Riding on Air by Maggie Gilbert Page B

from side to side, and I nodded in satisfaction at this visible proof he was relaxed and using his back properly. I glanced down at the oversized sports watch strapped to my arm to check the time and asked Jinx to trot. Five minutes in this direction and that would be all for today.
    It’s important to work a horse evenly on both sides and to make sure he uses himself equally athletically. Just like people, horses usually had a stronger and weaker side, but dressage was all about symmetry. A big part of his training—and mine—was making sure we could do all the movements and paces equally well going to the right or the left. My right hand is more badly affected by the JRA than my left, which actually means I tend to have more trouble going to the left as that’s when my right hand has the outside rein, the more active and important one.
    Unfortunately, Jinx is most stiff going to the left too because he was always working in the same direction during his racing days and we sometimes found things harder than they needed to be. It sucked; when Jinx most badly needed me to help him through new movements or training hiccups, I couldn’t give him the support he needed. But free-lunging helped make up for that. With the chambon giving him the even contact my damaged hands can’t always supply, he can not only work with support, I can see exactly how he is going. Some training aids are cheating, or even worse, actually hurt the horse, but the chambon is a classic piece of equipment used by the dressage masters for centuries. If used incorrectly it can be bad, but just about everything we put on a horse, from a bridle to a rug, can hurt them if we don’t take care.
    I aim to always take very good care of Jinx and I watched him with that same care now as he trotted sweetly around, making sure the chambon didn’t need adjusting. Everything looked good, so I took Jinx through a few rapid walk-trot transitions, with a brief stint in canter, before a glance at my watch told me take him back to walk and finish up.
    â€œAnd walk,” I said. Jinx walked.
    â€œGood boy,” I said, just as a voice I knew very well said behind me: “Jinx is going well.”.
    Oh. My. God. William. Here. He’d snuck up on me yet again. A quick glance over my shoulder proved it was most definitely William, arms draped over the top rail of the round yard, hat pulled down low over his eyes.
    My next thought, as, flustered, I turned back to face Jinx, was ‘thank God he didn’t show up while I was still in my PJs with my hair snarled worse than a yearling’s mane’.
    â€œWhat are you doing here? Are you looking for the boys?” I forced my legs to move, one after the other, across the round yard to where Jinx waited obediently. I gave him a pat and started undoing the chambon. I was clumsier than usual—something I couldn’t entirely blame on my swollen joints. As I fumbled the oversized buckles Brendan had modified my chambon with so I could adjust it without help, I told myself that William was probably just here to see him, or maybe Gary. Not me.
    â€œI came to see you.”
    My heart lurched into the back of my throat. I busied myself with buckles and straps, my hands shaking, trying to collect the thoughts that were skittering as nervously around my brain as spring lambs. As usual I couldn’t think of anything to say, even as the silence dragged on and on. I don’t mean something witty or cute or even half-way normal. Just anything at all.
    I glanced over my shoulder again. He was still there. He grinned, the brim of his hat shading his eyes. He was so outrageously good looking I thought my heart was going to stop. A thought finally did occur to me.
    â€œWhy aren’t you still at camp?”
    â€œNo reason to stay,” he said.
    I froze with my hand resting cautiously on Jinx’s neck and wondered if he really meant what I thought he did.
    â€œAre you coming