Prospect: The Eventing Series, #6

By Natalie Keller Reinert

This time, Jules might be in over her head.

 

With Pete away in California, new horse Confident Liar proving to be a difficult ride, and the co-op moms feeling their oats now that she's a big-time upper-level rider, Jules is feeling the pinch from every direction.

 

There are championships on the line, new horses in the barn, and a general feeling of chaos in the air. 

 

Luckily, Jules has old friends to count on. But as the summer heats up, it seems like everyone wants a piece of Jules—and she doesn't know if she can turn in a winning season for Alachua Eventing Co-op … or even for herself.

 

Get ready for Book 6 of The Eventing Series! This is a ride you won't want to miss.

 

The Eventing Series: Six books and counting, taking readers on a thrilling adventure filled with brave people and their horses, the savage beauty of Florida horse country, and a romance that burns deep between two equestrians dedicated to their sport.

 

The Eventing Series begins with the prequel, Bold, and continues through seven incredible adventures! Read these fan favorites in order now:

• Ambition
• Pride
• Courage
• Luck
• Forward
• Prospect
• Home

• Language: English
• Publisher: Natalie Reinert
• Release date: May 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201493387

Book preview

This book is a work 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.

Copyright © 2021 Natalie Keller Reinert

All rights reserved.

Cover Photo: Serg0403/depositphotos

Cover Design & Interior Design: Natalie Keller Reinert

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Also by Natalie Keller Reinert

The Eventing Series

Bold: A Prequel

Ambition

Pride

Courage

Luck

Forward

Prospect

Home

Briar Hill Farm

Foaling Season

Friends With Horses

Outside Rein

The Florida Equestrian Collection

Grabbing Mane - A Duet Series

Show Barn Blues - A Duet Series

Alex & Alexander: A Horse Racing Saga

Sea Horse Ranch: A Beach Read Series

The Project Horse: A Novel

The Hidden Horses of New York: A Novel

Catoctin Creek

Sunset at Catoctin Creek

Snowfall at Catoctin Creek

Springtime at Catoctin Creek

Christmas at Catoctin Creek

nataliekreinert.com

Chapter One

FULL SPEED AHEAD.

I put my hands down on Mickey’s outstretched neck and let the gray Thoroughbred gallop flat-out. We were flying across the final stretch of our cross-country course like a pair of outlaws on the run…and to be perfectly honest, if I was going to steal any horse, it would be this one.

Two more fences, I called out, and Mickey flipped back his black-tipped ears to listen to me. I didn’t doubt my big horse knew how to count. At this point in our career, we’d run around enough cross-country courses to know their peaks and valleys: when to expect tight clusters of fences with their intricate questions, and when we could make speed on long, empty stretches of level grass.

The end of this course was near. I could see splashes of color approaching rapidly, racing towards us from across the winter-brown grass. They were rapidly forming into tents, spectators, and the final two jumps, both big tables covered with red and green holiday decorations. In less than a minute, they’d be announcing Jules Thornton and Alachua Danger Mouse had completed Maple Valley Holiday Classic’s Preliminary cross-country course under the optimum time and clear of all jumping penalties.

Assuming nothing bad happened in the next fifty-nine seconds.

You could never be too sure of yourself out here.

Mickey’s hooves went on drumming over the firm ground, pale January grass with patches of red clay peeking through where previous horses had already dug up the sod. We’d found a few damp spots in the lower parts of the course, slippery moments which might have been dangerous if Lindsay, my groom for the weekend, had not screwed chunky grass studs into Mickey’s shoes. But the last segment of course was high and dry, and there was nothing in our way. Nothing to stop us now. I had the next minute all planned out: we’d gallop hard until ten strides before the last two tables, then I’d sit down in the saddle, rein back, and tell Mickey to ease up just a little. He’d need to balance before those fences, which were situated close together.

