The Prize Read online

  “He covered eight furlongs in one minute forty-one,” Georgie said.

  Riley looked pleased and gave Marco a slappy pat. “Hey, not bad, boy!” he told the chestnut.

  “Is that time good enough to win the Firecracker?” Georgie asked.

  “Maybe,” Riley said, “but there’s a big difference between blowing him out like this on the track all alone and riding a real race when sixteen other jockeys are trying to cut in front or ram you off the track. It’s not until you’re coming down that final furlong with the pack at your heels that you find out what your horse is really made of.”

  Georgie looked at the little chestnut gelding dancing and fretting anxiously beneath Riley. Less than six months ago if you had asked any racing pundit in the country whether this scrawny, diminutive horse stood a chance of winning the coveted Firecracker Handicap, a race worth $232,000 in prize money, they would have laughed at you. Marco’s racing career was all but washed up when Georgie purchased him for $150 from his former trainer Tommy Doyle. The dirt cheap price tag reflected the total failure on Marco’s part to win any races – and the fact that the four-year old Thoroughbred had a reputation for doing lethal 180 degree turns in the middle of the track which meant that even the bravest jockeys refused to get on him.

  Georgie had bought Marco in the hope that she might be able to put his turning tendencies to good use and train him as a polo pony. But Marco was even more lethal on the polo field than he was on the racetrack and Georgie didn’t have a clue what to do with him – until Riley had offered to swap him for a more suitable polo mare.

  At the time, Georgie’s boyfriend was doing her a favour. But it had never occurred to her that Riley could actually see any potential in this difficult and temperamental Thoroughbred. Everyone else had given up on Marco, but Riley persevered with the little chestnut, retraining the horse, experimenting with his feeding and workout schedule, and making friends with the complicated little gelding.

  Then, last month, he entered Marco in his first race and the chestnut won by a clear two lengths with Riley on his back.

  Looking back, Georgie wasn’t surprised that Riley had turned Marco around. Her boyfriend had a way of getting a song out of the most difficult horses. Sometimes Georgie could swear that he had the ability to read their minds. How else could you explain the change in Marco?

  “The talented horses are always temperamental,” Riley told Georgie. “Marco just needed someone to believe in him.”

  Riley’s belief in Marco was proven justified when the horse won again in his second race. This time the win was hard-fought. Riley had been boxed in behind a clutch of riders on the railing all the way to the three-quarter marker. Things had looked impossible but somehow he had found a hole and driven the chestnut hard towards it to break free of the pack, putting on a burst of speed in the home straight to edge out in front of the favourite by a nose.

  Even with two wins under their belt, Riley wasn’t content.

  “He’s still holding back. There’s more speed in him,” Riley told Georgie as they walked together back to the stables. “Look at him! He’s hardly even breathing hard.”

  Jogging and skipping alongside Riley, Marco was bounding about as if the track beneath his feet were made of hot coals. Riley didn’t pay any attention to the Thoroughbred’s dangerous antics and eventually Marco stopped larking about and settled down. By the time they had reached the stables he was walking sedately at his jockey’s side.

  That was the way it was with Riley and horses, Georgie mused. He was real quiet with them, but somehow he always got them to do exactly as he wanted. She had seen that from the moment she met him. She’d been having trouble with Belle in her first term at Blainford and it was Kenny, the Academy’s caretaker, who suggested that she get some help from his nephew.

  Georgie had been expecting some wizened guy like The Horse Whisperer but it turned out that Riley was a teenager just like her. Riley’s dad, John Conway, was the owner of Clemency Farm and Riley worked for him riding track most mornings before his classes at the local High School.

  Riley and Georgie had been dating for a term now – despite predictions of doom from Daisy who said it was plain crazy even trying to go out with a boy who didn’t attend Blainford. Georgie knew that Riley had his own reservations about dating a girl from a private equestrian school. It didn’t help that total numnahs like Conrad were determined to cause trouble. The last time Riley had clashed with Conrad, the Burghley House head prefect found himself pinned to the wall with a polo mallet at his throat. Georgie hadn’t asked Riley back to a school event since then. And she was hardly going to tell him about the fatigues that the prefect had given her last week.

