Horses and Challenges at Bracken Read online




  HORSES AND CHALLENGES AT BRACKEN

  The second in the new Bracken series

  Gillian Baxter

  Previous books by Gillian Baxter

  Many available through Amazon.

  The first Bracken series: ‘Jump to the Stars’, ‘The Difficult Summer’ and ‘The Perfect Horse.’

  Also, ‘Tan and Tarmac’, ‘Horses and Heather’, ‘Ribbons and Rings’, ‘The Stables at Hampton’, ‘Horses in the Glen’ and ‘The Team from Low Moor’

  Also the Pantomime Ponies series for younger readers: ‘Pantomime Ponies’, ‘Save the Ponies’, ‘Ponies in Harness’ and ‘Ponies by the Sea’.

  And on Kindle: ‘With Vacant Possession? and the first in the new series of Bracken Books, ‘Love and Horses at Bracken’.

  Book Title Copyright © 2019 by Gillian Baxter. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover images: Pixabay

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Gillian Baxter

  Printed in the United Kingdom

  First Printing: May 2019

  CONTENTS

  Previous books by Gillian Baxter

  Introduction

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten.

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve.

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter eighteen

  Chapter nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter twenty one

  Introduction

  Fifty years ago among the pony books I wrote was a series of three books about Bracken stables, ‘Jump to to the Stars,’ ‘The Difficult Summer,’ and ‘The Perfect Horse.’ They were about Bobby, who worked there and fell in love with the owner, Guy, about Bobby’s show jumper, Shelta, and the disasters and recoveries which led to Bobby and Guy becoming engaged at the end of the third book. There, on the edge of marriage, I left them until now. Readers have asked me, over the years, what I thought had happened to them since, and now that I am less able to take part in horse activities myself except through my horse owning daughters, I decided to find out. This series follows straight on with Bobby and Guy’s wedding, but it is set in the present day, ignoring the years between. Not a lot has changed basically in the horse world, a few competition rules, decimal currency and metric measurement seem the main differences, but horse behaviour and riding skills remain much the same. These books are quite separate from the earlier ones but many of the characters, both human and equine, do remain the same.

  Roberta, known as Bobby, and Guy Mathews met when Bobby was still at school and he owned Bracken Stables, a riding school and horse dealing business. Bobby proved to have a flair for show jumping and with Guy’s help she was reunited with Shelta, a chestnut mare whom she used to ride for a previous owner. Over the next few years Bobby and Guy became closer, as Bobby grew up and disaster over-took Guy when a plane crash and fire almost destroyed his business and put him in hospital, leaving him temporarily disabled by a severe back injury. By the end of the third ‘Bracken’ book Guy recovered sufficiently to feel able to propose to Bobby, and the first in the new ‘Bracken’ series, ‘Love and Horses at Bracken’, tells their continuing story at Bracken and ends with the arrival of their baby, Rose.

  In this sequel Bobby and Guy are becoming used to being parents to their lively six months old daughter and things turn more challenging when head girl Heath is injured and leaves Bracken short staffed. The gap is filled by the arrival of London lad Dean Adelbyo and his noisy donkey Moses. Guy’s ex-racehorse The Dark Miller takes an instant dislike to the donkey which unsettles him badly and causes Guy to have a bad fall eventing. Bobby is offered the ride on a difficult show jumping mare owned by well known owner Hal Johnson and finds herself involved in rivalry with his usual rider Keith Rhodes who once fancied her. A higher level of competing looms but Bobby is not sure if that is really what she wants.

  Chapter one

  There was a spring storm roaring through the trees and driving rain against the windows. It was just starting to get light, and the baby was crying. Roberta Mathews, known as Bobby, sighed and slid out of bed, trying not to wake her husband, Guy, but he woke anyway, and asked if she wanted help.

  ‘I’ll feed her,’ Bobby told him. ‘It’s a bit early, but she won’t drop off again with all that racket outside, and one thing you can’t do is this early feed.’

  Rose was six months old now, most of her feeds were from a bottle, but late and early Bobby was still feeding the baby herself. As she went across the landing to the baby’s room she could hear galloping outside, and one of the field ponies whinnied. She also realised that something was crashing about outside, and there was a strange grating sound. Pulling back the curtain she saw one of the big horse chestnut trees swaying dangerously, and the ponies scattering away from it.

  ‘Guy,’ she called. ‘The old trees going…it’ll have the the fence down and I can’t see Snowdrop. It’s going to take her bit of fence with it.’

  She heard Guy leap out of bed and Rose’s wails increased to a frightened scream as the tree came down with an earth shaking crash. The yard lights went on and she saw Heath, their head girl, running across the yard from her flat above the stables as Guy took the stairs two at a time. Bobby dived into the babies room , picked her up, and went back onto the landing to watch as Guy appeared, running towards the field where Heath was already heading for the fallen tree. There was something white mixed up in the branches and Bobby unconsciously tightened her hold on her baby. Snowdrop was their old grey rescued pony, the salvation of the autistic child who loved her. If something awful happened to Snowdrop Amy’s slow struggle to cope with her condition would be shattered.