Don’t ease him too much, I reminded myself, remembering my course walk the afternoon before, roaming this same field under wintry gray skies, resting my hands on the fences, scuffing my boots through the water splashes, testing every inch of the course twenty-four hours before I sent Mickey rocketing over it. I had to know where to place him for every single fence. How fast, how collected, how extended his strides should be.

These are good galloping fences. Keep the forward motion, just lose the speed. Too fast and the second one will get you.

The first table was approaching quickly. Too quickly. I glanced down at Mickey’s heaving shoulders, his forelegs powering like pistons beneath me. How fast are we going?

A quick look at my watch told me we were several seconds ahead of my target.

I sat down, even though we were still more than a dozen strides from the fence. Mickey shook his head as I squeezed my fingers on the reins. Easy, buddy. Easy, easy, easy.

But instead of slackening his stride, Mickey doubled down, pulling back on me. Suddenly, I had a hundred-pound head attached to a thick, muscular neck trying to yank the reins from my grasp.

I had decent upper-body strength, but even so, this wasn’t exactly a fair contest.

"Easy, buddy," I called again, raising my voice this time. Ten strides. Nine. The big table drew nearer. The designers had built it to look like a florist’s display at a country fair, with shallow shelves decked in poinsettias and fir wreaths. The colors were lurid against the wintry pasture surrounding it, the bare gray trees in the distance.

Funeral flowers, I thought bleakly, leaning back on the reins, putting my core into the job. They’ll look great around my tombstone.

We were still going full-tilt at the fence. I was picking out the songs I wanted played during the viewing when Mickey gathered himself and launched like a steeplechaser. I heard a stifled gasp as I folded myself over his neck. Sorry, jump judge, I thought as we flew through the air, the leap itself a breathtaking break in time. Hopefully your next rider is a little easier on your nerves.

All Mickey needed was a slight slip-up, to hang a leg an inch too low or unfold his forelegs a moment too soon, and he’d be caught by the solid jump and flip us both over, heels over head. This was always possible, of course. But rotational falls were a lot less likely if we could approach the fence at a sensible pace. There was a reason steeplechase horses raced over brush fences, not tables. Immovable objects won every time, while brush just crackled and bent beneath an imprecise jumper’s legs and hooves. Too much confidence out here could be deadly.

Mickey’s breath left his body with a grunt as we landed on the other side, and I didn’t look back to see the jump judge’s appalled expression. I could imagine it just fine. We’d taken that fence with a recklessness usually reserved for Pony Clubbers.

Six strides to the last fence.

Now I really sat down. I would not die on the last fence. I would not die on a clear round. I would not die in southern Georgia. I would not die at Preliminary Level.

Mickey, slow it down! I growled, pitching my voice as low as it would go. In fact, I overdid it and scratched my throat. As Mickey finally slackened his strides and properly focused on the flowers bursting from the final fence, I started coughing.

I heard the snick-snick-snick of a digital camera firing. Great. If I won this division, the eventing blogs would all run a fantastic photo of me looking like I’d choked on a horsefly going over the last jump.

Mickey thrust away from the last fence, looking as if he’d like to take out the scattering of tents and trailers ahead of us, but luckily, this time when I sat back and told him to whoa, he actually listened.

Of course he did. Because Mickey knew as well as I did that the course was over. Seriously, this horse could get through all three phases of an event without a rider. That’s how experienced he was.

And that’s precisely why the last minute or so of my life had been so unexpected.

Good god, horse, I muttered. That was a nightmare.

We slowed to a jog after we’d gone through the final timers. Lindsay came running up to meet us, all long legs in tight jeans and a green zip-up hoodie with Alachua Riding Co-op printed on the chest. Her shocking-pink hair was knotting up in a messy bun. At almost eighteen, Lindsay was proving herself a capable eventing groom, helping me run the show on event weekends when my barn manager, Lacey, stayed home to keep up with the horses who had stayed behind.

