Horse Sense by Bonnie Bryant Page A

Nero, and losing. Lisa thought it very strange indeed that Estelle should have such trouble. She’d never seen an experienced rider let her horse take thelead the way Nero did that day. Estelle must be right, she told herself. There was something terribly wrong with Nero.
    When the class finally ended, Lisa got the soda whip. That was another one of Pine Hollow’s traditions, and one that almost everybody enjoyed. Each class member pulled a riding whip out of a bucket. One of the whips had a bottle cap attached to it. It meant that rider was in charge of getting sodas for everybody in the class and delivering them to the stalls where the other students would be untacking their horses. Lisa took Pepper to his stall, then quickly scooped eight cans out of the little refrigerator in the tack room.
    She delivered the drinks to the riders, ending with Estelle. When she opened Nero’s stall, she found Estelle hanging onto the horse’s bridle, almost being lifted off the ground by his nodding head. His ears were almost flat back against his head and his eyes were wide open, showing white. Lisa knew those were signs that the horse was very upset.
    “Steady, boy,” Lisa said, reaching to pat Nero’s neck. “Take it easy, now. Nobody’s going to hurt you. We just want to take off the bridle and saddle; calm down.” He blinked his eyes and seemed to relax a little bit. “Let go of the bridle,” Lisa told Estelle. Estelle released the bridle. The reins dangled to the ground. “Not the reins. Hold those!” Lisa told her sharply. It would be very easy for Nero to get his legs tangled in the long reins and then there would be
real
trouble.
    Estelle’s hand darted toward the reins, but when Nero tried to push her away with his nose, she jumped back, obviously scared. Lisa picked up the reins with her left hand and gave them to Estelle, who accepted them reluctantly.
    “Whatsamatter, boy?” Lisa asked, still trying to calm the big horse. “We’ll take care of you—no problem. Ready for some hay, maybe some fresh water?”
    Lisa knew that the horse couldn’t understand her. Max had told them all many times that horses couldn’t speak English. But from experience, she also knew that horses could sense fear, and that they reacted with fear of their own. She tried to speak as calmly and fearlessly as possible. Finally, Nero got the message. His ears stood straight up, his head held steady, his liquid brown eyes gazed calmly at her.
    Lisa continued to pat him while she removed his bridle. She handed it to Estelle and, with dismay, saw the French girl take it by one of the cheek straps. That was a sure way to tangle it, and Lisa would have to cope with that in a minute. First, though, she needed to finish with Nero. She loosened the girth and removed the saddle. The girls took the tack out of the stall, closed the door carefully, and carried the bridle and saddle back to the tack room.
    “Come, help me with Pepper,” Lisa said. “I’ll show you what you need to do to keep a horse calm. Then we can give them both some water, okay?”
    “I know how to take care of a horse!” Estelle snapped. “I have been doing it since I was a little girl!Do you think I have really learned nothing in all these years?
I
do not need to learn anything. It is Nero who needs a lesson. Max must see to this right away.” With that, Estelle turned and stormed off to Max’s office.
    Lisa was confused. Estelle was an experienced rider. She’d been riding for years. She owned her own horse. Still, she didn’t seem to understand the simplest things about riding. It didn’t make sense. Something didn’t fit at all.
    While she untacked Pepper and drank her own soda, Lisa thought about Estelle and the miserable day she had had with Nero. It was possible that Nero was ill. It was even possible that he needed to be taught a lesson, though if a rider felt a horse needed punishment of any kind, it was best to administer it at the very moment it was