Chapter 4

After the journey home from Silverlode, the PALs were exhausted. With the two extra horses in tow, it had taken almost twice as long for the gang to herd themselves back to Miradero. Al’s new stallion, Buster, was steady and strong, just as predicted. The Clydesdale was totally unfazed by the long walk and easily kept pace with Spirit, Boomerang, and Chica Linda.

But Sandy was another story.

The mini horse pulled and tugged at her ropes and constantly tried to gallop in the opposite direction. Sometimes she would just sit down in the middle of the trail and start chewing on weeds. Mr. Granger was skeptical of Sandy’s potential. “I hope you girls know what you got yourselves into,” he said. “The Founders’ Day Parade will come up sooner than you think.”

It was going to be a lot of work to train her. But Lucky felt excited about trying.

They’d even set up a special corner of the barn just for her—Sandy-proofed. Lucky had brought a bunch of old pillows from her house and secured them to the walls so that the rowdy horse could twirl and kick without breaking anything. Buster was content in his stall up front, far away from his pesky “little sister.” Sandy and all the other horses were also resting for the moment. Even Spirit was perched in his stall with his eyes closed.

“It’s a pity we couldn’t have just let Sandy take a piggyback ride on Buster’s back,” joked Abigail as she brushed Boomerang. “He’s big enough to carry anything!”

“I don’t think training horses to ride other horses was what Mr. Rollins meant by ‘training Sandy,’” Pru reasoned. She filled Chica Linda’s water trough and used the pitchfork from the corner to replenish her stall with fresh hay. “But now that I think about it… what did he mean?”

“I’m too tired to even think about it right now,” Abigail replied as she collapsed onto a hay bale.

“Me too,” admitted Lucky. “And I’ve got to get home before dinner. I promised my dad and Kate that I’d set the table.” Lucky regretted having to tear herself away from her new project, but it was probably important for everyone to get some rest. Until then, Lucky would just have to be patient. It was not her strongest suit.

The next morning, Lucky was the first one to the barn. If she’d been allowed to spend the night there, she probably would have. So when Lucky swung open the door, she couldn’t help feeling as if it were Christmas morning and she was about to open her presents. But she had to contain her enthusiasm. She didn’t want to wake the other horses, who were snoozing peacefully.

“Sandy?” Lucky whispered as she crept past the stalls. “Where are you, little girl?” But the mini horse was not in her corner. All that was there was a big pile of hay. That was peculiar. Maybe she’d broken into Buster’s stall. She was used to sharing with the Clydesdale after all. But a quick survey determined that Buster was still fast asleep and enjoying his own personal space.

Panic was starting to rise in Lucky, but she stayed calm. “Sandy?” she whispered again. “I brought an apple for you!” Suddenly, the pile of hay in the corner began to rustle! A muzzle popped out of the top, nostrils sniffing. The hay fell away as Sandy stood up and trotted over to Lucky.

“What a strange creature you are!” Lucky laughed as she petted Sandy’s mane. Sandy pushed her muzzle under Lucky’s armpit. “Oh right, your apple. Here!” It took the mini horse three bites to eat the treat, as opposed to Spirit, who could chomp one whole. “At least we know you’re food-motivated. That’ll help us in training. Are you ready for your big day?”

Sandy’s quizzical look implied that she had no idea of what was about to happen. That made two of them. “Don’t worry,” Lucky said, more for herself than the horse. “We’ll figure it out.”

A few hours later, Pru and Abigail finally joined Lucky in the barn. The rest of the horses were awake by then, munching on hay and stomping around in their stalls. Lucky was raring to go, too. She had spent the whole morning reading a book called How to Train Your Packhorse: A Practical Guide. She’d come across it in a stack of Kate’s books back home. Maybe it would be of some help to them today.

“Lucky Prescott—are you studying?” Pru teased. Lucky tossed the book to Pru. Abigail appeared behind her shoulder. They quickly leafed through the pages. “I’m not sure if Sandy is really a packhorse, but it’s a start.”

“But that’s the thing, isn’t it?” Lucky pointed out. “We don’t really know what kind of horse she is yet. All we know is that she’s small, strong, adorable, and spunky!”

“She makes a good point,” admitted Abigail. “Especially the spunky part.”

They led Sandy out to the ramada—the enclosure where they trained with their horses—and looked to Lucky. “So, what should we try first?” Pru asked. “I would know where to start if we were training her to do basic runs with a rider, but I’m not sure about packing.”

Abigail considered this and came up short as well. “What does the book say, Lucky?”

But before Lucky could open her mouth and answer, Sandy took off at a wild gallop around the enclosure! She wriggled and bucked her legs out behind her like a rodeo horse. Her whinnies were accompanied by kicks and clouds of dust that covered the PALs. Sandy was acting like a wild horse, and, oddly enough, seemed to be enjoying how stunned the girls looked.

