Horse Fever by Bonnie Bryant

asked.
    “King’s Ransom,” said Pat, “the warmblood dressage horse.”
    “Oh, right,” Carole said, pretending to remember. In fact, she’d known all the time, all day, what their last appointment was. She could have recited the ad by heart, from “16.2 hand” to “ready to go all the way with the right rider.” Getting out of the car, Carole fervently hoped the gelding wouldn’t live up to his description. Then she could forget about him. Right now, for some reason, she couldn’t.

“M Y GOSH , HE’S even more unbelievable in real life!” Pat whispered. Both Carole and Pat had gasped aloud when they saw King. The owner, a young woman named Jenny, stood at the top of a wooded pasture and whistled. At this cue a large, dark brown horse lifted his head and came toward them, trotting, then cantering, his tail streaming out behind him.
    “I always like people to see him in his natural habitat,” Jenny remarked, slipping a leather halter over his elegant head. “That’s how I first saw him—grazing in the fields in Holland.”
    “He’s beautiful,” Pat remarked.
    Carole couldn’t say a thing. King looked like herdream horse—or a horse out of a fairy tale. But he was
real
.
    After tacking him up, Jenny mounted to put him through his paces. Carole knew this was good etiquette: An owner should always ride the horse she was selling first. That way, if the horse was feeling frisky it would be obvious, and the potential buyer could be prepared for it. Of course it was also a great opportunity to show what the horse could do. And King could do plenty.
    Jenny spent twenty minutes showing him off. The pair did extended trots and tiny canter circles. They leg-yielded. They did turns on the forehand. They went from a walk to a canter without trotting. They halted from a trot. The whole time, King’s ears moved forward and back, listening. He looked like the dressage horses in photographs, perfectly collected, perfectly balanced.
    “Anything else you want to see?” Jenny called.
    “No, I’m ready to try him myself!” Pat said eagerly.
    After giving Pat a leg up and helping her get settled, Jenny came over to the rail of the ring. Carole had been hoping she would. She relished any chance to talk with an advanced rider, and Jenny clearly fell into that category.
    “King is gorgeous!” she blurted out. “Did you train him yourself?”
    Jenny smiled at the compliment. “Not totally. He got agood start overseas. But I took him up to the advanced levels.”
    Carole could hear the pride in Jenny’s voice. “Where do you show him?” she asked.
    Jenny named several of the largest dressage shows on the East Coast. “I really want him to find an owner who’ll appreciate his talent,” she said. She looked curiously at Carole. “Do you ride?”
    “Yes, I have my own horse,” Carole said.
    “Do you do dressage?” Jenny inquired.
    “I do, but not like you,” Carole said. “You’re a professional, aren’t you?”
    Jenny nodded. “Yeah. After I got out of college there wasn’t anything else I wanted to do. So now I ride, show, teach, train horses—everything, really. I’m selling King because I can make a big profit on him. Besides, it’s time to move on. I’ve taken him as far as I can.” Apologetically, she added, “I know it sounds awfully cold, but when riding becomes a business, you have to be practical.”
    “Of course you do!” Carole agreed. She tried to assume a stern expression.
She
was going to be a professional, too, someday; she didn’t want Jenny to think of her as some little Pony Clubber.
    “Oops! He’s acting up,” Jenny commented.
    Carole looked out to the ring. King had gotten his head down and was trying to buck. All Pat had to do was sitdown firmly in the saddle and get the horse’s head up. Instead she was letting the reins slide through her hands: a recipe for trouble.
    “Get his head up!” Carole and Jenny cried at the same time.
    They looked at each other and