  In Bobby’s arms Rose had stopped crying and was searching for her breakfast. Bobby arranged her in a comfortable position and as the baby began to suck her attention went back to what was happening outside in the soaking and windswept strengthening light. Guy and Heath were by the shattered tree, hauling at the branches, then Heath turned and came running back to the hay shed where there was a saw and clippers. The white thing in the branches was Snowdrop, Guy was bending over her, lifting the lighter broken twigs away, and Bobby saw the ponies head move as she tried to get up. There seemed to be something heavier holding her down, and when Heath dashed back with a saw Bobby could see that it was one of the bigger branches. Guy was sawing now, Heath hauling up the cut bits, and suddenly the whole branch sprang up as it lightened and Snowdrop, with Guy helping her, struggled to her feet. The sudden release sent Heath flying, and Bobby heard her cry out. Snowdrop was free, lame, but breaking into a stumbling trot, and Guy was beside Heath, who was sitting up clutching her arm. With Rose still sucking Bobby scrambled down the stairs and flung open the back door, letting in a roaring gust of wet wind. The baby stopped feeding with an angry wail, and one handed Bobby seized a waterproof cape from the hook, threw it over both o
f them, tramped into her boots in the porch and plunged out into the roaring morning.

  Guy was helping Heath into the tack room, both of them soaked, Guy with pyjamas under his long waterproof coat and Heath dressed but with her red hair uncovered and streaming down her back. There was a chair inside, and Guy carefully helped Heath to sit down. She was still holding her arm, white and shaking.

  ‘I think it’s broken,’ she said unsteadily. ‘That branch…just caught me…’

  Then last colour drained out of her face and Guy caught her as she fainted. There was a pile of rugs on a chest, and Bobby pulled them into a nest and set the indignant baby down in it. The first aid box was in the cupboard and she opened it to find a three cornered bandage for a sling and Guy worked quickly and efficiently to get Heath’s arm supported before she came round.

  ‘I’ll have to take her to A and E,’ he told Bobby. ‘You stay with her while I put some clothes on.’

  Heath began to come round, and Bobby pulled another chair up to sit by her, thankful to their ‘Coffee ladies,’ liveries who liked to sit in there.

  ‘Sorry,’ Heath said weakly. ’It does bloody hurt. What a stupid thing to happen. Is Snowdrop alright?’

  ‘She was on her feet and trotting,’ Bobby told her. ’As soon as Guy gets back I’ll check her. Yolanda should be here soon, and Mrs. Joyce will have Rose.’

  ‘So I’m not quite indispensable,’ said Heath drily, and Bobby was glad to hear her sounding closer to her usual self.

  Guy came back damp but dressed and drove his old Astra into the yard to pick Heath up. With his support she got into the car after making sure that Bobby would feed her cat. Bobby fetched Rose’s pram and put her into that in the tack room while she went to look at Snowdrop and find out what had happened to the other grass kept horses including her mare Shelta’s ‘mistake’ colt Folly and his close companion, pretty and gentle Goldie, or Golden Ghost, named for his pale palomino colouring.

  Snowdrop was by the gate, pointing one of her front legs and looking wet and bedraggled. Bobby could see the other horses investigating the fallen tree, with Folly well to the fore. They would have to be fenced off from it or they could be damaged by the jagged ends of the broken branches or fall into the large hole where the roots had been dragged out. It was still windy, but it had stopped raining. It was after seven o’clock now, Bobby knew that their neighbour and help, Mrs. Joyce, and her husband would be up, and Bobby got out her phone to call them. Mrs. Joyce had been Guy’s housekeeper in his old house, which she had now bought and ran as bed and breakfast accommodation, Guy having bought a smaller house close to the yard. She was still ready to help with their house and Rose, and she said she would come straight round and her husband, who helped with maintenance in the yard, would come to make sure the fences were still sound. Bobby put Snowdrop’s head collar on and led her slowly into one of the empty boxes. Her legs were scraped and sore, and Bobby sprayed them with antibacterial spray and made sure that there were no obvious splinters in them. The stabled horses had been watching everything with interest, and now they were beginning to complain that breakfast was late. Bobby checked Rose, who had gone to sleep after all the disturbance, and began to mix the feeds.

