Deck the Stalls: Horse Stories for the Holidays

By Natalie Keller Reinert, Jessica Burkhart, Maggie Dana and 5 more

Get in the holiday spirit with this Christmas-themed set of short stories from some of your favorite equestrian writers! Some of the top authors in the genre have banded together to share Christmas stories from the heart. Look for best-selling authors Maggie Dana, Mary Pagones, Mara Dabrishus, Brittney Joy, Kim Ablon Whitney, Kate Lattey, and Natalie Keller Reinert -- plus an all-new Canterwood Crest holiday short story from Jessica Burkhart! And in the true spirit of the holidays, all proceeds will go to benefit Old Friends, a Thoroughbred retirement home providing life-long homes for former racehorses.

Inside, you'll find stories from some favorite characters and new ones:

- Jessica Burkhart returns to Canterwood Crest with an all-new holiday story.
- Mara Dabrishus takes us back to Saratoga with July from "Stay the Distance."
- Natalie Keller Reinert visits her best-selling Eventing Series with a peek into Jules' early days as a working student.
- Brittney Joy offers a warm-hearted holiday tale with characters from her Red Rock Ranch series.
- Mary Pagones contributes the prequel to "The Horse is Never Wrong" and "Fortune's Fool."
- Kate Lattey revisits Pip from "Flying Changes," along with a new friend.
- Maggie Dana, author of Timber Ridge Riders, writes an all-new holiday story, "The Ticket."
- Kim Ablon Whitney, author of hunter/jumper series The Circuit, shares a Christmas story in "The Barn Party."

With prequels, new stories of old friends, and brand new characters to fall in love with, "Deck the Stalls" is a Christmas gift from your favorite authors that you'll want to read again and again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Mare Media
• Release date: Nov 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781540114426

Book preview

Deck The Stalls

Horse Stories for the Holidays

Edited by Jessica Burkhart and Natalie Keller Reinert

Deck the Stalls: Horse Stories for the Holidays

Edited by Jessica Burkhart & Natalie Keller Reinert

Copyright © 2016 Jessica Burkhart & Natalie Keller Reinert

All rights reserved.

The stories in this collection are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover Design: Maggie Dana

Ebook Design: Calvin Reinert

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All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to Old Friends, a retirement home for racehorses.

Thank you for your purchase!

And to everyone who makes the world a

little better for horses: Merry Christmas!

Contents

1. The Ticket

2. Sugar Cookies & Peppermints

3. All Is Bright

4. A Very Merry Canterwood Christmas

5. The Barn Party

6. The Perfect Pony

7. Damsel in Distress

8. Working Student

Afterword

Chapter one

The Ticket

by Maggie Dana

I’d never seen Mom ride till the day my best friend Missy Tate invited us to a horse show. I was on the fence about going. Not because I don’t like horses—I adore them—but because it would make me envious, like it always does whenever I see Missy schooling Tonka in the paddock across the street from our house.

Tonka? my brother would sneer. That’s a toy truck.

Eric’s fifteen, two years older than me, and crazy about video games and guitars. Missy thinks he’s cute. I think she’s nuts.

My cell phone chimes.

Janey, where RU?

I’d had to ignore Missy’s previous texts because I was helping Mom unload groceries and get dinner going. It’s just the three of us now, but Eric eats enough for two, so it’s like cooking for TV’s typical American family—two parents, two kids, and a lovable dog. The way we were before Dad died. Except we don’t have a dog, lovable or otherwise. I text Missy.

Whassup?

I know exactly what’s up. Missy’s show is tomorrow. It’s a big deal, with well-known judges and a slew of junior riders from all over the state who’re chasing points and ribbons to qualify for year-end awards. Missy explained it, but it all went in one ear and out the other. She texts back.

Duh-uh. The show.

I’m to be at her barn by six o’clock. No problem. I love getting up early, before the birds, even. I will help her braid Tonka, paint his hooves, and polish his mahogany coat until it shines. We’ve done it before, but only for schooling shows.

This is her first really big one.

In first grade we used to play horses. We’d turn string into bridles and gallop each other around the playground. Missy, who’s blond, would always be the flashy palomino. She dubbed me as brown or dun because I’ve got mouse colored hair.

Plain Jane. That’s me.

After school, we’d geek out over model horses, posing them inside cute white fences and picture-perfect barns. A few years later, we took riding lessons together. Missy learned to canter before I did. Then she got a horse of her own, and I didn’t.

