Racehorse (2 page)

She automatically checked his vital signs as she worked, noting that his breathing rate was normal and his pulse was normal. These were all good news. She was concerned, however, and her face must have shown the worry, because Stevie quickly noticed it.

“What’s wrong?” Stevie asked. “Is Pepper sick?”

Lisa shrugged. “He just doesn’t seem very interested in
the grooming. It’s like he’s not alert or something. Is that sick?”

“Not really,” Stevie said. “It’s the way I usually am in school. Sick isn’t the word my teachers use to describe me.” She could make a joke out of anything. Lisa wasn’t sure this was something to joke about.

“Look,” Stevie went on. “It’s probably just that he doesn’t feel in top condition because he’s not well groomed yet. Wait to see how he feels when his coat’s shiny, okay?”

That made sense to Lisa. She redoubled her efforts to make him clean, but when Judy came to check on her progress, Lisa asked her about his apparent listlessness.

Judy checked him quickly to be sure nothing was going wrong. Then she smiled reassuringly. “He’s just getting old.” She carefully opened Pepper’s mouth and showed Lisa the horse’s teeth. “Look at the wear on these teeth and the angle of Pepper’s jaw. Max probably knows for sure, but I would guess Pepper is somewhere in his mid-twenties. In horse equivalent years, that makes him nearly ninety. Don’t worry if he seems a little un-enthusiastic sometimes.”

Ninety?!
That certainly explained it. “I guess I have to be really careful with him, don’t I?” Lisa asked.

“You have to be really careful with all horses,” Judy reminded her. “And Pepper’s advanced years just go to show you what good care will do.”

Lisa returned to the job of grooming Pepper. At ninety he definitely deserved the best she could give him.

Carole was ready to clean Starlight’s hooves. As she’d learned to do, she began with his right front hoof and ran her hand straight down his leg to the hoof. Doing this accomplished three things: It let Starlight know where her hand was, which was important, because horses could get nervous if they didn’t know what was happening; it allowed her to check his leg as she went; and finally, it was a way of telling him what was coming.

This time, however, her hand didn’t make it all the way to the hoof. She stopped short at the knee. She felt something odd. She lifted her hand, put it above the knee again, and ran it downward again. She still felt something odd. There was some swelling at Starlight’s knee.

“Judy,” she called out. “Something’s wrong with Starlight.”

Judy came right over.

“Look, when I run my hand down his leg, it feels warm and swollen at the knee.”

“Just the right knee?” Judy asked.

Carole had been so concerned that she’d forgotten to check his left leg. Whenever something didn’t seem right, the first thing to do on a horse was to check the opposite side for comparison. Carole was embarrassed to have forgotten to do that, but she also knew what she
would find. Starlight was her horse and she knew his legs very well. His left leg wouldn’t have the swelling she’d detected in his right leg. It would feel normal. She checked and she was right.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s just the right one.”

Judy felt for herself. She asked Carole if she’d noticed that Starlight was limping or favoring the leg. She hadn’t. Carole unclipped the lead rope and led him around the paddock while Judy observed carefully.

“Well, that’s the good news,” Judy said. “Whatever it is, it barely shows in his walk yet. That means that we’ve caught it early before much damage has been done.”

Carole knew what she meant. About the worst thing a rider could do with a horse was to work him when he was lame. That could make a small injury turn into a permanent problem.

Judy checked the knee several more times carefully and made her pronouncement to the whole group, who had been watching.

“It could be a couple of things,” she said. “But they all come down to the same prescription for now. Does anybody know what that prescription is?”

“Complete rest,” said Betsy Cavanaugh.

Judy nodded.

“Bandages,” Polly Giacomin suggested.

Judy agreed.

“Hose the joint,” Carole said. “That’s almost like a
massage, and it reduces inflammation, which helps healing.”

“Very good,” Judy said.

