The Auditions

Ginny Parker’s death rocked the whole village. Everybody in Little Brampton knew the Parkers. Not only because Ginny Parker was an internationally renowned rider, but also because Georgie’s dad was the local GP.

After the accident, Dr Parker insisted that Boudicca, who had survived the fall, should be sold along with Ginny’s other eventing horses. Even worse, he was adamant that Tyro had to go as well. Georgie, having already lost her mother, was about to lose her best friend in the world.

That was when Lucinda Milwood stepped in. Lucinda ran the local riding school just five minutes down the road from the Parkers’ cottage. When Georgie turned up there in tears over losing Tyro, Lucinda managed to convince a reluctant Dr Parker to allow her to keep the black gelding at the riding school instead of selling him.

Lucinda’s riding school soon became like a second home for Georgie. In exchange for Tyro’s board, she went there every morning before school to muck out the stables and groom the ponies to get them ready for the day’s lessons. Straight after school, she would change out of her uniform and into her jods to exercise the horses. Afternoons were often busy with riding-school lessons, but if there was time Lucinda would instruct Georgie on Tyro.

Georgie had ridden lots of other horses, but there was something special about Tyro. He was a handsome pony, with a solid, muscular conformation and stocky limbs that made him a jumping machine. His jet-black colouring was unusual for a Connemara, and he had an indefinable presence, a look-at-me quality, that made him stand out in the show ring. The partnership between them really clicked. In three short years Georgie had schooled him up through the grades so that he was one of the best eventing ponies in the district.

In preparation for the Blainford auditions Georgie and Tyro had trained every day. Sometimes, when her schedule had been tight, Georgie had even got up at 5am to ride before school so that she could get the black pony into top shape. But it turned out her efforts were all for nothing. When Tyro went down at the water jump he had taken Georgie’s hopes and dreams down with him. She had failed to ace the audition, in fact she had come at the very bottom of the field. Georgie truly believed her chance of a place at Blainford had gone. So she was shocked on Monday afternoon when, not long after she arrived home from school, Lucinda called her on the phone, breathlessly excited.

“I’m down at the stables,” Lucinda told her, “come straight away and meet me! And wear your jods!”

Lucinda had hung up before Georgie had the chance to ask what was going on. By the time Georgie arrived at the yard she found Lucinda working Tyro around the arena on the lunge rein. When she caught sight of Georgie she gave her a grin. “He’s totally sound!” Lucinda called out. “The accident didn’t hurt him at all–he’ll be ready to jump in time for the weekend.”

“Which is great, Lucinda, except we’re not entered in anything this weekend.” Georgie screwed up her face. “The auditions are over.”

“No,” Lucinda shook her head. “They’re not. There’s still one more semi-final audition left. Next weekend in Cirencester.”

“Another one-day event?” Georgie was stunned.

“No,” Lucinda said. “It’s showjumping.”

“But I’m not a showjumper!”

Lucinda wouldn’t be deterred. “For goodness sake, Georgie, don’t be wet! You know how to jump, don’t you? Tyro always goes clear in the showjumping phase at one-day events. OK, so he’s never jumped as high as a showjumper and he lacks some technique, but we have a week to train him. Isn’t it better than just giving up? At least this way you still stand a chance!”

“But I don’t want to be a showjumper! I’m an eventer.”

Lucinda rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t matter! All you have to do is make it through the showjumping audition to get yourself a place at the grand finals. And once the academy accepts you, you can revert back to being an eventing rider.”

Georgie’s heart was racing. “Is there enough time for 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.”

Chapter Three

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 Georgie loudly.

A girl on a fourteen-two hand palomino had been watching the whole commotion and rode up to Georgie with a smile on her face. “I saw mad Mrs Hawley giving you a hard time,” she said. “Don’t worry–she shouted at me too before you got here. She’s such a bossy old bat!”

“It was like getting told off by a giant bottle of Tango!” Georgie giggled.

The girl smiled. “I’m Olivia,” she said leaning down to give the palomino a pat on her glossy neck. “And this is Molly. We’re from Blackfriars Pony Club in Northampton.”

“Molly is gorgeous,” Georgie smiled. “I’m Georgie. This is Tyro.”

“Isn’t this whole auditions thing so intense?” Olivia groaned. “It’s like nobody will even say hello. I’ve seen at least half a dozen kids here that I usually go to pony club with and they won’t even look at me!”

Georgie shrugged. “Everyone’s just nervous, I guess. You know, there’s so much at stake.”

“I know!” Olivia nodded vigorously. “I woke up this morning and felt so ill with nerves I didn’t think I’d be able to ride today …”

“Olivia!” A woman wearing a baseball cap and jeans called out across the warm-up arena.

“Oh! That’s my mum.” Olivia grabbed the reins and turned her palomino on her hindquarters. “I better go,” she smiled at Georgie. “See you later! Good luck!”

