Mystic and the Midnight Ride

“Come on, Mystic,” Issie begged. She bent down, picked a handful of grass and offered it hopefully to the little grey pony. Mystic swivelled his ears towards Issie. He took one step forward, then another. Even though he was knee-deep in grass, the small bunch in Issie’s hand was too good to resist. Issie walked quietly up to his side and slid the halter rope around his neck. Then she eased the halter over Mystic’s nose and quickly buckled it up behind his ears. Success!

“Who’s a naughty pony then?” Stella giggled as Issie led Mystic up to the fence and tethered him next to her Coco.

“It’s not just Mystic,” Kate insisted. “I spent ages catching Toby this morning. It’s this spring grass. It’s making them all act like crazy colts!”

“Do you hear that, Mystic? I bet you wish you were a colt again, eh boy?” Issie laughed.

Mystic wasn’t a young horse. Issie had known that when she bought him. Back then she been told that the grey gelding was eighteen. But it was hard to tell the age of a horse. Her pony-club instructor Tom Avery reckoned that the little grey might actually be as old as twenty-five which was positively ancient in horse years.

The pony’s dapples had faded over the years from the dark steel of a young colt to a soft dove grey. Mystic’s back was slightly swayed too, from years of riding. Still, he was a beautiful pony, only fourteen hands high but he held himself so proudly he seemed bigger. His eyes were dark smudges of coal in his pale face, and they had the calm depth of a horse that has lived a little. Mystic certainly knew his way around a showjumping or cross-country course.

Issie sighed as she examined her horse’s hindquarters. “Oh, Mystic, why aren’t you a nice dark colour like Toby and Coco? Keeping you clean is twice as much work.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Stella said. “You can’t see the grass stains on Coco, but check this out.” She gave the chubby little brown mare a friendly slap on the rump and a circle of white dust appeared where her hand had been. “See? I’ve been grooming for hours now and I can’t get rid of it.”

Coco turned around to see what Stella was up to and gave her a sniff, nuzzling the girl with her velvet soft nose. “No, Coco. I don’t have any carrots,” Stella giggled, “but if you win a ribbon today I promise you can have as many carrots as you want.” Coco nickered happily. It was a deal.

Stella and Kate were perfectly suited to their horses, Issie thought. Blonde and blue-eyed Kate was as lanky and long-limbed as her rangy bay Thoroughbred, while Stella, with her bunches of red curls and pale complexion dotted with freckles, was small and bubbly—the same personality as her chocolate-coloured mare.

Stella was Issie’s best friend. They had been best friends since the first day of primary school when they realised that not only did they both love horses, they also loved to draw. Even now, art classes were still a competition between the two of them—although their third form art teacher was less than impressed that all they ever wanted to draw was horses.

Issie grabbed a rubber band out of her grooming bucket, using it as a hair tie to secure her long, dark hair out of her face while she worked. Then she dipped her hand back into the bucket of brushes again, this time producing a stiff-bristled dandy brush, and got started on Mystic’s hocks, furiously scrubbing away at the mud. She gave Mystic’s two white hind socks a brisk scrub with a damp brush to remove the last of the marks, then set about bandaging his legs for the trip. It may only be a few minutes down the road, she figured, but Mystic might still injure his legs in the horse truck if they weren’t padded for protection.

The Chevalier Point Pony Club grounds were within riding distance of the River Paddock—about half an hour away at a steady trot. But the stretch of road that you had to ride to reach the pony club was treacherous. The club grounds were just off a busy main road, which made them a nightmare to reach on horseback. Most drivers had no idea of the danger they were causing as they raced past at top speed, never bothering to slow down in case they spooked the horses that were confined to the narrow grass verge on the side of the road.

On rally days, Issie usually rode to pony club the long way using a series of quiet backroads to reach the grounds, avoiding the main road as much as possible. But today, she wouldn’t have to worry about the roads at all. Tom Avery was loading their ponies into his horse truck to drive them to the gymkhana so that they would arrive fresh and ready for the big event.