  It was two o’clock before Guy and Heath got back, Heath with her arm in plaster and dopey from painkillers. Ming met her, grumbling that he had been left alone, and followed Heath back into her flat to help her sleep off the first effects of the drugs. Bobby and Yolanda had done the mucking out and groomed the horses at full livery, Bobby had taught a group in the indoor school and been glad when a group coming for a hack cancelled because of the weather. They had exercised some of the horses most in need of work and turned others out for a bit when the wind dropped. Ed Joyce had made temporary repairs to the broken fence, and Bobby had fished Folly out from his determined exploration of the fallen tree. Rose, Mrs. Joyce reported by phone, had finished her lunch time bottle and a small spoon full of baby food, and had gone to sleep. How on earth would they survive without the Joyce’s, Bobby wondered, and how were they going to cope with Heath off for what she had been told would be about six weeks? The show season was starting, Guy had his horse, The Dark Miller, entered, with large entry fees, for two early horse trials, and she had planned to get Shelta back into competing along with her new ex-racehorse, Frost. She had missed most of the summer season because of expecting Rose, and now this new season looked under threat as well. The girl who had worked for them for most of the winter had left to study equine nutrition at college and so far they had not found a replacement. Heath normally managed much of the riding school work with Yolanda while she and Guy spent most of their time with the liveries, some in for schooling and sale, and the competition horses. Guy did some teaching, but Bobby knew that it was going to be the riding school for her now while Heath was off.

  ‘I’ll put an appeal for someone to take the job on our website,’ Guy told her. ‘And Heath will be able to do some managing after a week or so. We’ll cope.’

  ‘We haven’t much choice,’ Bobby said rather drearily. On top of all that she still had Rose to look after, Mrs. Joyce would not be able to have her all the time especially when her bed and breakfast business was busy. Guy hugged her.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Something or someone will turn up. You’ve done your share for a bit, take Shelta out and have a gallop, it’s stopped raining, and I’ve just got one lesson to take and Miller to exercise.’

  Bobby took his advice. She could steal an hour before evening stables and feeding Rose. She went to saddle Shelta.

  Riding her lovely, lively little chestnut mare always helped with life. Shelta was fully back to normal now after having her unexpected foal, and Bobby felt an even deeper kinship with her after having shared the same experience herself. Rose was wonderful and beloved but she did value her short breathing spaces without the responsibility. She and Shelta went their favourite ride along the edge of the woods which covered the sloping land around Bracken, and out onto the open hilltop where the grass grew short on the chalk and the hill dropped away to the spread of the Weald and the South Downs in the distance. The sky had cleared, there was blue between the still racing white clouds, spring was really here again full of the scents of green growing things, and Shelta wanted to gallop. Bobby shortened her reins, leaned forward, and let her go. Shelta was fast, an Anglo Arab with all the speed and fire of her breeding, and the grass flew beneath her and the fresh spring wind blew into Bobby’s face, taking her breath and blotting out for both of them the past maternal ties and any worries to come. This was here and now and for a few brief minutes all that mattered.

  Bobby was smiling when she rode back into the yard and Guy, heading for the lesson in the school, grinned at her.

  ‘Good therapy?’ He asked, and Bobby said ‘You were right, we’ll manage, like we always have.’

  They smiled at each other, Bobby seeing the man she had loved since she was very young, tall, with thick brown hair and a tanned face that was often rather serious, more so since he had almost been killed and temporarily crippled in the fire that had almost destroyed him and his business, Guy saw the woman he loved, her vibrant face and long light brown hair escaping from her hat, such a main part of his life and the mother of his much wanted little girl. To both of them, this love and complete connection was the most important thing in their lives to which everything else took second place.

  Chapter two

  The livery owners and clients were all concerned and sympathetic when they heard about Heath. The three coffee ladies, as Guy affectionately called them, because of their cozy habit of settling in the tack room to drink coffee and talk about their horses, all volunteered to do as much of the work with their horses as they had time for. Isabel Goldman, who owned Phoenix, one of their long time liveries, was away at college but said that her mother would do anything she could, although she was not really horsey. Sonia, unacknowledged leader of the coffee ladies, said that she would spread the word aroun
d at the school where she was a teaching assistant in case any of mothers might be interested in horses and a part time job, and Mrs. Costello, kindly middle aged owner of her sweet rescue mare, Francine, said she would be happy to look after her horse entirely herself, and proved as good as her word. She turned up each day to check Francine over and do any jobs for her which were needed, and she also said she would look after Rose any time that they needed her. Heath, hating being inactive, took over the telephone bookings and inquiries, and said she would also handle their website. It was all very helpful and positive but Bobby doubted whether it would be much long term help, but two days later Rose’s early feed was again disturbed by a strange, honking roar outside and sounds of panic from the stables and field. She and Guy, at least dressed this time, tore outside with a furious Rose to see a strange boy in the yard with a donkey, whose braying was causing pandemonium.

  ‘What on earth…’ Guy began, but his voice was drowned by the donkey, which even stopped Rose from objecting to the halt in her breakfast. Horses, according to their nerves and personalities, were either racing along the fences staring, cowering in the distance, or running round their stables. Folly, as usual in front of any disturbance, was craning over his fence with white face shining, eyes thrilled, and ears pricked, shouting replies. His shyer palomino friend was hanging back, goggling.

  The boy, who looked about sixteen, had a very brown face, hair in dreadlocks, and was dressed in ancient, torn jeans and a huge old blue sweater.

  ‘I come about the job,’ he said, as the donkey at last stopped braying. ‘The lady with the school kids said you was looking for someone to muck out and such.’