It always seemed to rain on the day of the Tarentshire Pony Club gymkhana. Jacky had borrowed Roderick’s riding mac because she hadn’t one of her own. It was so big for her that it was keeping most of Flicka dry too as they waited in the collecting ring for their turn to jump in the novice class.
All my work’s been worth it, Jacky thought, as she watched Avril Saunders’ chestnut demolishing the jumps. Every minute had been worth it for the satisfaction of watching Flicka improve. And now it was the day when Flicka would have her first chance to prove herself in public.
“Still waiting?” Erica asked, riding up with a blue rosette she had won clinging soddenly to Firebird’s bridle.
“It’s an enormous class. The novice always is. There are still nine more before me but I think I’m nearly the last.”
“D’you know who I saw? That little boy who fell off the Shetland and knocked himself out. He’s got his leg in plaster but apart from that he’s fine.”
“Oh good,” said Jacky, thinking it was an omen.
After five more of the novices had jumped, Jacky began to ride Flicka in. She trotted her in circles, working hard to make her pony alert and supple.
“You’re not entering that mad animal of yours for jumping?” demanded Celia’s grating voice.
Jacky ignored her. Since the day Celia had hit Flicka, Jacky hadn’t spoken to her once.
“You’d have been better giving your entrance money. to the R.S.P.C.A. because you haven’t a chance. Prince and I are bound to win.”
“Prince isn’t a novice!” Jacky was stung into speech by the thought of how smoothly and professionally Prince had jumped at all the rallies that summer, but Celia was out of earshot.
“I don’t care if she cheats,” Jacky thought. “She’s rotten enough for anything.”
Jim Wilson on Chocolate was the last to jump before Jacky. When she saw him ride into the ring she rode Flicka over to the entrance and waited. Suddenly she felt cold with excitement. The moment she had been waiting for was here at last.
“Do your best,” she whispered, leaning forward to pull Flicka’s ears between her fingers and clap her pony’s damp neck
“I’ve got my fingers crossed for you,” Erica said as Jacky wriggled out of the riding mac and gave it to her.
“The ground’s like a quagmire,” said Jim, riding out after three refusals at the brush.
Jacky shortened her reins, closed her legs against Flicka’s sides and trotted into the ring. She gave her name and number to Miss Hewitt.
“Start when I blow my whistle,” said Miss Hewitt.
“Right,” and Jacky cantered Flicka in a circle.
“Now I should be thinking about all the things the books tell you to think about—the distance between the jumps and Flicka’s stride and keeping my heels down,” Jacky thought, but she wasn’t thinking about any of these things. She could only think how glorious it was to be show jumping her own pony at last. “I wouldn’t change places with anyone, not anyone in the whole world,” she thought as Miss Hewitt blew her whistle.
Jacky turned Flicka towards the first three jumps down one side of the ring. She felt her pony full of life and longing to jump.
“On we go,” she whispered. For a split second Flicka cantered on the spot and then she was away, rising easily over the white poles of the first jump, over the tin drums that were the second jump and clearing with a great leap the hunt gate that was the third jump. Jacky swung her round the bottom of the ring, felt her pony prancing like a racehorse and then bounding forward to gallop up the ring, clearing the next three jumps effortlessly.
“Only one more,” Jacky murmured as she turned Flicka down the centre of the ring to ride her at the brush fence. “Only one more and we’re clear.”
The ground in front of the brush was a sea of mud, churned by the hoofs of refusing ponies. Flicka saw it, pricked her ears and took off at least three strides before the jump. Jacky was almost caught off balance. She bent swiftly forwards from her waist, squeezed her knees tighter against the saddle and let the reins slip through her fingers. Flicka arched high over the brush and stretched out on either side to land well clear of the hoof-pitted mud. Jacky laughed aloud with excitement.
“Jolly good!” exclaimed Erica, handing Rod’s mac back to Jacky as she rode out of the ring. “She was super. She never looked like touching a thing. And the brush jump! Whee! It was like the Grand National.”
Jacky slipped down from Flicka and gave her a handful of grass, imitating the professional show jumpers. Then, because grass didn’t seem much of a reward when she had been so good, Jacky gave her a sugar lump as well. She loosened her girths and began to lead her round.
“Numbers 5, 8, 14, 17, come into the ring please,” Miss Hewitt’s voice rang out over the loud hailer.
“You’re 14,” said Erica.
“Is it a jump off?” asked Jacky, dropping Roderick’s mac into the mud in her scramble to remount.
Jacky trotted Flicka into the ring where Celia and two boys she didn’t know were already waiting. Mrs Marshall, holding a huge golf umbrella over herself, came towards them, making Flicka goggle and swing away in mock terror.
“Celia and Jacky were both clear,” she said, handing her umbrella to Miss Hewitt and taking a handful of rosettes out of her pocket. “Really we should have a jump off but seeing the ground is in such a mess we’ll need to call you both first equal and split the book tokens. John Dunbar, third and Martin Barret, fourth.”
Mrs Marshall pinned a red rosette on to Prince’s bridle. “Very good,” she said and passed down the line to Jacky.
“She’s coming on very nicely. Keep her going and you’ll both be a certainty for next year’s Inter Branch team,” said Mrs Marshall. hooking another red rosette on to Flicka’s bridle.
Jacky made a gasping fish-out-of-water noise. She tried to think of something to say, but before she had gathered her wits together Mrs Marshall was pinning the green rosette on to the next pony’s bridle.
“Just trot round the ring once,” said Miss Hewitt. “The way things are going, the ponies will be wearing water wings before today’s finished.”
“A certainty for the team! A certainty for the team!” Jacky sang the refrain under her breath as she trotted round the ring.
“Don’t get in front of me!” warned Celia. “Really I should be in front. Anyone could see that your animal was out of control. I would have been sure to win if we’d jumped off.”
“A certainty for the team,” Jacky thought and beamed at Celia, hardly seeing her.