Riding Star

*

Nigel was behind the till when the two girls arrived at the Fish Pott.

“All right then, Georgie?” Nigel greeted her. “Back from your la-di-dah school for the holidays?”

“Ignore him,” Lily said, looking pointedly at Nigel. “He got dipped in batter as a child and he’s never been the same since.”

Nigel smiled at her. “Have you come in to make an order, Lily, or have you just come in to see me?”

“Not likely!” Lily snorted. “We’ll have two fishburgers and chips, thanks.”

The burgers and chips were warm tucked beneath Georgie’s vest to keep them safe for the ride home.

“Is that what everyone thinks about me?” Georgie asked Lily as she mounted up again on Toffee. “That I’m some stuck-up posh girl now, just because I go to Blainford?”

“Don’t listen to Nigel. He’s just jealous because the furthest he’s ever been in his life is Tewkesbury for the late-night shopping.”

Lily sighed. “I wish you were coming home for good, though, Georgie. I really miss you.”

Georgie felt a lump sticking in her throat. It was so weird being back in Little Brampton again. Her dad had been beside himself with delight and Georgie noticed that he made sure he was home early every night. On Christmas Day he’d even cooked a massive Christmas dinner and invited Lily and Lucinda over.

Lucinda had been really kind too, encouraging Georgie to try out every single horse in the stables. Georgie had great new friends at Blainford, like Alice and Emily and Daisy, but she and Lily had known each other forever.

However, even though the past term at Blainford had been tough, Georgie was dying to get back on the plane to Lexington. She loved Little Brampton – but this wasn’t where she wanted to be. Blainford had given her a glimpse of the future and the rider that she could become. She was determined to become an international eventer like her mother, to travel the world and live a life full of excitement, glamour and horses – lots of horses.

“I have to go back,” she told Lily. “It’s not over yet.”

Chapter Two (#ulink_e375da68-7c68-5c29-aa85-43b93d8ef35e)

It had been a white Christmas in Kentucky and when the students arrived back at Blainford Academy they found the entire school grounds covered in a deep blanket of snow.

“If we can’t actually see the quad, does that mean we’re allowed to walk on it?” Alice wondered as the girls headed to the dining hall. “Technically we wouldn’t be touching the grass.”

Blainford was a college steeped in traditions – and the square of turf in the middle of the school was deemed hallowed ground. Only prefects and schoolmasters were allowed to walk across the grass, as Georgie had found out the hard way on her first day at the academy.

Conrad Miller had caught her on the grass and given her Fatigues – a Blainford punishment that was a cross between detention and hard labour.

Conrad was the head prefect of Burghley House. There were six boarding houses at the academy, three for girls and three for boys. Each of them was named after one of the six famous four-star eventing courses in the world.

Georgie and her friends Alice Dupree, Daisy King and Emily Tait were all boarders in Badminton House. Kennedy Kirkwood, Arden Mortimer and their toxic clique of showjumperettes were in Adelaide House. Kennedy’s brother, James, was in Burghley House with the vile Conrad. Georgie’s eventing friends Cameron and Alex were in Luhmuhlen.

The third girls’ boarding house was Stars of Pau and many of its occupants belonged to the dressage clique. Unlike other schools where jocks and geeks ruled the cliques, at Blainford the social scene was defined by what kind of rider you were and dressage placed you firmly at the bottom of the coolness order.

The polo boys and the showjumperettes – rich, spoilt and good-looking – considered themselves to be at the top. The eventing clique wasn’t as flashy or glamorous as the showjumpers and polo players, but eventers still had an aura of undeniable cool about them. After all, to ride cross-country you needed nerves of steel and unshakable courage.

The first-year eventers came from all points of the globe, and although they were very different from each other, the riders had quickly formed a tight-knit bond. Their group included Georgie Parker, and her best friend Alice Dupree, a native of Maryland, and the third sister in her family to attend the college. Georgie’s friend Cameron Fraser was an eventing rider from Coldstream in the Scottish Border country. Then there was Emily Tait, a shy New Zealand girl who rode a school horse, a jet-black Thoroughbred called Barclay. Naïve and slightly nervous on the ground, Emily was a rock in the saddle and had won top placing in the mid-term exam.