“You too,” Georgie said as she watched Olivia ride off.

“There you are!” Lucinda said when Georgie arrived back at the lorry. “Tie Tyro up with a hay net and come with me. It’s time to walk the course.”

The fences in the arena looked all right from a distance. It wasn’t until you were actually standing next to the jumps that you realised how big they really were.

As Lucinda went from fence to fence, explaining about the best line to take for each jump, Georgie felt her knees gradually turning to jelly beneath her. She’d let Lucinda convince her that there wasn’t much between being an eventing rider and a showjumper, forgetting the one key difference–showjumping fences were massive!

Olivia was walking the course with her mum, who turned out to be an old friend of Lucinda’s.

“Everyone says that the treble is the bogey fence,” Olivia groaned. “It’s a totally enormous spread on the last jump.”

But Lucinda wasn’t so sure. “Sometimes the big ones that look the hardest actually ride easy. Let’s wait and see how the others handle it,” she told Georgie. “There are thirty-one riders ahead of you so you’ll have a chance to see where the problems are.”

The first rider into the ring was Byron Montford. Byron rode a glamorous bay hack called Toledo and he had every piece of flashy tack imaginable. None of which stopped him from coming to grief at several of the jumps, including the treble, to rack up a final score of sixteen faults.

“This course is going to be very tough indeed,” Lucinda muttered. She was proven right as one after another polished combination of horse and rider entered the ring looking for a clear round and were knocked out by fallen rails or refusals.

“That’s the point of these sudden death rounds.” Lucinda shrugged. “They’re trying to narrow down the competition quickly. Mind you, at this rate hardly anyone will make the jump-offs!”

By the time rider number twenty-five was in the ring, Georgie was back at the lorry tightening Tyro’s girth and preparing to mount up. As she adjusted the black pony’s noseband she leant in so that her face was right up close. “This is it, Tyro,” she whispered. “We’ve been given another chance to make it to Blainford. Just don’t tell anyone you’re not a real showjumper, OK? We’re going to go in there and fox them and make it through. All you have to do is go clear.”

The Connemara cocked one ear to listen as she spoke and Georgie hoped that her pony understood what she was saying. He was a seasoned eventer and was probably expecting business as usual–a dressage test followed by cross-country then showjumping. But today they would be going straight to the showjumping ring. And they’d be going over the biggest fences Tyro had ever jumped in his life.

In the ring competitor number thirty-one, Sybil Hawley, was just completing a round that left the audience with their hearts in their mouths. Sybil had a strange style, galloping wildly between fences and then yanking Caprice in the mouth, before throwing the reins away right before the fence. Poor Caprice! The grey mare was clearly being driven mad by her rider’s busy hands and spent most of the round trying to get above the bit, her head held high and the whites of her eyes showing. It was seat-of-the-pants stuff over every jump, but somehow they got through.

“A clear round for Sybil Hawley and Caprice. Can competitor thirty-two, Georgina Parker and Tyro, please enter the arena!” The announcer’s voice boomed over the tannoy.

As the two girls rode past each other in opposite directions through the narrow entrance to the arena, Georgie gave Sybil a smile but it wasn’t returned. When she recalled this later, Georgie thought she saw Sybil out of the corner of her eye, surreptitiously raising her whip. She didn’t see what happened next, but suddenly Tyro had shot forward underneath her, bolting into the arena. Did Sybil hit Tyro with her whip? All Georgie knew was that Tyro was calm one moment and then he’d gone like a rocket.

“Hoi! Tyro!” Georgie was so totally focused on hanging on to her pony she had completely stopped paying attention to the loudspeaker. When she finally had Tyro settled into a steady canter, she noticed that the warbling banter which normally poured out through the tannoy between rounds had stopped. There was only deafening silence as the crowd waited for her round to begin. Georgie began to panic. Had they rung the bell to start and she hadn’t noticed? Had she missed her cue? She wasn’t very experienced at showjumping but she knew that if they had rung the bell, then she only had a minute to cross the start line or she would be eliminated! She looked around at the audience, trying to find Lucinda. There was no sign of her trainer and still no sound from the loudspeaker. They must have rung the bell already!

In a mad panic, Georgie turned Tyro and headed back up the arena towards the start line. She did a quick loop at a brisk canter and then rode the black pony forward. She was half a stride over the line when she heard the bell ring out. She hadn’t missed it after all! Well, that was fine now–she was off!

At the first jump, Tyro’s stride was too long and he leapt from too far back. Georgie was certain that he would drop his hind legs over the back rails and drop a pole, but he only contacted the rail gently with his fetlocks and the pole stayed in its cup.

At fence two she was back in control and rode the pony perfectly into the jump, taking it neatly. Tyro gave a little buck, flinging his legs up in high spirits as if to say, “piece of cake!”