I wished Lindsay would wear the blue Team Briar Hill baseball cap I’d given her at Christmas, but Mickey wasn’t a Briar Hill horse anymore, so I could see why she didn’t. Or maybe she just didn’t feel like wearing a hat. Maybe not everything was a conspiracy.

Maybe.

He took those last two jumps at full speed, huh, she stated blandly, taking the reins as I kicked my feet clear of the stirrups and dismounted while Mickey went on walking. I would have liked to have stopped to catch my breath, but Lindsay knew the rules: we did not keep hot horses standing. I had to jog after her, the soles of my feet tingling uncomfortably as they hit the ground for the first time in an hour.

He didn’t want to rate, I panted.

Well, what’s up with that? He’s not new around here.

We had no warm-up. I was so busy with the older kids getting ready for their dressage tests that I barely got him over a couple of jumps in the warm-up ring, and then they were calling us on deck. You know he needs more than just a canter around the ring. He’s too fit.

And too confident. Mickey was still swaggering, the brat, swinging his head and his haunches in an aggressive strut even with his nostrils flaring for oxygen and the veins popping up beneath the skin of his sweaty neck. A big sense of self had always been Mickey’s biggest downfall, which was probably why I loved him so much—it was my worst trait, too.

Unlike Mickey, though, I’d learned to deal with my own arrogance, pushing back the dry retorts and bitter commentary which rose so easily to my lips. It wasn’t always easy; sometimes I felt like I was choking on my own bad nature.

But the pay-off was significant. I was now a person who could be trusted to behave in public settings, which meant I could be an athlete who could successfully represent a brand without causing any apology tweets from my sponsors, and a coach who could get through an entire Saturday of riding lessons without making any kids cry. It had been years since I’d caused any sort of public dust-up, if you didn’t count the fight I’d had with Pete in Central Park a few months ago, and I didn’t count that, because lovers’ quarrels were dramatic and the press adored them, so it hadn’t hurt my reputation one little bit.

I was ready for Mickey to move up to Intermediate, the next level in eventing, but he had to catch up with me and learn that he wasn’t invincible, and that he wasn’t always right. At Intermediate, shit got very real. If those last two fences had been one level up, we would have had several inches’ better chance of hitting them wrong, and we might have died.

Of course, it was a lot to expect, asking him to do his very best when we’d had next to no warm-up. It wasn’t a fair trial, really. He’d been tugging at me the whole way around the course because we hadn’t really gotten in sync before our start time. I’d just needed more time—time to get his head on straight, time to get him listening to me, time to remind him that yes he was fit and yes he was amazing—but it was hugely important that he leave me in the captain’s chair.

It was always more time, with me.

Back when I’d had only a couple of horses at events, planning my warm-ups wasn’t the stuff of advanced science. Now that I was a coach with a crocodile of children following my every move, at home and abroad, things were much more complex.

Would things have been easier if they hadn’t changed the order? If they’d run stadium jumping before cross-country, like they were supposed to?

I glanced back at Lindsay. She was so eager to learn about the sport. And she was right: for a one-day-event, we should have done cross-country last, not second. The running order had been shifted at the last minute; I didn’t know why. But I didn’t think a swap in phases would have saved us today.

No, I replied. Today’s just going to be a mess, and I should have known all along.

Jules?

Jules, can you help me?

Jules, I can’t find my girth!

Jules, Merci has a big manure stain on her hind leg, what do I do?

"Jules, I can’t remember the second half of my dressage test. I do a twenty-meter circle and then…what?"

If another person says my name, I am going to get right back on Mickey and make a run for the border.

I watched the tall horse graze at the end of my lead-shank. He’d been sponged clean and draped in a green cooler to ward off the crisp January wind blowing across the flat Georgia plain. I’d tried to sneak a pitiful thirty seconds to graze him myself before handing him back to Lindsay, but the barn kids’ voices were rising impatiently, and pretty soon I’d have parents stalking over, wanting to know why I wasn’t waiting on my students hand and foot.