“Whoa, girl!” Lucky called as she chased after the little runaway. She caught up to Sandy and procured a sugar cube from her pocket. The filly came to a screeching halt. Lucky had Sandy’s attention; now she just had to keep it. “Good, Sandy. Good horse… that’s it…” she cooed, leading her back over to Pru and Abigail. Sandy lapped up the sugar and twirled around in a circle happily.

“She likes sugar almost as much as I do,” Abigail joked. “Do you have any more of those, Lucky? I could use a treat.”

Lucky sighed with a smile. “If we put in a full day of training, maybe we’ll go get ice cream. For now, we’ve gotta focus!”

Now that Sandy was settled, Lucky read aloud from her book. “‘First you must saddle the horse with a packsaddle so that he can get used to the breeching around his rump. Then lunge the horse or run him in a pen.’”

The girls couldn’t find a packsaddle—or any saddle, for that matter—that was small enough to fit Sandy’s tiny frame. They decided to use a pile of woven blankets meant to act as saddle pads instead. Pru folded the blankets to a smaller size and then tied the short stack around Sandy’s middle with two leather girth straps. As long as they kept feeding Sandy sugar cubes, she stayed relatively still while they got her ready.

After a few runs around the ramada, Sandy seemed to be catching on a little. Maybe she was destined to be a packhorse. At any rate, Lucky was eager to keep going. If their work kept running so smoothly, they would have Sandy trained well before the Miradero Founders’ Day Parade! Who knew that becoming a Trail Trainer would be so easy?

“Next it says to fill some baskets with small rocks and tie them to either side of her packsaddle,” Lucky explained. ”Or I guess, her blanket stack.” She remembered thinking that instruction was a bit strange.

“Why the rocks?” Abigail asked. “Won’t the noise spook her?”

“That’s sort of the point. It’s to get her used to carrying things around, and used to the sound of whatever she is carrying,” Pru said as she pointed to the open page. “Packhorses never know what sort of cargo they will have to carry.”

The PALs fed Sandy some carrots while they looked around the ramada, choosing the smoothest rocks they could find. A couple of picnic baskets swiped from the kitchen acted as the cargo containers.

Once they attached them to either side of Sandy’s body, she was calm for a moment. But, after hearing the rocks shift against one another, she took off across the pen as if her tail were on fire! The rocks clattered around in the baskets, sounding as if Sandy were playing two giant maracas! She kicked and writhed and twirled, until finally she galloped right at the fence and brushed against it, causing the baskets and blankets to fly off her body. Rocks went soaring through the air and landed like tiny meteorites in the dirt. Then Sandy sniffed the ground for sugar cubes as if none of it had just happened. Maybe this wouldn’t be exactly as easy as Lucky had thought.

“Guess she’s not a packhorse.” Abigail sighed.

“Do you think she’s a riding horse?” asked Lucky.

“We could try leading and groundwork,” Pru suggested. “But we don’t have tack small enough to fit her.” Pru frowned. “Or a rider who is small enough to ride her.”

“That’s where you’re wrong!” a squeaky little voice responded.

“Snips!” Abigail stomped over to the freckled little boy who had suddenly appeared on the fence. She groaned. “What are you doing here?”

“Came to see what all the commotion was.” He leaned over the wooden railing and offered Sandy a carrot. The horse neighed, chomped down on the offering with one bite, then began to sniff Snips’s hair for more hidden treats. “Señor Carrots and I were just minding our own business when we heard a whole bunch of it.” Snips took a bite of a fresh carrot. “You oughta train that horse.”

“We’re trying.” Lucky groaned. Then she furrowed her brow. “Wait—do you actually think you could ride her, Snips? It would really help us with her training.”

“No, ma’am. No way I’m getting on that little horse.” Snips shook his head. “But I know someone who probably would.”

Pru and Abigail seemed unsure of Lucky’s plan. They knew she was desperate to prove herself by becoming a Trail Trainer, but involving Snips in the process was a whole new barrel of apples. However, it didn’t change the fact that they had promised Al Granger and Mr. Rollins that they would be responsible for Sandy’s training. After all the begging she’d had to do, Pru couldn’t just quit on the first day!

“Okay,” Pru said with a determined nod. “But first we need something for the rider to ride on. Let’s go visit Turo. We can use the money we saved up for custom Sandy-size tack. Then we can move on to more circle work and lunging. Then, who knows? After she gets used to the saddle, I might even be able to get Sandy to do some dressage moves!”

“Turo will know what to make!” Abigail echoed. Their friend was a very talented blacksmith and leathersmith. He’d even made Chica Linda’s saddle when Pru was only eight years old. “Let’s go! It’s only two weeks, one day, and three hours until Sandy has to be trained for Mr. Rollins at the Founders’ Day Parade!”