  Riley led the gelding into his loose box back at the stable block, and Georgie bolted the door after him.

  “Did I tell you that I’m going to enter him in the Hanley Stakes?” Riley asked. “I figure he needs one more outing before the Firecracker, just to keep him on form.”

  “What sort of race is it?” Georgie asked as she undid Marco’s girth.

  “A grade three, over a mile and a half,” Riley told her as he slipped the gelding’s bridle off. “It’s a big distance for him, but I want to see how he handles it. He’ll be up against The Rainmaker.”

  Georgie had heard of The Rainmaker. Thoroughbred Magazine had called the jet-black stallion “one of the most perfectly put together Thoroughbreds the sport of racing has ever seen” and the smart money was on the big black horse to win at Churchill Downs. At sixteen-three hands high, The Rainmaker was a massive horse compared to Marco who stood at a mere fifteen-two.

  Georgie slid the saddle pad off Marco’s back, and nearly collapsed under its weight. “Ohmygod!”

  “Are you OK?” Riley rushed to take the saddle from her. “Be careful. It’s heavy.”

  How could such a tiny jockey’s saddle weigh so much? Georgie stuck her hands into one of the pockets stitched into the brown leather and pulled out a round metal disc.

  “What are these?”

  “Lead weights,” Riley said. “All horses have to carry a certain weight when they run. It’s a handicap to even out the odds.”

  “So will Marco have to carry weights when you race him in the Firecracker?”

  “Nah,” Riley pulled two more weights out of the lead pad. “I’m already heavier than most of the other jockeys anyway. And Marco and me aren’t the favourites by any stretch. But all the same, I’ve been training him to carry the maximum – just in case.”

  He went to take the saddle out of Georgie’s hands, but she refused.

  “I’m going to be Dominic Blackwell’s groom this week,” she said. “So I might as well get used to doing all the work.”

  “So this Blackwell guy, he’s, like, a top showjumper?”

  “Uh-huh,” Georgie said. “I’ll be working for him for six weeks and if he gives me a good grade then I’m through into the second-year eventing class – otherwise, well, I’m just through.”

  “So you’re working for him during school?”

  “Uh-huh,” Georgie said. “And after school and weekends – you know, helping out at the competitions.”

  “So I should expect to see you again when? Next Christmas, maybe?” Riley said sarcastically.

  “It won’t be that bad!” Georgie was taken aback. “We’ll figure something out.”

  Riley looked doubtful. “I hardly get any time with you, Georgie. All the other guys at my school are always taking their girls out on dates. We never go anywhere together.”

  “We’re together now,” Georgie said. “I bet most girls don’t get up at four a.m. to be with their boyfriends!”

  Riley looked hurt. “I thought you liked coming to Keeneland Park.”

  “I do!” Georgie groaned. “And I don’t need to go on a date with you. I’m happy just being here like this. It’s not my fault that I have school and this apprenticeship – this is who I am, Riley.”

  “I get that,” Riley said. “I g
uess I was hoping you’d be able to help me out over the next few weeks with Marco’s training.”

  “I’ll try,” Georgie said, “but this apprenticeship is really important.”

  “So the Firecracker isn’t important?” Riley frowned. “It’s a $232,000 race. I think it’s a bit more important than impressing some showjumping guy.”

  Georgie felt herself getting flustered. She took a deep breath. “Listen, can we not get into a fight about this?”

  Riley didn’t say anything. He cast a surly glance at his watch. “It’s almost six thirty. I’ll mix Marco’s feed and then we’ll go.”

  The drive back to Blainford was tense and silent. But eventually, as they got closer to the school, Riley’s mood seemed to thaw a little.

  “So, anyway,” Riley said, as he pulled up outside Badminton House to let her out. “I could really do with someone for Marco to race against. I was thinking that maybe you could come out again with me and ride Talisman?”

  “When?” Georgie asked.

  “Monday? Pick you up after dinner? We can give them an evening workout under the lights.”

  Georgie was going to be crazy busy on Monday. It was their first day of the apprenticeships and she had Belle to look after and schoolwork too, but after the conversation she’d just had, she didn’t really see how she could say no to Riley.