We could leave all this behind, I told Mickey.

He glanced my way with one dark, liquid eye, then scanned the horizon, taking in the dozens of other horses scattered around the stabling area, the hurried riders and grooms rushing back and forth between arenas, stalls, and trailers, the fluttering tents in the distance. With the breeze in his forelock, and the clouds sailing behind his head, Mickey was giving off a very solid Spirit, Wild Stallion of the Cimarron vibe. Just what I needed. A horse with a Hollywood complex. I tried again to entice him into a life of vagabondism.

Just you and me, two renegades on the run.

He flicked an ear in my direction, then shook his head hard, the straps on his halter slapping together. No thanks.

Ingrate.

Jules! An unhappy voice was screeching for me, and I turned around with a sigh of resignation. The hard truth? The border was too far away. The Alachua Eventing Co-op owned Mickey, and there was no escaping the responsibilities I had taken on.

This wasn’t just my event. It was theirs, too.

Lindsay was at my side, taking the lead-shank from my hand.

I straightened my imaginary Riding Coach hat and started giving orders.

"Maisey, go back to the trailer and you’ll find spare girths. Tomeka, open my tack trunk and look for the spray bottle of rubbing alcohol. Spray that on first and then scrub the stain out with a brush. Ricky, you’ll either remember the test when you get in the ring or you won’t, there’s no turning back now. Julia, what? I have asked you before to please be specific."

Julia, who was only twelve but not easily downtrodden, stuck out her jaw defiantly. I need help with these splint boots. You know how Rumors steps away from me when I try to put them on.

Julia, we’ve discussed this. No boots allowed in dressage. Bare legs.

Julia absorbed this reminder and nodded. Oh, that’s right. Okay. Sorry about that. She disappeared back into her horse’s stall.

With my second set of students prepping for their looming dressage phase, I glanced around for any leftover riders and spotted Jordan, a tall and perpetually nervous teen. She was grazing her old warmblood gelding, Sammy, and watching him with naked worry on her face.

I looked over at Lindsay, eyes questioning, but she just shrugged.

This one was up to me.

Hey, Jordan, I said, walking up to join her. You feel ready for the cross-country this afternoon?

Jordan lifted big brown eyes to meet my gaze. Do you really think I should compete him?

I stared at her, hoping she’d elaborate. Are you kidding me? I asked after a moment’s puzzled silence. He looks fantastic.

He was really sluggish all week, Jordan said sorrowfully. I could barely get him to canter. What if he’s too tired to event?

I gave Sammy a cursory once-over, more to appease Jordan than anything else. The horse was pushing twenty, but sound as a dollar. He was sluggish because he was old and smart and knew how much energy he had to spend to appease Jordan’s weak-willed urging. There was no reason he couldn’t run around a Novice level course. The jumps were just two foot six, for heaven’s sake. With his many years of show hunter experience, Sammy could practically step over them. In his sleep. Wait, was he sleeping right now? He blinked lazily. I gave the old soldier a pat. I’ll bet you money he picks up the pace when he realizes he’s out on a cross-country course. I told Jordan.

You think? What if he doesn’t?

"Honestly, Jordan, if he doesn’t, then we can worry. But not before. Could you do me a favor? Could you help Ricky with his dressage test? You’d think he could master memorizing an Intro test, but, it’s Ricky." I loved the kid, but sometimes I wondered.

She nodded, pressing her lips together with determination, and took Sammy back to the barn. I watched the horse walk away, studying his movement with practiced eyes. I’d watched a lot of horses saunter away from me over the years, giving away their aches and pains with tiny hitches in stride, slight tips of the hip or twitches of the tail. Sammy? Nope. Nothing wrong with him. I’d bet by the second jump on course, he’d be running away with Jordan and she’d have a whole new set of problems to worry about. Warhorses like Sammy had a way of putting paranoia to bed really quickly. They just knew how to conserve their energy, that was all.