Issie had bandaged Mystic’s tail to keep it clean and was about to start with some last-minute mane-pulling when she heard the stern voice of her pony-club instructor booming out across the paddock. “Come on, girls, I thought you’d have them rugged up and ready to go by now.”

Issie turned around to see Avery striding towards her, a tall striking figure in crisp white jodhpurs and long black boots. His face was set in a serious expression underneath the mop of thick, curly brown hair. He held a riding crop in one hand, which Issie had never seen him use—except to thwack against the side of his boot when he was making a point. She guessed he carried it mostly to make himself look meaner.

Sometimes Stella would imitate Avery when he wasn’t around, whacking her crop against her leg and barking in a commanding tone, “Come on, chaps, get their hocks under them!” Issie and Kate would hoot with laughter at this impersonation, but the fact was that all three girls had enormous respect for their instructor.

Avery had once been a professional eventer—until he took a bad fall at the Badminton Horse Trials which finished his career for good. He didn’t talk much about those days, but Issie knew he had competed against the best riders in the world. He had even been on the same team as Blyth Tait and Mark Todd. But since his accident he didn’t ride at all.

Now he worked for the International League for the Protection of Horses, rescuing horses and ponies that had been mistreated and abused by vicious owners, and in his spare time he gave lessons to Issie and the other riders at Chevalier Point.

Hardly a glamorous life for him, Issie thought. After all, Chevalier Point wasn’t exactly the most exciting place on earth. It was a small town, perched on a peninsula of land. Issie’s mum was fond of saying that there were more horses there than people. Which may have been true. Certainly, if you loved horses then Chevalier Point was the best place in the world to live. With its flat green fields and rolling hills it was perfect horse country.

“Let’s get them loaded,” Avery instructed the girls. “We’ve got no time to waste.”

“Toby looks great in his new rug,” Issie said as Kate led him towards the ramp of the truck. The handsome bay wore a blood-red woollen blanket. Coco, too, was dressed up in her show rug made of navy-blue netting.

Wearing his plain old canvas paddock rug, Mystic didn’t look anywhere near as grand. “Don’t worry, boy, you look good just as you are,” Issie reassured him, worried that her pony’s feelings would be hurt if the others got all the attention. Mystic seemed happy enough with Issie’s praise. There was a definite spring in his step as he walked up the truck ramp, as if he knew he was on his way somewhere exciting.

Toby whinnied a greeting to Mystic as Issie tied the little grey up in the stall next to the big bay Thoroughbred. She gave each horse a hay net to play with for the five-minute trip and knocked on the window that separated the horses from the passenger cab of the truck to let Avery know they were ready to go. The overcast skies had cleared, the sun was out and they were on their way.

CHAPTER 2 (#u80a3d9fb-737f-532d-92ff-c66773bade9c)

Clouds of dust rose up from the truck tyres as Avery turned off the main road and down the gravel drive that led to the Chevalier Point grounds. Ahead of them were the pony-club gates, hemmed by a line of tall magnolia trees. Beyond the magnolias was another paddock gate and then a series of large plane trees ran like a leafy spine down the middle of the three paddocks that made up the club grounds.

On warm summer days riders could loll about in the shade of the plane trees while their horses rested. It wasn’t going to get that hot today. After all, this was the first gymkhana of the season. Still, Avery pulled the horse truck up in the first paddock under two of the biggest trees so that they would be shaded from the glare of the sun.

They unloaded the horses and set to work braiding manes, stencilling chequerboard patterns on to rumps and oiling the ponies’ hooves.

Issie had never seen so many riders at Chevalier Point before. The gymkhana was open to all riders in the district, and Issie tried to pick out which riders were from the various clubs by the colour of their jerseys and ties. The Chevalier Point club uniform was a navy jersey with a bright red tie and Issie could see two riders dressed in Chevalier Point colours riding towards her from the far field where the showjumps had been set up.

