The Auditions. Stacy Gregg

Tara thought with a wry smile, would no doubt please Bettina Schmidt. Bettina was the head of Blainford’s dressage department and had always been critical of the recruitment process for the academy. Bettina’s concern was that Tara, as both chief selector and the head of Blainford’s eventing department, was biased towards eventing riders. In fact the truth was quite the opposite. As four-times winner of the Lexington Horse Trials, Tara set especially high standards for students applying to join her department.

      The selection process was tough no matter what category you applied for. Only the best riders from showjumpers and polo players to Western and natural horsemanship disciples, even vaulters and carriage drivers, were chosen.

      Blainford had earned its reputation by maintaining the highest standards and entry to the academy was exclusive. Tara and her team of selectors had to make certain that the right choices were made.

      The shortlist of potential applicants crumpled at the bottom of Tara Kelly’s brown leather bag was becoming shorter by the day. After the Cirencester show it would become shorter still. 116 junior showjumpers were competing in this last semi-final. Only three of them would make it through to the final auditions next weekend at the Birmingham NEC.

      It was impossible of course for Tara to remember the name of every aspiring rider on the shortlist, but there was one that had leapt off the page at her from the very first time she had seen it. That name was Georgina Parker.

      “It’s not so much that Tara and your mum hated each other,” Lucinda explained as she drove the horse lorry into the Cirencester showgrounds. “They were the best riders in the eventing class and there was this constant rivalry. They used their competitiveness with each other to spur themselves on, I suppose. Between them, they won every single prize in their senior year at school.”

      “So why didn’t Mum talk about her?” Georgie asked.

      “Their lives didn’t really connect much after that,” Lucinda said. “They both turned professional and for a short while they rode against each other on the international circuit. But then your mum took some time off to have you and when she returned to eventing Tara had given up competing to take up her position at Blainford.”

      Lucinda stopped talking to concentrate on parking the lorry then said, “Right. I’ll go get your registration number while you unload him and saddle up.”

      Normally at a one-day event, Georgie knew quite a few of the other riders. It was fun to meet up at shows and there would be friendly smiles and chit-chat. But she didn’t know a soul at Cirencester and the atmosphere was tense and bristling with competition.

      As Georgie unloaded Tyro she felt the stares of the other riders. They were watching, assessing their new rival. Tyro, of course, played to the crowd by high-stepping down the ramp as if he were a race horse arriving at the Grand National. The pony carried himself as if he were a statuesque Thoroughbred stallion instead of a fourteen-two hand gelding. He stood at the bottom of the lorry ramp and utterly embarrassed Georgie by holding his head high in the air and letting out a loud, brazen whinny as if to say “I’ve arrived! Everyone look at me!”

      “Stop being a show-off!” Georgie giggled at his antics. But no one else seemed amused. There were serious faces on all the other riders as they trotted past, eyeing Georgie and Tyro suspiciously.

      It got worse once Georgie mounted up and rode Tyro along the avenue of swanky horse lorries and into the practice arena. Here, it was every man for himself as riders kept getting in each other’s way as they warmed up. Georgie cantered a bit close to a gangly-legged girl on a pretty grey pony and received a vicious telling-off from the girl’s mum who had bleached blonde hair and a strangely orange complexion, which Georgie eventually realised was due to a spray tan and not a hideous skin condition.

      “Keep off! You’ll make Caprice upset!” the mother complained loudly. “She’s very sensitive!”

      “I’m sorry, Caprice.” Georgie pulled Tyro up to apologise.

      “My name is Sybil.” The girl looked at Georgie like she was a total idiot. “Caprice is my pony.”

      “Oh, sorry,” Georgie said again. Caprice, meanwhile, had noticed Tyro. She reached her long elegant grey neck out to touch noses with the gelding and, in a gesture typical of stroppy mares, greeted him by giving a sudden, high-pitched squeal and lashing out with a vicious swipe of her foreleg.

      “See!” the orange-faced woman fumed. “Now you’ve gone and upset her!” She snatched Caprice by the reins and dragged the pony and her daughter off to the other side of the field. “If you come near us again I’m reporting you to the officials,” she told Georgie loudly.

      A girl on a fourteen-two hand palomino had been watching the whole commotion and rode up to Georgie with a smile on her face. “I saw mad Mrs Hawley giving you a hard time,” she said. “Don’t worry–she shouted at me too before you got here. She’s such a bossy old bat!”

      “It was like getting told off by a giant bottle of Tango!” Georgie giggled.

      The girl smiled. “I’m Olivia,” she said leaning down to give the palomino a pat on her glossy neck. “And this is Molly. We’re from Blackfriars Pony Club in Northampton.”

      “Molly is gorgeous,” Georgie smiled. “I’m Georgie. This is Tyro.”

      “Isn’t this whole auditions thing so intense?” Olivia groaned. “It’s like nobody will even say hello. I’ve seen at least half a dozen kids here that I usually go to pony club with and they won’t even look at me!”

      Georgie shrugged. “Everyone’s just nervous, I guess. You know, there’s so much at stake.”

      “I know!” Olivia nodded vigorously. “I woke up this morning and felt so ill with nerves I didn’t think I’d be able to ride today …”

      “Olivia!” A woman wearing a baseball cap and jeans called out across the warm-up arena.

      “Oh! That’s my mum.” Olivia grabbed the reins and turned her palomino on her hindquarters. “I better go,” she smiled at Georgie. “See you later! Good luck!”

      “You too,” Georgie said as she watched Olivia ride off.

      “There you are!” Lucinda said when Georgie arrived back at the lorry. “Tie Tyro up with a hay net and come with me. It’s time to walk the course.”

      The fences in the arena looked all right from a distance. It wasn’t until you were actually standing next to the jumps that you realised how big they really were.

      As Lucinda went from fence to fence, explaining about the best line to take for each jump, Georgie felt her knees gradually turning to jelly beneath her. She’d let Lucinda convince her that there wasn’t much between being an eventing rider and a showjumper, forgetting the one key difference–showjumping fences were massive!

      Olivia was walking the course with her mum, who turned out to be an old friend of Lucinda’s.

      “Everyone says that the treble is the bogey fence,” Olivia groaned. “It’s a totally enormous spread on the last jump.”

      But Lucinda wasn’t so sure. “Sometimes the big ones that look the hardest actually ride easy. Let’s wait and see how the others handle it,” she told Georgie. “There are thirty-one riders ahead of you so you’ll have a chance to see where the problems are.”

      The first rider into the ring was Byron Montford. Byron rode a glamorous bay hack called Toledo and he had every piece of flashy tack imaginable. None of which stopped him from coming to grief at several of the jumps, including the treble, to rack up a final score of sixteen faults.

      “This course is going to be very tough indeed,” Lucinda muttered. She was proven right as one after another polished combination of horse and rider entered the ring looking for a clear round and were knocked out by fallen rails or refusals.

      “That’s the point of these sudden death rounds.” Lucinda shrugged. “They’re trying to narrow