She’s fussing about him being too tired again? Lindsay flicked a fly off Mickey’s back with the tip of the lead-shank.

She’ll never stop. We’ve got to get her on a new horse. I sighed. If Jordan wanted to move up, she needed a mount with his best years ahead of him, not behind. I’m still waiting for the right one to fall out of the sky, though. Jordan’s an interesting combination of capable and nervous. Makes horse-shopping a constant struggle. We’d looked at eight horses in the past two months. All of them had been strong contenders for Jordan’s move-up horse.

All of them had ended with Jordan in tears at the idea of betraying Sammy.

Lindsay just snorted. She’d never been a huge fan of Jordan’s, although they seemed to get along more these days. Then an alarm on her phone chimed urgently. She fished it out of her pocket, and her eyebrows went up. Girl, it’s time for you to get Jim Dear over to cross-country. And then I have to prep Dynamo for stadium jumping. Did you forget the schedule?

"It’s that time already?" I looked at my big cross-country watch for a second opinion. I was hoping it would tell me I had plenty of time, but of course Lindsay was right. She was nearly always right, and the other times, she’d say, didn’t count. God, I cannot keep up this weekend!

I had just half an hour before we were scheduled to enter the start box and get counted down to our run on course. I needed to hustle Jim Dear into tack and out of the barn. With Lindsay the only person I could trust Mickey to, I had no choice but to get Jim saddled, bridled, and booted all by myself. Could I do that in under ten minutes? We’d barely have time to trot and canter around the warm-up before they were shouting for us to get over to the start.

I was deep into the routine of tacking up when an adult voice spoke my name.

I glanced up from my work, barely able to conceal my irritation, and saw Lindsay’s mother, Robin, standing outside the stall. She was looking particularly pleased with herself, her carefully made-up face a little pinker than her blush usually implied, and I realized she wasn’t alone.

A startlingly good-looking man was standing next to her, looking like he’d found himself at this event entirely by accident. His t-shirt and jeans fit just well enough to be tailored, not Target, and his dark hair, shot through with fine gray strands, fell in a surprising number of curls to his shoulders. His face was oddly familiar, and there was something about him which stood out.

He looks rich, I realized. The co-op families were all doing just fine, but this guy seemed to be in another category altogether. The cut of his clothes, the quality of his haircut, the way his sunglasses perched on his nose: he just looked very well taken care of.

Well, I wasn’t about to let on that I could see his money wafting off him in waves.

What’s up, Robin? I nodded to the stranger. Hi there. I’m Jules. I turned back to Jim’s girth.

Hello, Jules, Robin said primly. I was hoping you could take a minute to meet Clayton. He’s a guest of ours today, and he’s very interested in learning more—

Lindsay appeared behind them, dragging a reluctant Mickey with a mouthful of grass. You need to get out there! she called, and I realized she’d come to rescue me. No delays! Hurry it up!

I smiled apologetically at Robin and her guest. I’m really sorry, but the boss is calling. I have to get going.

Robin’s smile slipped momentarily as she looked back at her daughter. She takes her work very seriously, I heard her assuring the stranger, and I smiled to myself. Yeah, I took my work very seriously, and I hated meeting her little guests. The co-op moms had gotten bad about this since I’d come back from New York with the Central Park Horse Show title, the flush of victory still on my cheeks. Suddenly they wanted to show me off to everyone they knew: the top rider they’d snagged for their kids’ personal trainer!

They needed to learn I wasn’t a trophy they could polish and put on their mantelpiece. And while my students’ goals were very important to me, I could say with total confidence that their parents’ goals didn’t matter to me in the least.

I slipped the bit into Jim Dear’s mouth and fastened the nosebands on his figure-eight bridle. That’s it, buddy, I told him. Time to go. A few items to slip on myself—safety vest, number, medical armband, helmet, gloves—and we’d be out the door.

