Organ music coming from somewhere Billie couldn’t see swung into “East Side, West Side.” She leaned forward, elbows on knees. The in-gate opened and the announcer’s bass voice floated over the PA system.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is class 104. Horses four years and older ridden by our outstanding junior riders!” When the applause died down, he announced, “Riders, let’s have a flat walk, please. Do the flat walk!”
Billie counted as seven horses, already lathered with sweat, entered the ring. Massive, stacked black blocks attached to the bottoms of their hooves weighted their front feet. Chains circled their ankles.
She wanted to shout, “What the fuck is this? STOP!” but she kept her mouth shut and her hand over it. And watched.
She spotted the slender girl with the blond ponytail she had seen earlier. The kid rode well, quietly, poised, her long legs almost straight, her hands raised to waist height, her eyes looking forward. She smiled as if she were the happiest, proudest equestrienne on the planet. The horse beneath her roiled along the rail, his front hooves thrown fast and high, his hind feet reaching unnaturally far forward. He looked like a huge insect, a praying mantis.
Dale, the trainer, took up a spot on the railing a few feet down from where Billie sat, a walkie-talkie in his hand, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.
“There you go, Sylvie,” he spoke into the handset. “Come on, kid. Use your legs! Kick! Kick! Set your hands!” He seemed about to say something else when Charley, talking into a handset of his own, moved over next to him.
“Ride him, Bo!” Billie heard Charley say to a weedy teen. “Don’t quit! Think blue ribbon!” He grinned at Dale. “We’ve got some hot kids here, don’t we?”
Dale nodded toward Sylvie. “Wish I had a dozen more like her.”
“Her brother’s good too,” Charley objected.
“Bo doesn’t give a shit. I can’t believe they’re siblings. She’s the one and you know it.”
Sylvie guided her horse to the inside of Bo’s and flew past him, catching the judge’s eye. Bo quickly flashed his sister the finger as she pulled away from him, navigating her way through the other horses, keeping herself in front of the judge. Billie recognized the boy as the charmer who tossed her flyers.
The announcer asked for the running walk, and the horses moved around faster, laboring, foam dripping down their necks and flanks. A big chestnut mare ridden by a skinny girl in a bowler hat stopped suddenly, hopping a few strides on three legs. The rider looked down and cursed. The mare stood like a woman who had broken the heel off her high-heeled shoes. On the ground behind her lay the black stacked shoe she’d been wearing, still attached to part of her hoof. Billie gasped but no one else seemed concerned. Kids still texted. Adults continued their conversations as if nothing remarkable had happened. The announcer called for a veterinarian and farrier to come to the arena out-gate. The rider dismounted and led the hobbling mare out of the ring.
“And again, the flat walk, riders, please,” the announcer asked, and the horses and riders resumed circling in front of the judge.
Billie scanned the young riders’ faces. No one seemed upset or even concerned. It appeared to be normal that one of these horses would tear off part of its hoof, but in her entire life, Billie had never seen this happen.
Dale and Charley spoke into the handsets to coach their riders until the announcer asked for a halt and reverse.
As the riders got their horses to stop and turn around, lumbering and cumbersome in their huge shoes, Billie overheard Dale tell Charley, “I told Eudora the sand’s so deep it’ll pull the hair off the horse’s legs.”
Billie looked down at the arena. The sand was nothing exceptional as far as she could tell. Just normal arena footing. She couldn’t imagine why it would remove hair, unless it had something to do with the stuff she’d seen Charley put on the filly’s legs in the barn.
The announcer called for the flat walk in the new direction, then the running walk again. Flecks of white foamy sweat flew off the horses. When he called for the riders to line up, the horses stood panting, their sides heaving. They shifted their weight off their front legs onto splayed hind legs.
Sylvie won and, to the sound of flickering applause, spurred her horse into a victory lap. She and Bo dismounted at the out-gate and led their horses toward a truck parked under a vapor light.
Billie followed as they approached a sunburned man in khaki pants, a white shirt, and a wide-brimmed hat, lounging on the truck tailgate. He sipped on a can of Dr Pepper, his feet propped on a folding chair with a flimsy striped umbrella attached to its back. A sign propped against the truck fender read, INSPECTOR: All horses, all classes. She had never seen inspectors at horse shows and wondered why he was here, but by then a string of horses and riders had lined up behind Sylvie.
She watched Sylvie bend and unbuckle the chains wrapped around her horse’s legs, preparing to show him to the inspector. Billie thought she spotted a trickle of blood running down the back of the pastern, over the bulb of the heel and into the dirt. Charley appeared beside Sylvie, bent to scoop a handful of sand, and tossed it against the horse’s leg. The blood disappeared.
“Howdy,” Charley boomed at the inspector. “Hotter ’n hotter ain’t it?”
Billie listened to them chat as the man glanced at the horse’s lower legs and feet.
“You headed to Tennessee for the Big Show come August?” Charley asked, his tone relaxed and
