Flame and the Rebel Riders by Stacy Gregg

until he gets it right.”
    The rapping session that day was even tougher than anything Issie had experienced before. Time and again, with Ginty barking the orders, Natasha and Penny lifted the rail up to bash Flame in the legs as Issie jumped him over.
    “Hold him! Hold him!” Ginty shouted out at Issie with frustration. “Now go! Canter on!”
    With each attempt at the jump, Flame became more strung out. He was charging the fences like a bull, his problems now getting worse, not better. Ginty kept telling Issie to hold him back, but this just drove the big chestnut into a frenzy. By the end of the day,instead of cantering on the spot as he had done at the competition the day before, the Hanoverian was cantering on the spot
and sideways.
He couldn’t even look at the jumps without going berserk. It was like trying to ride a bucking bronco.
    By the time Issie took Flame back to his stall, he was quivering all over and his whole body was wet with sweat. As Issie untacked the horse, she couldn’t help but feel worried about him. Flame wasn’t coping with the stress. She gave him his hard feed and tried to dry him off before she put his lightweight rug on him so that he could cool down.
    “I’m sorry, boy,” Issie said softly. “I’m trying to help, you know that, don’t you?”
    “Issie?” Ginty stuck her head over the partition. “Are you still in there? What’s taking you so long? You should be saddling up your next ride by now.”
    “I’m just worried about Flame. I think maybe the training isn’t right for him,” Issie said. She realised it was the wrong thing to say as soon as it came out of her mouth. Ginty’s face turned stony.
    “I’m sure that when you’re riding your pony-club ponies you coax them over the jumps with cuddles andcarrots,” Ginty said snidely, “but this is a professional stable, Issie. Horses need to learn how to work and do what is asked of them. And you need to learn to harden up. Flame is not a pet, he’s an expensive investment.”
    “But if he’s worth so much money, shouldn’t we at least try—” Issie began, but Ginty cut her off.
    “I have nearly thirty horses in work at these stables, Issie. They all respond to my training system. Flame will too. You need to do as I tell you.”
    Ginty seemed so confident of her methods. And she clearly didn’t like being questioned. The trainer had a reputation for producing champion showjumpers, and compared to her, Issie was just some pony-club kid. What could she possibly know? But that was never how it had been with Avery. Issie had always been able to talk to Tom about her horses whenever she was in trouble. She only wished she could talk to him now.
    It was late evening and the sky was turning a dusky pink colour on the horizon as Issie rode her bike up the driveway of Winterflood Farm.
    It had only been three weeks ago that she’d had her argument with Avery, but it felt to Issie as if she hadn’t been here for years. When she spotted Tom out the back with the horses she gave him a wave. Tom looked up and saw her and waved back. She couldn’t tell at this distance whether he was pleased to see her or not. As he led the horse closer and came over to greet her she still wasn’t sure. His face was expressionless.
    Avery was leading a small pony, about twelve hands high, an Appaloosa with a very pretty blanket of white spots on its dark chocolate rump.
    “Who’s the new horse?” Issie asked.
    “This is Cookie,” Avery said. “He’s a rescue pony. You should have seen the state of his feet when he arrived. He’s quite sound again now — he’ll be well enough and ready to be re-homed in a week or two.” He looked at Issie, still in her jodhpurs and helmet after a hard day in the stables at Dulmoth Park. “Been at work?”
    “Uh-huh,” Issie nodded. “I thought I’d just drop in and say hi on my way home.”
    This was patently untrue. Winterflood Farm wasn’t on her way home. It was in completely the