Good luck, Jules! the assorted barn kids shouted as I swung into the saddle a few minutes later, my number pinny fluttering loosely over my jersey. Lindsay handed Mickey to a free set of hands and came over to tighten the knot.

Go get ’em, she told me as she finished, and tapped my boot for emphasis.

I waved to her as we trotted off, ignoring some basic stabling traffic rules in favor of getting to the warm-up and over a few fences before the ring steward was shouting for me to get my horse to the starting box.

No, the Training Level fences weren’t huge, and we probably could have managed without much of a warm-up, but I needed a good run for Jim Dear today. I loved the plain bay Thoroughbred, but it was time for him to find a new rider. Through hurricanes and hailstorms, Jim Dear had been in my barn. But I’d always kept Jim as a sales horse, and I hoped he’d gallop the course clear in front of some interested parties. Maybe he’d be heading to a new home in a few weeks—and I’d have some helpful cash in my bank account.

He was a good boy when he kept his head on straight. I’d miss him, but it was time for Jim Dear to go play in someone else’s pasture. I had to focus on horses who could take me up the levels, like Dynamo, and Mickey, and Confident Liar.

I would not think about Con right now, though. I had enough on my mind.

Gonna make this look easy today, right Jim? I asked the bay horse.

He flicked his ears back and forth, then spooked hard at a saddle blanket fluttering on a clothesline.

Maybe not.

Chapter Two

HE’D ALWAYS HAD a little bit of a spooking problem.

Jim Dear snorted and spooked his way over to the cross-country warm-up, which was really just a rectangle of relatively flat field cordoned off by a few PVC posts and white rope. The cross-country course sprawled off to our left, and the starting box was just past the entrance of the warm-up, so there was absolutely no doubt for any of the horses what was coming next: The galloping! The jumping!

The promise of galloping ahead was especially potent for the younger horses. There were half a dozen other horses in the warm-up, and they were all leaping for joy at the prospect of running cross-country. Jim was super-excited to join them. Personally, I could think of a few places I’d rather be. Shopping for Christmas presents at the Oaks Mall in Gainesville on December 23rd. Trying to pick up wings on Super Bowl Sunday. At home in my bed, my dog curled against my legs.

Yeah, that one, especially.

Warm-up rings were a sad fact of equestrian life, though. If you wanted to show off your horse, you had to put up with everyone else doing it, too. I took a deep breath and joined the fray.

Jim Dear was actually pretty chill compared with some of the other horses—top rider and Ocala icon June Donovan was on a tiny dapple-gray gelding who threw a buck after every jump, and not a little buck either; World Equestrian Games veteran Billy Richards was on a massive chestnut who broke into a gallop every time he was asked to trot more than two strides. Jim Dear wasn’t a bucker or a bolter. His thing was spooking, and I hated spooking, but at least I was sticky enough to ride him through his bounces and bumps.

Well, normally Jim Dear’s thing was spooking.

Now, he fed off the nervous energy in the warm-up ring. Once again, I was on a horse who needed his head straightened out—without enough time to do it. I was sensing a theme to this weekend.

By the time our number was being called on deck, we’d gotten around the arena a few times and jumped a few schooling fences. But he was pulling hard and shaking his head against the bit, throwing white foam back on my breeches.

I know you can be a good boy, I reminded Jim as he danced us over to the starting box. It doesn’t have to be like this.

Jim’s response was to duck his head against the bit and crab-step a good fifteen feet, nearly trampling on a teenaged volunteer. The kid turned and gave me a look that could have turned strong men to stone.

Sorry! I bared my teeth, an attempt at a grin. He’s fresh today.

She shook her head at me, disgusted. There would be no fan mail from that particular Pony Clubber.

All set, Jules? The starter, an Area Three regular, knew my horses pretty well. He cocked his head at Jim Dear’s antics. Your horse having a bad day?