Feeling guilty, I crawl into bed.

It’s not Mom’s fault we can’t afford a horse. I know that, but it doesn’t make it any easier. It doesn’t dissolve that knot of envy that sits in my throat every time I see Tonka. Some days it’s so bad, I want to throw up.

I am so not proud of this.

Tomorrow, I will get up early and help Missy. I will hug Tonka because I love him and I will be her loudest cheerleader. We will go to the show, never mind I’d rather be anywhere else.

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Even the birds are yawning when I stumble out of bed, pull on my jeans, and head for Missy’s barn. It’s pretty old with a tarnished weathervane on the roof—a landmark antique, according to its white plaque—but you’d never know it because her father had the whole thing completely remodeled before Tonka arrived. The four stalls are solid oak with automatic waterers; the aisle has thick rubber floor mats. There’s even a wash bay and a heated tack room. Light streams in through impossibly clean windows. No dust, no cobwebs.

No ribbons, either.

And that’s the problem. Missy and Tonka have been competing all season with nothing to show for it. Not even a forlorn pink ribbon for sixth place. Or maybe it’s fifth. I can’t keep them straight. And now it’s the middle of September and Missy’s father is getting impatient.

Mr. Tate wins all the time. His golf and tennis trophies sit on a shelf in the Tates’ uncomfortable living room. Medals he won in college gleam inside a glass showcase. They’re so shiny, I figure Mrs. Tate polishes them once a week, or maybe their housekeeper does.

Don’t worry, you’ll nail it, I tell Missy.

Easy for you to say, she mutters through pursed lips.

Missy calls her father a pothunter. I’d never heard the term before, but she’s picked it up from the British pony books she loves to read.

Pothunter.

Makes him sound as if he’s on the prowl for frying pans and mixing bowls rather than ribbons and silver trophies. Missy and I work in silence, like a well-rehearsed team. I’m not sure, but I think she knows I’m jealous which is why she’s always telling me that Tonka is as much mine as he is hers. Her father would have a conniption if he knew.

If you had a horse, Missy says, brushing Tonka’s silky black tail, you could keep it here for free.

Free.

The perfect solution. Except my mother can’t afford to buy a horse in the first place. Tonka cost ten thousand dollars. He’s a solidly predictable hunter with a good track record. He gets the job done and he’s supposed to put Missy in the ribbons, which is what her father wants.

Maybe there’s a free horse, somewhere, Missy adds, as she leads Tonka into their gleaming black-and-silver trailer. Tonka loads like a pro, then nuzzles her empty hands for a treat. I toss Missy a couple of carrots. We close the ramp behind him.

Yeah, right.

Free horses don’t exist, at least not in Connecticut. I know, because I’ve looked. There isn’t even a horse rescue place around here, and even if there was, the vet bills to rehabilitate an abused horse would be astronomical. Way beyond Mom’s budget.

What about that farm demo we went to last month? Missy says. Maybe they’ve got a young horse you could bring along. You know, one that wouldn’t cost as much as a fully trained one.

It’s a pipe dream, and totally unrealistic. I don’t know nearly enough to train a young horse, even if I could afford one. But that demonstration was amazing. At one point, a bay yearling was led into one side of a horse trailer as a motorcycle roared out the other. The young horse didn’t bat an eyelid.

Way to go, Missy had said.

The only horses in my life, besides Tonka, are the pictures of dressage horses and show jumpers I’ve cut from magazines that sit on my shelves along with the Breyers that I sometimes still play with.

Another memory bubbles up from the same event. The farm’s owner had introduced a pretty brown mare that was born prematurely with deformed hooves. Her dam had died and she’d been raised on a bottle. Once the young filly had learned to walk—hobble around, mostly—she’d been donated to Landmark Farm, a local therapeutic riding center. The kids adored her because they identified with her. Taking turns, they rode her around the ring with volunteer walkers on both sides, all of them grinning and punching the air with their fists so happily that I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time.

I felt fortunate… and very small.

It takes us less than thirty minutes to reach the show grounds. Flags flutter and loudspeakers blare. Small terriers run amok getting in everyone’s way. Brightly colored jumps fill a freshly raked ring; an alphabet soup of dressage letters marks a long arena bordered by a low white fence and flower boxes.

Missy gives a nervous laugh.

She puts on her riding gloves, then pulls them off again. I haven’t seen her like this since we sweated bullets over our sixth-grade math finals last year.

