think you’re my favourite so far,” Issie whispered to him. Then she moved on to the last box. Her heart was racing as she slid back the bolt and opened the stall.
The horse inside the last stall was brown. Just brown and nothing more. No white markings, stars or stripes—just plain brown with a mealy muzzle. Compared to the exotic cremello, the pretty dun and all the others, the bland, brown coat of this horse couldn’t have been more boring. And yet Issie instantly liked him. Experience had taught her to look beyond colour and sense the quality that lay beneath.
The gelding was a Thoroughbred, built for speed with a fine-boned, well-muscled body. He stood at around fifteen-three hands and had an elegant head, well-set on his neck and, Issie noted, the most thoughtful, intelligent eyes she had ever seen. You could tell so much from a horse’s eyes, and the eyes of this gelding made an immediate connection with Issie. There was something special about this horse.
“Hello, boy,” Issie murmured. “You’re lovely, aren’t you?” She reached out a hand to stroke the horse. “What’s your name, eh?” she cooed.
She was startled when a voice responded.
“You’re early.”
Issie spun around. There was a woman standing right behind her!
“Ohmygod!” Issie giggled. “You gave me a fright!”
The woman didn’t smile back. She stood there stiffly with her arms folded and her brow furrowed into a frown. Despite her gruff expression, Issie could see that she was quite beautiful with glossy, walnut-brown hair, delicate, tiny freckles over her cheekbones and bright green eyes.
“You must be one of Avery’s riders,” the woman said this as if it were a statement, not a question. “I thought you weren’t due at the stables until after breakfast.”
“I’m not…I mean, we aren’t…” Issie faltered. There was something about this woman that made her nervous. She was sure she had seen her somewhere before. “I’m here from Chevalier Point Pony Club. My name’s Issie…Isadora Brown.”
“So which one is it?” the woman asked coolly. “Issie or Isadora?”
“My friends call me Issie.”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “I see. Well then, I’ll call you Isadora.” She paused and then added, “My students at the Blainford Academy call me Voldemort. I don’t know why. Apparently, it’s got something to do with Harry Potter…Anyway, they think it’s hilarious.” The woman looked at Issie with cold eyes. “Do you think it’s funny?”
“Ummm, yes…I mean…no…ummm, I don’t know,” Issie stammered nervously.
“It’s because I’m the toughest teacher at the college,” the woman said, clearly unperturbed by her gruesome reputation. “I expect that once you’ve been through one of my cross-country lessons you’ll agree with them. Although,” she continued, “I’d prefer it if you called me Tara.” She stuck out her hand for Issie to shake.
“Tara Kelly.”
Issie had never really thought of Tara Kelly as a real person. In her mind Tara was like a superhero, impossibly fearless, dressed in her pale blue jersey and helmet, riding that cross-country course on her enormous grey horse as if her life depended on it—which it probably did, considering the size of the jumps at Lexington. Even though Avery had told the Chevalier Point riders that Tara would be instructing at Havenfields, to actually be standing here face to face with her in real life came as a shock.
“Is there something wrong?” Tara asked. This time when she spoke, Issie noticed that her cool voice had the burr of a soft American accent. She couldn’t believe it. She was really standing here, right next to Tara Kelly!
“I used to watch you riding on TV when I was little,” Issie told her.
“Well, that makes me feel positively ancient!” Tara said. Her face remained stiff and unsmiling. Issie couldn’t tell if she was joking or if she was really offended. Suddenly she felt all flustered, standing there saying the wrong thing to one of her idols.
“No! I mean you don’t look really old…” Issie groaned. Every time she opened her mouth it got worse.
Tara Kelly arched an eyebrow. “Thanks—you don’t look that old either. You must have been pretty young when you watched me on TV—I haven’t ridden competitively in a long time.”
“I was eight, I guess,” Issie said. “I’m fourteen now. I’ll be fifteen in a month or so.”
“And are all the riders in the New Zealand squad the same age as you?” Tara asked.
“My friends Kate and Stella are fourteen like me—Morgan is too, I think. Well, maybe she’s already fifteen. I don’t know about the others—they’re not from my pony club. But you have to be under seventeen, don’t you?”
Tara nodded and looked down the row of loose boxes, noting that the top doors of the stalls had been swung wide open.
“You’ve seen all the horses then?” she said to Issie. “Have you decided which one you’d like to ride?”
“Ummm…” Issie felt like she’d been put on the spot. “I think they’re all amazing.”
“But,” Tara said, looking at her intently, “you must have a favourite.”
“I guess so, well, kind of,” said Issie. “It’s hard though, before I see how they move and feel what it’s like to ride them.”
“If you had to choose one right now,” Tara Kelly persisted, “just by looking, which one would it be?”
Issie hesitated. “I like the cremello. He has strong hindquarters and muscle in all the right places. He looks like he’d be a good jumper…”
“You’re right.” Tara seemed impressed by this assessment. “The cremello’s name is Floyd, and yes, he’s a brilliant jumper. He’s already been intensively schooled by Andrew Hoy, the Australian rider who won a gold medal for eventing at the Olympics.”
Issie continued. “I like Floyd, but I like this brown horse too. He has a completely different body, much leaner and built for speed, which would make him good for cross-country. Plus, he’s got a really honest face and I like his eyes. I think you can tell a lot about a horse from his eyes.”
“His name is Victory,” Tara said. “Victory was schooled by Andrew as well, but as you say, he’s a completely different type to the cremello.”
“He’s a Thoroughbred?” Issie asked.
Tara nodded. “He raced on the track, but never won any decent prize money. When he was four and clearly wasn’t going to make them a fortune, his trainers decided to try him as a steeplechaser instead. They raced him over hurdles for two seasons without much success, before selling him on to the Hoy stables when he was five. He’s eight years old now. He’s been schooled to medium dressage and been over