  “OK,” she smiled and kissed Riley goodbye. “See you then.”

  At midday on Monday Alice and Georgie were waiting in front of the red Georgian brick buildings of the Academy for the minibus to take them to their apprenticeships.

  “I can’t believe I’ve got stuck with dressage,” Alice groaned.

  “I can’t believe I got stuck with Kennedy,” Georgie said as she watched the showjumperettes approaching.

  Georgie noticed that Kennedy Kirkwood had somehow managed to substitute a pair of expensive navy Animo breeches with Swarovski crystals on the pockets for her regulation jods. She wore her glossy red hair loose and flowing over her shoulders as well – not very practical when she was about to spend the afternoon mucking out Dominic Blackwell’s stables.

  As the minibus pulled up in front of the school buildings, Kennedy tried to push her way past Georgie and Alice.

  “What’s the hurry, Kennedy?” Alice said. “There’s no first-class section on a minibus. You’ll have to sit in economy with the rest of us.”

  There was a titter from the crowd of eventers waiting to get onboard. Kennedy shot the girls a filthy look.

  “Tell your sidekick to watch her mouth or she’ll end up on Fatigues with you,” Kennedy told Georgie.

  “You can’t give Fatigues. You’re not a prefect, Kennedy,” Georgie glared at her.

  “Her boyfriend is!” Arden, ever the lapdog, leapt to Kennedy’s defence.

  Kennedy stepped past Georgie to take up position at the front of the queue. “Just because Tara has stuck us together doesn’t mean I have to be nice to you,” she sniped.

  “Trust me,” Georgie said, “that never occurred to me.”

  Kennedy and Arden took their seats at the back and Georgie stopped by the driver’s seat to talk to Kenny.

  “I hear my nephew’s got that little chestnut lined up for the Firecracker,” Kenny said. Or at least that was what Georgie thought he said. Kenny had a mouthful of chewing tobacco and it was hard to understand him at the best of times.

  “Uh-huh. I went along to Keeneland Park to watch Riley breeze him yesterday,” Georgie said, “He’s pretty confident that Marco can win it.”

  “Here’s hopin’,” Kenny said. “Clemency Farm sure could do with some good fortune right now.”

  Georgie was going to ask Kenny what he meant by that, but there was a queue of riders behind her waiting to get onboard so she moved on.

  Kenny set off down the driveway, steering the minibus along the broad tree-lined driveway of the Academy out the front gates and back towards the main road heading for Versailles. The distinctive dark-stained post and rail fences of the Academy gave way to the white post and rail fences of the surrounding bluegrass horse farms. This district was the best breeding pasture in the world for young Thoroughbreds. Over five hundred horse farms jigsawed in side-by-side into this tiny district.

  Although the stables were state-of-the-art, from the outside these bluegrass farms had an honest, old-fashioned look about them with clusters of white wooden barns and red rooftops dominating the fields.

  With so many top flight farms so close together it didn’t take long for Kenny to do the rounds, dropping off the students at their appointed employers. He had dropped off half of his passengers by the time he reached the farm gates of the Blackwell Estate.

  Two white Doric pillars topped with the giant golden initials D and B marked out the front gates, and instead of a limestone driveway like most farms in the district, the path to the stables and the house was tarmac. As the minibus eased up the drive Georgie saw black and silver stable blocks, a tennis court and a swimming pool, and a house that looked like a giant iced wedding cake, with more massive white columns running along the front.

  “Georgie and Kennedy?” Kenny drawled, “This one’s your stop.”

  Georgie grabbed her bag and followed Kennedy off the bus.

  The doors eased shut the minute that they got off and Kenny was gone, leaving the two girls alone in front of the wedding cake’s front door.

  “Nice house,” Georgie said.

  Kennedy gave a hollow laugh. “You’re kidding me! A tarmac driveway? That’s so tacky! Totally nouveau riche. I mean, who decorated this place? Simon Cowell?”

  Georgie had never thought about the social implications of tarmac before, and she was still boggling over this when Dominic Blackwell appeared from the stables.

  “My new grooms have arrived!” he said, extending a hand to shake. “Julie and Kelly, yes?”