Are you okay? I say.

She nods. I think so.

Her dad has piled on the pressure. He’s desperate for her to win a ribbon, and Missy doesn’t want to let him down. But this is her first big show. Doesn’t that factor in here, somewhere?

Apparently not.

Mr. Tate argues with the judges when Missy doesn’t place in her novice flat class, then almost has a meltdown because Tonka takes out two rails in equitation over fences.

Beside me, Mom cringes. Poor Missy.

It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, and certainly not Tonka’s. But Missy’s father storms about, threatening to sell Tonka because he hasn’t won a ribbon all season.

He’s mad, I say.

Yeah, Mom agrees.

She used to ride, a long time ago. She doesn’t say much about it, but you can tell she’s a horsewoman by the way she instinctively raises one leg as a horse goes over a jump and bites her lower lip when it refuses or brings down a fence.

We’re about to pack up and head for home when the announcer calls for one more class—a last-minute addition that’s not listed on the show program. People frown and look at one another. Horses that were being loaded into trailers get backed out again.

What’s all this about? says Mr. Tate. His eyes light up, probably at the thought of Missy being eligible to try for another ribbon. But she’s not allowed to enter. It’s for grooms and parents and anyone who hasn’t ridden in a previous class.

You ride him. Missy thrusts Tonka’s reins toward me.

I look down at my jeans, my grubby sneakers with untied laces. No, I can’t. I’m not good enough.

Missy opens her mouth, then shuts it again. She knows I’m right. I can just about manage Tonka in the paddock, but he’d probably run away with me in the show ring. Or buck me off.

Mr. Tate says, I’ve paid a fortune for this horse and he’s got to win a ribbon. Can’t anybody ride him?

I glance at Missy. Her head is down, and I know how bad she feels. I can’t imagine my mother doing this to me. It’s not the way she operates. Then she speaks, so quietly I almost don’t hear her.

I will.

For a minute, we’re all stunned. Missy gasps. Her father rubs his balding head. I’m looking at Mom with new eyes.

Really?

She hasn’t ridden in years, as far as I know, but she’s kept herself in shape with daily runs and workouts in the gym that her job pays for. I look at her well-worn hands and wonder if you ever forget what it’s like to hold reins, to communicate with a horse’s sensitive mouth in a language that’s not like any other. Or with your legs, wrapped around a horse so gently that he’ll move at the slightest touch.

All these thoughts go by in a flash, and before I know it, Mr. Tate is telling Mom to mount up. She’s not wearing high boots or breeches, but this doesn’t seem to matter. Her tan chinos tucked into paddock boots look fine; so does Missy’s helmet that Mom has just crammed onto her head. A few brown curls escape, but there’s no time to fuss with a hairnet.

Missy gives Mom a leg-up.

For a moment, she just sits there while Tonka chews his bit. It’s late afternoon and I can’t see her face because it’s half in shadow, so I try to imagine what’s going through her mind. Joy, fear, excitement? Like, Can I really do this?

Then I wonder why I’d never seen her ride before.

When Dad was alive, it was all about the things he liked to do—hockey and skiing, baseball with Eric before my brother got hijacked by a guitar. We never got around to doing the stuff Mom was interested in. She rarely talked about it, either.

Good luck, I choke out.

Mom adjusts her stirrups, then gathers up her reins and joins a dozen riders heading for the ring. A couple of them are dressed in full show gear. They look pretty snazzy and I suddenly wish Mom was wearing breeches and proper boots, a hunt jacket. Will they penalize her for this?

A woman in pink jeans takes the lead. She wears a cowboy hat and holds the reins with one hand. Looks kind of odd in an English saddle. The guy behind her rides in shorts and a Grateful Dead t-shirt. I bet his legs will be sore tomorrow.

After two circles at a walk, the judge calls for a trot. Mom picks up the correct diagonal right away; most of the others don’t. Cowboy Hat jogs, and T-Shirt Guy flops about like a rag doll. Mom keeps Tonka at a steady pace, well out of everyone else’s way. I see the judge looking at her and taking notes.

Will they call for a canter? A jump?

The judge signals the class to line up. Then he walks down the line of riders, talking to each one, nodding and taking more notes.

What’s he doing? Missy says.

Behind us, a woman says, He’s probably asking if they want to canter.

I don’t know whether to relax or tense up. That’s my mother out there on my best friend’s horse, now talking to the judge. Mr. Tate can’t take his eyes off them. His greed for a