me to enter?”
“Already done!” Lucinda said. “Your name is on the audition list. We’ll have to leave very early on Saturday to make the drive to Cirencester.” she paused, “.and there is one other tiny detail that might be a problem.”
Georgie groaned. “What is it?”
“I’ve just found out that the head of the Blainford selection panel will be there.” Lucinda hesitated. “Have you heard of Tara Kelly?”
“Tara Kelly!” Georgie couldn’t believe it. “I remember seeing her on TV when she won the Lexington Horse Trials. She’s an amazing rider.”
Lucinda nodded. “She’s also the head of admissions for Blainford and she’s got a reputation for being extremely hard-nosed. One year, she was supposed to take five riders from the UK but she decided only two were up to scratch so she cut the list and left the other three behind.”
“OK,” Georgie said, “so she’s tough. Then Tyro and
I will just have to impress her.”
Lucinda hesitated. “There’s more to it. The thing is, Tara will be watching you. She knows who you are, you see. Because she knew your mother.”
“She knew Mum?” Georgie perked up. “But that’s great! If she recognises my name it might help my chances of being selected.”
“I doubt it,” Lucinda said darkly. “Georgie, when I say that Tara knew Ginny that might not necessarily be a positive thing …”
Georgie was confused. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Lucinda said. “Your mother and Tara weren’t friends. They were rivals.”
Tara Kelly raced her rental car down the narrow lanes, catching glimpses of the countryside flashing by as she drove at breakneck speed. She had almost forgotten how beautiful England could be in the springtime, the old stone cottages, and apple trees in bloom.
It had been a long time since her last visit. For the past three years another Blainford selector had been responsible for handling the UK while Tara had been re-assigned to the other end of the world, looking for fresh talent in Australia and Japan. This year however, the roster had changed again and Tara had returned to Europe.
Last week she had been in Germany with other selectors for the finals of the European auditions, and they had chosen several excellent new admissions for the academy. The two best new entrants were outstanding dressage riders, which, Tara thought with a wry smile, would no doubt please Bettina Schmidt. Bettina was the head of Blainford’s dressage department and had always been critical of the recruitment process for the academy. Bettina’s concern was that Tara, as both chief selector and the head of Blainford’s eventing department, was biased towards eventing riders. In fact the truth was quite the opposite. As four-times winner of the Lexington Horse Trials, Tara set especially high standards for students applying to join her department.
The selection process was tough no matter what category you applied for. Only the best riders from showjumpers and polo players to Western and natural horsemanship disciples, even vaulters and carriage drivers, were chosen.
Blainford had earned its reputation by maintaining the highest standards and entry to the academy was exclusive. Tara and her team of selectors had to make certain that the right choices were made.
The shortlist of potential applicants crumpled at the bottom of Tara Kelly’s brown leather bag was becoming shorter by the day. After the Cirencester show it would become shorter still. 116 junior showjumpers were competing in this last semi-final. Only three of them would make it through to the final auditions next weekend at the Birmingham NEC.
It was impossible of course for Tara to remember the name of every aspiring rider on the shortlist, but there was one that had leapt off the page at her from the very first time she had seen it. That name was Georgina Parker.
“It’s not so much that Tara and your mum hated each other,” Lucinda explained as she drove the horse lorry into the Cirencester showgrounds. “They were the best riders in the eventing class and there was this constant rivalry. They used their competitiveness with each other to spur themselves on, I suppose. Between them, they won every single prize in their senior year at school.”
“So why didn’t Mum talk about her?” Georgie asked.
“Their lives didn’t really connect much after that,” Lucinda said. “They both turned professional and for a short while they rode against each other on the international circuit. But then your mum took some time off to have you and when she returned to eventing Tara had given up competing to take up her position at Blainford.”
Lucinda stopped talking to concentrate on parking the lorry then said, “Right. I’ll go get your registration number while you unload him and saddle up.”
Normally at a one-day event, Georgie knew quite a few of the other riders. It was fun to meet up at shows and there would be friendly smiles and chit-chat. But she didn’t know a soul at Cirencester and the atmosphere was tense and bristling with competition.
As Georgie unloaded Tyro she felt the stares of the other riders. They were watching, assessing their new rival. Tyro, of course, played to the crowd by high-stepping down the ramp as if he were a race horse arriving at the Grand National. The pony carried himself as if he were a statuesque Thoroughbred stallion instead of a fourteen-two hand gelding. He stood at the bottom of the lorry ramp and utterly embarrassed Georgie by holding his head high in the air and letting out a loud, brazen whinny as if to say “I’ve arrived! Everyone look at me!”
“Stop being a show-off!” Georgie giggled at his antics. But no one else seemed amused. There were serious faces on all the other riders as they trotted past, eyeing Georgie and Tyro suspiciously.
It got worse once Georgie mounted up and rode Tyro along the avenue of swanky horse lorries and into the practice arena. Here, it was every man for himself as riders kept getting in each other’s way as they warmed up. Georgie cantered a bit close to a gangly-legged girl on a pretty grey pony and received a vicious telling-off from the girl’s mum who had bleached blonde hair and a strangely orange complexion, which Georgie eventually realised was due to a spray tan and not a hideous skin condition.
“Keep off! You’ll make Caprice upset!” the mother complained loudly. “She’s very sensitive!”
“I’m sorry, Caprice.” Georgie pulled Tyro up to apologise.
“My name is Sybil.” The girl looked at Georgie like she was a total idiot. “Caprice is my pony.”
“Oh, sorry,” Georgie said again. Caprice, meanwhile, had noticed Tyro. She reached her long elegant grey neck out to touch noses with the gelding and, in a gesture typical of stroppy mares, greeted him by giving a sudden, high-pitched squeal and lashing out with a vicious swipe of her foreleg.
“See!” the orange-faced woman fumed. “Now you’ve gone and upset her!” She snatched Caprice by the reins and dragged the pony and her daughter off to the other side of the field. “If you come near us again I’m reporting you to the officials,” she told