Daisy King had been the only rider that Georgie actually knew before she arrived. Back in England, Daisy had been Georgie’s stiffest competition on the eventing circuit. Unlike Georgie, Daisy could afford to board her own horse at Blainford. She had travelled her big, grey Irish Hunter, Village Voice, all the way from the UK.

Apart from Cameron Fraser, the other eventing boys included Shanghai-born and Oxford-raised Alex Chang and his grey gelding Tatou; over-confident Australian riding phenomenon Matt Garrett with his stunning dun gelding Tigerland; and the arrogant but extremely talented French rider, Nicholas Laurent and his horse Lagerfeld.

The eventing riders gathered together at their usual table in the dining hall for the first lunch of the new term. They were close friends, but also rivals, each of them striving to come top in the class. Class rankings were considered important in every subject, but in Tara’s class they were especially crucial. Cross-country was the only class where the bottom-ranked pupil was routinely eliminated at the end of every half term.

Tara Kelly justified eliminations because of the very real danger involved with riding cross-country. If a student wasn’t making the grade in her first-year class then she needed to be eliminated before getting hurt – or worse.

As they sat down to eat lunch, Emily, Cameron and Daisy were vigorously debating the new school rule that made air-tech inflatable jackets compulsory at all times on the cross-country course. At the other end of the table, Nicholas, who had just returned from Bordeaux, was raving to Matt Garrett about his brand-new Butet, a French close-contact saddle made from tan calfskin leather, insisting that it gave him superior lower leg contact.

Georgie, meanwhile, sat and picked listlessly at her lasagne. She looked up at the clock. It was almost time for the afternoon riding classes to begin. In a moment they would all be heading for the stables to tack up for their first cross-country ride of the new year. But Georgie wouldn’t be joining them.

“So, you still haven’t told me,” Alice said, leaning forward conspiratorially across the table to her, “what option class are you taking now?”

The rest of the table suddenly went quiet. It was the question that they’d all been dying to ask Georgie, but none of them had been brave enough to broach the subject.

Georgie didn’t have to answer because at that moment Mitty Janssen came over to join them.

Mitty was a dedicated dressage rider who had aced the Netherlands auditions. Her two best friends, Isabel Weiss and Spanish rider Reina Romero were also dressage fanatics and boarders in Stars of Pau. All three girls were swotty and serious and known throughout the school as the ‘Dressage Set’.

“Hi, Georgie,” Mitty said.

“Oh, hey, Mitty, how are you?”

“So,” Mitty smiled, “I heard the news that you’re joining us! Do you need to borrow a pair of Carl Hester training reins? They’re compulsory for first years—”

“Uh, thanks, Mitty,” Georgie said, cutting her off. “I already bought some.”

“OK,” Mitty said cheerfully. “Well, I’ll see you in class!”

“Yeah,” Georgie muttered. She didn’t look up from her lunch. She could feel the eyes of the rest of the eventing clique staring at her with horror. Georgie Parker had joined the dressage class!

*

“You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about,” Alice insisted as the girls walked towards the stables. “I mean, dressage is an important part of eventing. It’s one of the three phases. So of course it makes sense to join the dressage class!”

“Do you really think so?” Georgie was relieved, “I thought you’d think it was—”

“Wussy?” Cameron offered.

“Totally lame?” Daisy suggested.

The eventers snorted and giggled.

“Yeah, great, guys, thanks for that. I knew I could rely on your support…” Georgie groaned. “Look, what else am I supposed to do? Dressage is something I need to learn, and besides, it fits the options timetable.”

“It’s a good choice,” Emily said, trying to be supportive. “I mean, really we should all be taking dressage as an option. You live and die by your dressage points these days. Eventing’s not just about showjumping and cross-country any more.”

“Hey,” Georgie said, “if you wanted to drop cross-country and join dressage too, I know that there’re still a couple of spaces…”

“Are you kidding?” Emily was horrified. “Trotting in circles like a nana? I’d be bored to tears!”