s showjumping.”
“But I’m not a showjumper!”
Lucinda wouldn’t be deterred. “For goodness sake, Georgie, don’t be wet! You know how to jump, don’t you? Tyro always goes clear in the showjumping phase at one-day events. OK, so he’s never jumped as high as a showjumper and he lacks some technique, but we have a week to train him. Isn’t it better than just giving up? At least this way you still stand a chance!”
“But I don’t want to be a showjumper! I’m an eventer.”
Lucinda rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t matter! All you have to do is make it through the showjumping audition to get yourself a place at the grand finals. And
