they’d all been dying to ask Georgie, but none of them had been brave enough to broach the subject.
Georgie didn’t have to answer because at that moment Mitty Janssen came over to join them.
Mitty was a dedicated dressage rider who had aced the Netherlands auditions. Her two best friends, Isabel Weiss and Spanish rider Reina Romero were also dressage fanatics and boarders in Stars of Pau. All three girls were swotty and serious and known throughout the school as the ‘Dressage Set’.
“Hi, Georgie,” Mitty said.
“Oh, hey, Mitty, how are you?”
“So,” Mitty smiled, “I heard the news that you’re joining us! Do you need to borrow a pair of Carl Hester training reins? They’re compulsory for first years—”
“Uh, thanks, Mitty,” Georgie said, cutting her off. “I already bought some.”
“OK,” Mitty said cheerfully. “Well, I’ll see you in class!”
“Yeah,” Georgie muttered. She didn’t look up from her lunch. She could feel the eyes of the rest of the eventing clique staring at her with horror. Georgie Parker had joined the dressage class!
*
“You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about,” Alice insisted as the girls walked towards the stables. “I mean, dressage is an important part of eventing. It’s one of the three phases. So of course it makes sense to join the dressage class!”
“Do you really think so?” Georgie was relieved, “I thought you’d think it was—”
“Wussy?” Cameron offered.
“Totally lame?” Daisy suggested.
The eventers snorted and giggled.
“Yeah, great, guys, thanks for that. I knew I could rely on your support…” Georgie groaned. “Look, what else am I supposed to do? Dressage is something I need to learn, and besides, it fits the options timetable.”
“It’s a good choice,” Emily said, trying to be supportive. “I mean, really we should all be taking dressage as an option. You live and die by your dressage points these days. Eventing’s not just about showjumping and cross-country any more.”
“Hey,” Georgie said, “if you wanted to drop cross-country and join dressage too, I know that there’re still a couple of spaces…”
“Are you kidding?” Emily was horrified. “Trotting in circles like a nana? I’d be bored to tears!”
Georgie knew what she meant. An eventing rider lived for the thrill of galloping across country, tackling any obstacle that presented itself. After the wild, reckless excitement of Tara’s class, she was well aware that Bettina Schmidt’s dressage lessons would be rather… sedate. Even so, she had to stay positive.
“Bettina is a great dressage teacher,” she told the others. “It’s going to be cool.”
*
“For our lesson today,” Bettina Schmidt said, “we will be spending the entire hour and a half at the walk to focus on our lower leg position.”
“Strangle me with a martingale and put me out of my misery,” Georgie groaned. Beneath her, Belladonna shifted about restlessly. The bay mare had just spent the past two weeks being spelled for the school holidays and this was their first ride together. What Belle really needed was a decent canter to blow out the cobwebs. Instead, they were going to spend their whole lesson at the walk!
Georgie joined the back of the ride and resigned herself to her fate, but Belle wasn’t so biddable. As the other dressage horses began to circle the arena, walking politely on the bit, their necks arched and their strides neat and regular, Belle began skipping about with frustration.
Despite Georgie’s best efforts to calm her, the mare kept racing past the others and spent the first half of the lesson in a constant jiggly-jog.
When she finally got the mare to walk on and could concentrate on what Bettina was saying, Georgie realised that she didn’t actually understand most of Bettina’s instructions anyway.
“Ride from the hindquarters!” Bettina kept telling her. “Now try to feel each stride. Volte! Stay off the forehand!”
For all Georgie knew a volte might be a handstand! As it turned out, it was just a little circle. They spent the lesson doing endless little circles at the walk, and then bigger ones, also at the walk.
It was all so precise, so detailed and so… very, very boring.
“That was a brilliant lesson!” Isabel Weiss’s eyes were bright with enthusiasm as they led the horses back to the stables after class. “I really noticed how deep my seat was by the end of the session, didn’t you, Georgie?”
“Uh-huh,” Georgie agreed, stifling a yawn. “Do you want to come back to Stars of Pau with us after we unsaddle?” Mitty offered. “We’ve got a DVD that shows you how to do a piaffe in ten easy steps. We were going to watch it before dinner.”
“Umm, maybe some other time,” Georgie said. “I’ll catch you guys later, OK?”
It was a relief to be alone again in the loose box with Belle. As Georgie unsaddled the mare she was surprised to see that she wasn’t even sweating under her numnah. Mind you, Georgie thought, why would Belle break a sweat when she had only been dawdling around for the past hour and a half?
Georgie looked at her watch. It was quarter to five. It would be dark by five-thirty; she should really be untacking and heading back to the house. But she felt as if she hadn’t really had a proper ride.
“Come on, Belle,” she murmured to the mare, flinging the saddle over her back again and tightening the girth once more. “Let’s go – just you and me.”
*
Snow had begun falling as Georgie set out along the bridle path at the back of the stables. She watched the white flakes floating down from the sky, landing on Belle’s jet-black mane. Georgie usually kept it neatly pulled so that it was short and tidy for plaiting, but over the holidays it had grown lustrous and long. Belle’s hunter clip was growing out too. It had been almost a term since Georgie clipped her in grooming class.
Georgie’s own hair was braided in two thick, blonde plaits and as she put on her helmet to leave the stables she came up with the genius idea of twisting her plaits and shoving the ends through the ear-hole sections at the sides of her helmet so her hair would cover and protect her ears from the cold. It looked a bit weird with her plaits poking out from her helmet at odd angles, but Georgie figured that no one was going to see her.
She rode past the snug indoor arena where they had spent their dressage lesson. It felt good to be outdoors, to feel the icy bite of the winter chill against her bare cheeks.
As soon as they were clear of the stables and had passed through the gateway where the bridle path led to the open fields, Georgie urged Belle into a trot. The mare had lovely, floaty paces and she lifted up beneath Georgie like a hovercraft, arching her neck and taking the reins forward. She snorted and pulled, keen to canter.
“Steady,
