Jill's Riding Club by Ruby Ferguson

Author:Ruby Ferguson [Ferguson, Ruby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jane Badger Books

10

Planning A Gymkhana

THE games-and-races afternoon was more of a success for the younger ones than for us experienced ones, as we felt it was our duty to give the young entry a good time and make them think they were getting something out of the riding club. Quite a lot of fond parents came along to watch, and to swoon with rapture at the sight of their tots on ponies shying potatoes at a bucket and missing every time.

A number of people from school came to watch too, and said they had heard we were getting up a gymkhana, and would anybody be allowed to enter or was it just for our members?

I said, we wanted as many people as possible to enter, whether they belonged to the riding club or not, though of course we hoped that our own members would carry off most of the prizes.

“Isn’t it time we did something definite about this gymkhana?” said John Watson. “When’s the thing going to be, anyway?”

“The Saturday before we go back to school,” I said. “That’s the first Saturday in September.”

“All right. That’s one thing arranged. What about judges and schedules and rosettes and prizes and seats for the people who have so little sense as to come and watch us ride? Gosh, this thing’s going to cost money, isn’t it?”

“It won’t have to,” I said. “We must go round and ask everybody we know to give things.”

“My father would be a judge,” said Val Heath, “and you needn’t be afraid of favouritism, he’ll be equally tough with everybody. And I think Mrs. Darcy would be a judge if you asked her, Jill.”

“Good show,” I said. “That’s the judges fixed. What about rosettes?”

“Easy,” said Ann. “If we all put in about threepence we can buy yards of ribbon at Woolworth’s and wheedle our mothers into making them up when they go out to tea with each other. And I’m sure Stanley Trimble’s father would provide the ropes for the ring; and they’d lend us the seats from the Parish Hall for nothing, if somebody would take a lorry to fetch them.”

“Stanley Trimble’s father!” yelled about six people in chorus.

“It’s all going to be quite simple,” said David Neville.

“Not so simple as all that,” I said, “because the reputation of the riding club is at stake, and if the gymkhana is a flop we shall feel terribly small and all these weeks of practising will be wasted.”

“Oh dear, need we have a gymkhana at all?” said Mercy Dulbottle, and we all squashed her flat by screaming, “Of course we must have a gymkhana! What’s the good of the riding club if we can’t put on a gymkhana?”

“The most important thing,” said Diana Bush, “is the schedule. What sort of events are we going to have?”

“Perhaps I could have a word here,” said Clarissa very loudly. “I vote we draw the line at kiddish events, definitely.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “Half the members of the riding club are under fourteen.”

“Well, that crowd hardly count at all,” said Clarissa.

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