  “Georgie and Kennedy,” Georgie smiled.

  “Close enough,” Dominic Blackwell said, clearly not too pleased about being corrected. “Follow me, girls. You’re about to enter the best stables in the Northern Hemisphere!”

  From the outside, the stables looked like a modern art gallery – or maybe a top secret aircraft hangar – all jet-black aerodynamics and cool steel. Dominic Blackwell pressed a button and the sleek sliding doors eased back.

  “I’ve got nine horses in work,” he told the girls. “The feeding schedule must be kept precisely. All loose boxes and equipment must be maintained to a meticulous standard. Blackwell runs a tight ship!”

  Georgie looked around the stalls. The horses were gorgeous and the place was immaculate.

  “How many other grooms work here?”

  “Normally I have three or four grooms,” Dominic Blackwell hesitated, “but at the moment, Blackwell is having a few… staffing issues.”

  “Oh,” Georgie said. “So how many other grooms are there right now?”

  “As of this moment?” Dominic Blackwell raised both hands and pointed at Georgie and Kennedy. “Two.”

  “Just us?” Georgie squeaked. “Looking after all of this?”

  “Right! Follow me…” Dominic Blackwell ignored her comment and began to stride through the stables, giving a whirlwind tour. “The haylage is kept in the outdoor barn. The horses are boxed 24/7 and require four feeds a day. All feed formulations are written up on the whiteboard in the tack room. All tack must be polished before being put away. Hooves must be oiled and Stockholm tarred each night. Manes must be pulled and kept no longer than ten centimetres or a handspan wide and tails bobbed at the hocks. I like my horses plaited for events and I always require quartermarkers with my initials on their rumps…”

  The list of duties and the exacting way in which Dominic Blackwell wanted the tasks around the yard executed seemed to be endless and incredibly complicated. Georgie grabbed the notebook and pen out of her backpack and scribbled as fast as she could, taking copious notes on Dominic Blackwell’s likes and dislikes, and the various requirements of his nine horses.


  Kennedy, meanwhile, wandered along like she was being given a tour of a particularly dull museum, barely looking at the exhibits as she strolled through. She was ignoring everything that Dominic was telling them; a fact that hadn’t escaped him. When she gave a theatrical yawn as he was explaining the routine for mucking out the boxes, he finally called her on it.

  “I’m sorry, Kelly,” Dominic glared at her, “but if my little tour is boring you, perhaps you’d like to return to the Academy and we can finish this apprenticeship right now before it’s even started?”

  Kennedy gazed back at her new boss with supreme confidence.

  “My name isn’t Kelly,” she said. “It’s Kennedy – Kennedy Kirkwood. I believe you know my stepmother, Patricia Kirkwood?”

  Suddenly, Dominic Blackwell’s whole demeanour changed. His frown disappeared and was replaced by a charming smile.

  “Patricia Kirkwood’s stepdaughter!” he said gaily. “Well, imagine that! And how is darling Patricia these days?”

  “Very well, thank you,” Kennedy replied. “She’s been sponsoring Hans Schockelmann the showjumper for a long time now, as you probably know. She just bought a new horse for him to ride. His name is Tantalus. He’s worth…”

  “$15 million,” Dominic Blackwell finished her sentence. “Hans Schockelmann is one of my great rivals on the circuit of course. Blackwell would love to be given the ride on Tantalus. Do let your stepmother know that Blackwell has the best stables in the Northern Hemisphere and Blackwell is available should she ever want to change her sponsorship at any stage in the future.”

  “Thank you, Dominic,” Kennedy said. “That’s so sweet of you! As you might have guessed I do hold a lot of influence with my stepmother. She’s really excited about this apprenticeship and is very keen that I do well on my placement.”

  “Well, I’m sure your stepmother won’t be disappointed,” Dominic Blackwell said, “…in fact, she’ll be thrilled when you tell her that I have appointed you to the role of head girl.”

  Head girl.

  Georgie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. In a professional stables the head girl was a very important and senior position above all the other grooms. The head girl was an experienced horsewoman who knew everything about workout routines, stabling, feeding regimes, and the general business of running a yard. Making Kennedy the head girl on the first day like this was a joke!