Carole was pleased that everyone knew how to care for the horse, but the problem was “complete rest” meant that Carole wasn’t going to be able to ride Starlight until the leg was healed. They’d been riding together almost every single day since Christmas, when her father had given him to her. She couldn’t imagine a day without a ride on Starlight.

“How long will Starlight need rest?” she asked.

Judy shrugged. “It’s hard to say, Carole. If it’s a mild carpitis and the swelling comes down quickly, then maybe as little as two weeks. If it isn’t, and it doesn’t, we might need to take an X ray, and then we’ll just see. It’s hard to tell. All I can say for sure is that he needs rest, bandages, and hosing twice a day for twenty minutes.”

“Oh, Carole, that’s terrible,” Stevie said. “Poor Starlight!”

“And poor you,” Lisa added. Both of her friends knew how hard it was going to be for Carole not to be able to ride Starlight for two weeks. And what if it went on for longer than that? Carole shook her head, trying to shake off the thought.

“It’s okay,” she said bravely to her friends. “The important thing is that it’s probably not very serious and Starlight will recover. All I have to do is to take care of him.”
She smiled, trying to reassure all the Horse Wise members who were feeling sad for her.

Carole clipped Starlight’s lead rope back to the eye hook on the paddock fence. A thousand questions were rushing through her head. How could this have happened? What could she have done to keep it from happening? Would Starlight heal quickly? Would he heal at all? Was he in pain? What should she do first?

The first thing she wanted to do was to hug her horse and apologize for whatever had happened. She also wanted to bury her face in his soft mane and cry. She wanted to cry for him because of his injury. She also wanted to cry for herself because she wouldn’t be able to ride for so long. Two weeks. And what if it had to be longer than that?

Carole didn’t want to think about that. She’d certainly cry then, and that wasn’t a good idea in front of everybody else. Instead of crying, she got to work. She patted Starlight affectionately and went into the stable to fetch some bandages. That, at least, had the advantage of getting her away for a few minutes so if she did cry, nobody would see.

The stable was nearly empty because most of the horses were in the paddock. Mrs. Reg, Max Regnery’s mother and the stable’s manager, was at her desk off the tack room, busily scribbling something. It took Carole just a few minutes to locate the leg bandages and to
choose one for Starlight. She started back toward the paddock.

“Oh, Carole!” It was Max. He was coming out of his own office and he was beaming. Something had made him very happy. Carole was glad someone was happy. “Have I got good news!”

“I need it,” she said.

“What’s the matter?” Max asked, concerned that his star pupil was so upset. It wasn’t like Carole to be unhappy at Pine Hollow. Carole explained about Starlight’s injury.

“It happens, Carole,” he said matter-of-factly. “Horses get injuries. One of the reasons I make my riders all learn to be caretakers is to minimize injuries, but the fact is that they happen, and it’s a part of horseback riding. You and Starlight will learn from this.”

Knowing Max was right didn’t make Carole feel better. It just made her feel more petulant.

“This isn’t what I want to learn right now!” she complained. “If I can’t ride for two weeks, there’s nothing to look forward to!”

“Oh, yes, there is,” Max said. Then his smile returned. “Definitely, there is. Come on, I’ve got some news for everybody.”

Carole was doubtful, but Max was her instructor and her friend. She held the leg wrap tightly in her hand and followed him.

“Don’t stop working,” Max instructed the pony clubbers. “Just work and listen at the same time, because I’ve got some news.”

Fifteen Pony Club members picked up combs and brushes and pretended to work while Max talked.

“I’ve just been speaking with a former student of mine. It seems that she’s been spending some time working with a student of hers who is going to be appearing at a horse show in the western part of the state two weeks from today. She suggested that she come over here the following day and have a reunion of sorts—”

“Dorothy DeSoto?” Stevie blurted out. “She wants to see Topside!”

“—with the horse she rode in the ring for so many years,” Max continued.

“Oh, it’s going to be great to see her!” Stevie said.

