Emma and the Cutting Horse by Martha Deeringer Page A

until an evening when her mom
had prepared her father’s favorite dinner of pork chops and
dressing, and then cleared her throat nervously over dessert.
    “Would it be okay for me to start Camaro
under saddle by myself?” she asked, toying with her lemon pie. “I
know that I didn’t do so great with Miss Dellfene, but I think I
could do better with Camaro. I’ve worked with her all her life and
she’s really gentle...”
    Silence descended as her father caught her
mother’s eye, and then sipped his coffee thoughtfully.
    “The problems we’ve had with Miss Dellfene
were not your fault,” he explained. “You had better luck working
with her than I did. She’s just an unusually temperamental horse. I
can’t think of any reason why you shouldn’t start Camaro, as long
as I’m there to watch the first time you saddle her and the first
few times you get on her.”
    A rush of relief swept over Emma. Secretly,
she had worried that her father thought the problems with Miss
Dellfene were at least partly her fault and that he wouldn’t trust
her with young horses anymore.
    “I thought I might be able to use some of the
tricks I’ve seen Gary use on Miss Dellfene when I start
Camaro.”
    “Good idea,” her father said. “Be sure to
turn her out in the arena to burn off energy before you work with
her the first few times.”
    “I will,” Emma promised.
    * * *
    Emma’s parents called her in to the den for a
family conference after supper the following week.
    “I called John Brown a few minutes ago to ask
him what he charges for training a cutting horse, and he told me it
was usually four hundred dollars a month plus expenses. Expenses
would include feed and hay, veterinary care, shoeing and a goat or
cattle charge for livestock to train her with. I told him that was
impossible for us. Then he said that he has always wanted to win
the NCHA Futurity, and Miss Dellfene was the only young horse he
had looked at this year that had the potential to do it. He offered
to ride her for two hundred dollars a month if we furnish the feed.
If she does well, it will be good advertising for John as a
trainer. We can bring our own feed over for her to help keep the
cost down. She would need to be shod, and for now he would be
starting her on his own goats. It’s not totally impossible, but it
would sure suck the extra money out of our budget. So what do you
think?”
    Long seconds of silence passed before Emma’s
mom spoke.
    “I think we’ll probably never have an
opportunity like this again, and if we don’t go for it, we’ll
always wish we had. I could give up movies and getting my hair
frosted for a year. I say let’s go for it!”
    “What about you, Emma?” he asked. “Do you
want to cut corners to give Miss Dellfene a chance? If we do this,
she will never be a family horse, and you will probably never get a
chance to ride her, at least not until the Futurity is over. With
all that in mind, what do you think?”
    “Would we be able to go to Ft. Worth and
watch her at the Futurity?” Emma asked.
    “Absolutely! We wouldn’t miss it. I guess we
might even take you out of school for a day or two if she
gets that far; but there’s still a good chance that she won’t turn
out to be good enough.”
    “Let’s do it!” Emma said. “I can’t think of
anything more exciting than watching our own horse at the World
Championships!”
    “Okay,” her dad said. “I agree with both of
you. I’ll call John back in the morning.”
    That night Emma filled her diary pages with
paragraphs of excited speculation about Miss Dellfene and the
Futurity. All she had seen when they brought Miss Dellfene home
from the sale was a hardheaded little mare with crooked knees. Now
they might be in for the most exciting year of their lives. She
knew that her father was secretly excited, too. What had he seen in
that plain little mare that hinted at the ability Emma had not
known was there? She couldn’t wait to tell Kyle.
    * * *
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