Hey, Matty. No, he just needed a little more time to get his head on straight, I sighed, giving Jim a boot in the ribs as he napped to one side, refusing to enter the starting box. I’m behind schedule today.

Well, I gotta count you down now, okay? You just get him in here before I get to one.

Okay. As the starter counted down from six, I bumped Jim Dear with my calves until he finally went into the starting box. We faced the back board for a single second. I felt the horse’s haunches tremble beneath me. Here comes trouble.

Two…one, Matty finished. Have a nice ride!

I began to turn Jim Dear, trying to keep him moving slowly—he was a fast horse and we could afford a few seconds wasted here. But his Thoroughbred inner demons took over. Jim squealed, ducked his head, and spun on his hindquarters. We went flying out of the start box at Mach 5, leaving clods of sod in the starter’s face.

Sorry, Matty, I thought, but there was no time to call out my regrets. We were off and running.

Sometimes hot horses run themselves cool on course. Sometimes they just get worse. Jim Dear was having one of the latter runs. I gritted my teeth as we zipped through the course, hitting all of my time marks way too soon. Two courses in a row like this? There must be something in the air. My mid-morning ride on Dynamo, which had gone so pleasantly, felt like a dream I’d almost forgotten in the harsh light of day.

Still, we could get through this without dying or racking up penalties. Jim Dear was too fast, but he was a trappy jumper who could get himself out of tight spots. And while this was a tough course, it was still a Training Level course, one notch below his experience level. The jumps weren’t so big that we could get into huge trouble.

Well, after the water complex, which actually was pretty formidable.

And coming up next.

We zoomed down the hill towards the water complex with far too much exuberance. The first jump was a tall vertical, then three strides to a small log fence with a drop into the water. The third jump was a tiny rowboat. Popping over it would take us out of the water and back onto dry land…but we didn’t get that far, because Jim Dear bounced over the first vertical like a deer, ate up the ground before the next fence in two strides, and took the log jump with so much bounce in his stride that he was utterly unprepared for the drop on the other side.

His legs straightened out for landing far too soon, and before his hooves hit the water, gravity was already pulling us over. We went toppling heels over head, splashing right into the drink.

January in southern Georgia is cold. The water is colder. I yelped just before I got dunked, a noise I was not proud of. When I pushed myself upright again, poor Jim was already trotting away, heading for higher ground with his ears pricked and his long black tail sloshing through the water. I watched his business-like stride with a sense of resignation, and it wasn’t until the jump judge called down for me to clear the complex that I started slogging through the shin-deep water towards the shore.

Another young volunteer had caught Jim Dear by the time I made it out of the water. She held his reins nervously, as if she was afraid he might hurt her. As I walked up and retrieved my horse, I saw she was only twelve or so—probably a local rider who had shown up for the experience of seeing big-name riders out on the field.

Well, she got me. Sorry, kid.

Thanks, I sighed, taking the reins back. Jim Dear huffed and puffed next to me, his breathing elevated not from his run, but from the shock of falling in the water and losing me in the process. He wasn’t used to dropping his rider…we were pretty good at sticking together. Sorry about that, I added. He surprised me today.

She looked up at me with round eyes. You’re Jules Thornton.

I was freezing cold, sopping wet, and totally embarrassed, but there was still a little thrill of triumph when another human said my name in that grave, hero worship tone. I am, I confirmed, smiling. And this is Jim Dear.

She nodded, glancing at Jim once more. "He’s nice? I like bays? But, I just wanted to tell you, um…your horse, Danger Mouse? He’s my favorite horse in the world. I saw him earlier. He’s just amazing. And beautiful?"

I was touched. If I hadn’t been so wet, I might have given her a little hug with my free arm. Well, I’ll give him a pat for you back in the barn. You wanna say hi to Jim Dear? He’s nice, too. He didn’t mean to dump me. Just one of those days.

I pulled Jim a little closer, and the girl put her hand on his hot, sweaty neck. She sighed,