“Hey, dizzy Issie!” the rider at the front called to her as he cantered closer. “About time you got here. Ben and me have already walked the showjumping course.”

Dan and Ben were Chevalier Point Pony Club members. Dan had a flea-bitten grey gelding called Kismit, while Ben rode a grumpy Welsh pony called Max.

“Are the jumps very big?” Issie asked nervously.

“Huge!” Dan teased her. “And you’ve got to ride fast too, if you want to beat the clock. The best time with no faults wins.” He was grinning from ear to ear. Dan was a speed demon. He and Kismit would be the ones to beat in the jumping ring today.

No time to walk the course now, Issie decided. It was nearly time for the first event. She would have to check out the jumps with Stella and Kate during the lunch break.

“Hello, Kismit.” Issie reached out a hand to pat the slender grey on the nose. “I suppose you’ve been promised extra carrots for dinner if you go fast today?” She smiled at Dan.

“Hey! I don’t need to bribe my own horse to win.” Dan grinned back. “Anyway, we’re going to fill in our entry forms now. Do you want to come?” he asked.

Issie was about to say yes when she heard her mother calling her name.

“Isadora! Isadora!” Mrs Brown cried out as she strode across the field towards her. Issie groaned. She couldn’t stand the way her mother insisted on using her full name. Isadora. It sounded so snobby and girly, not at all the sort of name for a serious horse rider. Sure, Avery called her Isadora sometimes too, but only when he was telling her off during a riding lesson. Apart from that, everyone else, even her teachers at school, called her Issie.

“I’ve filled in your entry forms,” Mrs Brown explained. “Doesn’t Mystic look wonderful?” She gave the grey gelding a very nervous pat and held on to the reins, extending her arm so that she was standing as far away from Mystic as possible while Issie did up the girth.

Everyone said that Issie was exactly like her mum. It was true that they were both tall, tanned and lean with long dark hair. But Issie didn’t think they were alike at all. How could they be when Issie loved horses so much and her mother didn’t even like them?

Issie wished her mum would give riding a try. Maybe if she could experience for herself the thrill of cantering across open fields with the wind in her hair, she’d finally be able to understand why Issie adored riding so much. But her mum was way too scared to even sit on a horse, let alone canter one.

“What’s your first event?” Mrs Brown asked, still reluctantly hanging on to Mystic’s reins as Issie finished adjusting her stirrups.

“Paced and Mannered. We’re due in the ring any minute now,” Issie told her. She gave Mystic a stroke on his dark, velvety nose and her mum gave her a leg up.

“Come on, boy,” Issie murmured softly, leaning low over Mystic’s neck, “let’s show them what we can do.”

In the ring, several horses were trotting around warming up. Dan and Ben were already there. A girl that Issie didn’t recognise rode in on a skewbald with a peppy trot, a young girl on a chubby chestnut mare following behind her. The chestnut pony had a vicious temper. Her ears were lying flat back against her head—a warning to other horses not to get too close.

The prettiest by far in the ring, thought Issie, was a golden palomino with a star on her forehead and high, lively paces. “Wow! Isn’t that palomino gorgeous,” Stella said, reading Issie’s mind as the two riders sat at the edge of the arena checking out the competition. “I wonder who that rider is? I’ve never seen her here before but she’s wearing our club colours…”

The girl on the palomino had golden hair, almost the same colour as her pony, tied back in two severe plaits. She wore a tweed hacking jacket over her club jersey and had a sour expression on her face.

“I know who it must be,” Kate said as she rode up beside them. “That’s Natasha Tucker. Her family have just moved here. I bet she’s joined Chevalier Point Pony Club!”

The three girls were still eyeing up the palomino with envy, when it suddenly spooked at a plastic bag blowing across the ground. The girl with the sour expression jerked back in the saddle, wrenching on the reins and jagging the little pony sharply in the mouth with the bit. Regaining her seat, she raised her riding crop in the air and brought it down hard on the pony’s golden flank. “Stand still you brute!” she squealed.

Issie was stunned. “I can’t believe she just did that!”