Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1
“Make your comebacks stronger than your setbacks.”

As Tally put her pony’s tack away, she frowned at the “Quote of the Week” on the chalkboard inside the Field Ridge tack room. They’d just gotten back to the barn after their disaster of a first show together.

At the very first jump—at Tally’s very first A-rated show—the pony she was catch-riding, Stonelea Dance Party, refused the fence, and Tally fell off. When Danny (as he was called at the barn) ducked hard to the left, she went right and flew over the jump alone. Seriously upset and embarrassed, she somehow managed to keep from crying in front of her new trainer, Ryan, as well as everyone else watching. Ryan brushed the footing off of Tally’s jacket and led the pony out of the ring. Then he gave Tally a pep talk about how everyone falls off at a show sometimes. Even the very best riders.

After Tally fell, Isabelle—a sixteen-year-old client of Ryan’s who’d shown earlier in the day—did a warm-up round on Danny to school him, getting him over all eight jumps. Ryan nodded approvingly and gave Danny a big pat as they left the ring. Then he made Tally get back on to jump a few fences in the schooling area.

“He dogged you at that first jump, so I wanted Isabelle to get him around and remind him about the job he needs to do,” Ryan told Tally. “Now I want you to get back on in the schooling area for your confidence.”

Tally and Danny popped over a few jumps together, including a jump that Ryan purposefully set up to look spooky by adding a cooler to the top rail with his puffy vest draped on top of that. Tally felt the pony stare it down and hesitate a few strides out. “Sit, and leg!” Ryan called, and Tally rode definitively to the base of the fence. Danny peeked down a little bit, but Tally felt calmly in control and confident that they’d clear it.

After that mini-lesson in the schooling ring, it was as if the show ring blunder had never happened. She thought back on it bitterly as she flicked on the tack room light so she could wipe down Danny’s bridle in the fading afternoon light. She looped the throat latch through the end of the reins and fastened it, then wrapped the noseband around the whole bridle, pulling the buckle to the front and feeding the tapered end of the leather through the keepers. A month ago, she’d never heard of this figure-eight technique for storing bridles.

She’d learned a lot in a short period of time since she started riding with Ryan and catch-riding Danny, but it had all ended in embarrassment that late fall morning. Tally kicked the tack trunk by the door in frustration, like a little kid. She’d definitely suffered the “setback,” as someone had phrased it on the white board. The problem was, with no home shows at her barn on the schedule—and an uncertain future with catch-riding in general—she had no idea when she’d have the chance for a comeback.
(Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.)