Max gave Stevie a dirty look. “Do I get to finish, or do you know the rest of the good news?”

“There’s more?” she said. Max nodded. “Then it has to be that she wants to actually ride Topside!”

“Who’s doing the announcing? You or me?” Max asked.

Stevie thought—or at least
hoped
—that he was sort of laughing. She blushed and promised herself to keep her mouth closed until Max was done.

“Ahem,” Max went on. “Miss Dorothy DeSoto will be here on Sunday, two weeks and one day from today. She
will be reunited with her championship Thoroughbred, Topside, and she will perform a dressage demonstration for anybody and everybody who wishes to watch. I will be sending invitations to all of my students, present and former, to come see it. This will, of course, include any interested Horse Wise members. Are there any interested Horse Wise members?”

Fifteen hands shot up. Dorothy DeSoto was the best. There was no way anybody who cared about horseback riding would miss this chance.

Carole understood then what Max had meant about something to look forward to over the next two weeks. Since Dorothy’s performance was scheduled for that day, two weeks and one day after today, it might be the first day she would be able to ride Starlight. It would, indeed, be a wonderful day. Excited by the thought, she decided to give Stevie an extra hand.

Stevie gave Topside a final coat of hoof polish while Carole held his lead. He seemed to understand that something special was coming, and Stevie wanted to be sure he would look his absolute best for Dorothy. Of course, he’d have to be groomed several times between now and then, and he’d get an even more special grooming before the performance, but still, Stevie found the whole idea inspirational, and Topside appreciated the attention. His ears perked up. His tail swished regally. He
was getting ready, too. The girls were pleased with the results.

Nearby, Lisa picked up a few strands of Pepper’s tail and began brushing them carefully. Tails worked best if you only brushed a few strands at a time. It took longer, but now that Lisa knew Pepper was in his nineties, she was determined to make him look better than ever.

T
HE
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ADDLE
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LUB
, new though it was, had already established a few traditions. One of them was that, whenever possible, they had Saddle Club meetings at TD’s after Horse Wise. TD’s was an ice cream parlor at the local shopping center. TD stood for Tastee Delight, but the place was universally known as TD’s.

The girls slipped into their favorite booth at their favorite hangout and settled down to talk about their favorite subject: horses.

“I can’t believe Starlight is lame,” Carole said.

“He isn’t really lame,” Stevie said, trying to console her. “He’s just got a sore knee. You have to take care of him now so he won’t get lame.”

“I know, I know. Judy isn’t worried and I guess I
shouldn’t be, either, but the fact is that I can’t ride him for at least two weeks. What am I going to do?”

“Well, you’re going to spend a lot of time taking care of him for one thing,” Lisa said reasonably. She was the best of the three at being reasonable. Sometimes her friends wished she weren’t
so
reasonable, but in the long run, they were usually grateful for it.

“Of course, you’re right,” Carole agreed, reasonably. “In fact, I’m going to have to run cool water on his knee twice a day for twenty minutes. That’ll keep me busy for forty minutes every day. What am I going to do with the other twenty-three hours and twenty minutes if I still can’t ride? I know Max would let me ride Barq or even Delilah, but the fact is that he has to charge me if I ride a stable horse, and taking care of Starlight is taking up all of the Hanson family budget on horseback riding. What am I going to do?”

Nobody had to answer that question for a minute because the waitress came to take their order. The waitress made a very impolite face when she saw Stevie. Stevie was famous for odd combinations of ice cream and toppings. They were also often very complicated. This time, however, her order was simple.

“Pistachio ice cream with caramel topping,” she said.

The waitress smiled wanly and wrote down the order. Lisa ordered a dish of vanilla frozen yogurt. Carole just wanted some chocolate ice cream.

Stevie turned back to Carole. “You can help Max organize everything for Dorothy DeSoto’s visit. Isn’t it great she’s coming?” Stevie asked.