By the time they reached the bogey fence, the treble, Georgie had hit her stride. The final spread was really huge and she felt her tummy tie up in nervous knots, but she did what any good rider does when they are scared–she kicked on. “Come on!” she shouted at Tyro. He lifted up into the air and took the jump. They were still clear!

Then before she could even think about it, she was over the green plank upright and the last jump, a wide oxer made of pale blue rails, and then Georgie was through the flags and the crowd was clapping. It was the third clear round of the day!

“Oh well done! Well done!” Lucinda raced up to her as she emerged from the arena.

“He was genius, wasn’t he?” Georgie enthused. “Did you see the way he took the treble?”

“You were both brilliant!” Lucinda told her with a huge grin on her face. “You’re through to the next round.”

“I don’t think so!” a voice boomed out. Georgie looked up and saw the orange face of Mrs Hawley bearing down on them. If Mrs Hawley had looked thunderous earlier in the practice ring, now she looked positively volcanic.

“You’re a cheat!”

These words were said with such venom that Georgie and Lucinda were dumbstruck. Unfortunately, Mrs Hawley wasn’t and she continued with her vicious rant. “I’ve reported you to the selector!” Mrs Hawley raved. “I’m going to see to it that you are eliminated!”

“What are you talking about?” Lucinda Milwood was baffled.

“Your daughter broke across the start line before the bell,” Mrs Hawley snarled. “Everyone saw it.”

“She’s not my daughter,” Lucinda corrected her, “and this round wasn’t being judged on time. Who cares if she crossed the line early?”

“It’s against the rules!” Mrs Hawley’s face was puce with rage beneath the orange tan. “The girl should be eliminated from the competition. You’ll see! I’ve already taken this to the highest level. The selector is on her way over here now!”

Through the crowds came a slender woman wearing dove grey jodhpurs and a navy blouse, her walnut-brown hair held back by a pair of stylish black sunglasses.

Mrs Hawley looked smug as the selector approached. The smugness rapidly vanished when the woman in grey jodhpurs took one look at Lucinda Milwood, shrieked with delight and gave her an enormous hug.

“Lucy!” she exclaimed. “My God! Lucy Milwood! It’s been such a long time, but you haven’t changed one bit!”

Georgie’s trainer laughed. “You neither! It’s so good to see you!”

Mrs Hawley was gasping like a goldfish. This was not the result she had been hoping for.

The selector ignored Mrs Hawley and turned her attention to Georgie. “So this must be Ginny’s daughter?” She had a strange expression on her face as she stared hard at Georgie. “You are the spitting image of your mother. Let’s hope you can ride like her as well.”

“Georgie,” Lucinda smiled, “I’d like you to meet the only rider who ever beat your mother around the cross-country course at Blainford Academy.

“Say hello to Tara Kelly.”

Chapter Four

The fact that Tara and Lucinda were clearly old friends only made matters worse as far as Mrs Hawley was concerned.

“Blatant favouritism!” she fumed.

Tara Kelly had been chief selector at Blainford for long enough to know how to handle pushy parents. “Mrs Hawley,” she said firmly, “as Blainford’s chief of admissions and head selector, I can assure you that I am completely impartial at all times.”

Mrs Hawley had a malicious glint in her eye. “So does that mean you’ll disqualify her?”

“The rules clearly state that if a rider in any way gains an advantage by crossing the line before the bell then they will be disqualified,” Tara said.

Georgie felt her heart pounding in her ears. This couldn’t be happening. It was bad enough to lose her chance of going to Blainford with that freak accident at the water jump. Now, to be eliminated again because of some crazy rule! Georgie looked at Sybil who was smiling wickedly from behind Tara’s back and waggling her whip at her.

“But I didn’t hear the bell,” Georgie protested, “it wasn’t my fault.”

Tara ignored her. “As I was saying,” she continued, “riders are disqualified if they have gained an advantage by crossing the line early. But since this round wasn’t a jump-off against the clock the time didn’t matter. Georgie gained nothing by crossing the line early.”

“So.?” Mrs Hawley bristled.

“There will be no elimination. She’s going through to the next round.”

Mrs Hawley stomped off angrily as Tara looked at her watch. “I’d better get back to the selectors’ tent,” she said. “There are still sixty riders to get through the first phase before lunch break.”

“Why don’t you come and meet us at my lorry for lunch?” Lucinda offered.

Tara shook her head. “I don’t think that would be wise. We don’t want to give the Mrs Hawleys of this world a chance to cry favouritism again, do we?” The chief selector turned to Georgie. “I’m surprised to see you here today, Georgina. I didn’t think Ginny’s daughter would be a showjumper.”

“I’m an eventer, really,” Georgie said, “at least, I want to be one.”

“Good!” Tara said brightly. “So if you make it through the auditions I can look forward to having you in my cross-country classes.”