Show Jumping Secret by Josephine Pullein-Thompson

Author:Josephine Pullein-Thompson [Pullein-Thompson, Josephine]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Jane Badger Books
Published: 2020-09-15T16:00:00+00:00

11

All through May and June I schooled Secret and Claire schooled me. We were never allowed to jump higher than three-feet three, and, though it had all become much easier and jumping courses was a pleasure to me again, sometimes I wondered in despair whether I would ever be good enough to enter for a Foxhunter class. Towards the end of May I had taken off Secret’s martingale and second noseband myself, for Claire had ignored their presence. However, she remarked on their absence, she said, “I wondered how long it would take you to realise that that martingale wasn’t being the least use. Mind you,” she went on, “I’m not against martingales; often they’re extremely useful things, especially if you’re trying to do three months’ work in one, but they are, always, an admission of bad manners.”

It wasn’t until July that Claire broached the subject of Foxhunters. Then she said, at the end of a lesson when I had jumped a variety of strange objects from a water trough to a camp bed with a stuffed sack on it, “If you’re going to show jump, you’ll have to join the British Show Jumping Association and register Secret. As you’re going to jump a horse you’ll have to join as an associate and not a juvenile member, even though you’re young enough to be a juvenile. And, you’d better buck up about it because there’s a Foxhunter at the agricultural show on the twenty-first.”

“But I can’t jump high enough,” I protested, panicking now, when at last the moment was upon me.

“Oh, yes, you can. And, while you’re joining the B.S.J.A. you had better join the Pony Club too.”

“Not likely,” I said quickly. “My cousins belong and it sounds terrible. Besides, they’ve passed millions of tests and look how they ride. And there’s somebody called Colonel Darcy who makes you sit back and kick and all the boys give up because he’s so frightful. Honestly, you can’t expect me to join; and you’ll only be furious if I do learn to sit back and kick.”

Claire would only laugh, but when at last she was serious again, she said that it was quite true that the Fawley Vale branch hadn’t been very go-ahead for some years, but that now there was a new District Commissioner, a new local committee, of which she was a member and that there would be some really good instruction during the summer holidays, lots of interesting rallies at Christmas and hunter trials and dressage tests in the spring.

“What about Colonel Darcy?” I asked suspiciously.

“We’ve pensioned him off,” Claire answered.

“And what about my wonky leg?” I asked. “I don’t want strange instructors cursing me because it doesn’t look quite right.”

Claire said, “Well, if you’re such a nitwit that you can’t tell them you’ve got a peculiar leg yourself, I’ll tell the Secretary and the District Commissioner that they’re to tell all strange instructors about it before the rally begins.”

I said, “I’d better ask my parents what they think,”

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