Ride your ride, she told herself.
Barely heard her introduction. Just the buzzer. Then she and Coronado were moving, into the course, no problem with the first jumps, no problem with the first rollback. Quickly she was into the first combination, feeling a slight chip on the second fence, on the way up, nothing more.
She felt as if she were through the first half of the course in a blink, coming up on the water jump, telling herself Coronado had never had trouble with a water jump. And didn’t now. Landed clear out of the water, by what felt like a country mile.
They were coming up on the triple now.
Even at this pace, Maggie’s vision once more registered in slow motion. A good thing. The line. The distance. Don’t think. Just react.
We’ve got this.
Easy as one, two, three.
Two jumps to go. They made the turn, she squared him up.
One fence left.
The skinny.
Trying to keep her breathing and her emotion under control. Feeling her excitement rise, wondering if her horse could feel it, too. They were over the last fence and finishing clear then. Even then she couldn’t make herself slow Coronado down right away, made one more turn before she allowed herself to look at her time, 77.1, as she heard the ring announcer say, “Premier place.”
Four riders in the jump-off for the gold medal now, Matthew and Eric and Simon. And Maggie.
Her kid trying to make it five.
By the time Maggie came out of the ring, Becky was already out there.
ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE
I WAS OUT THERE as soon as Mom looked up at her time.
I didn’t want to say anything to her, not right now. Didn’t even want to make eye contact. She’d ridden her horse. I needed to ride mine. I was happy for her, no doubt. When she had been asked to deliver, she had produced, at least for now, the ride of her life. I knew how much she wanted this.
But more than ever, I knew how much I did.
I had shocked everybody, including myself, by making it this far. It didn’t matter if I didn’t make it to the jump-off, if Matthew and Eric and Mom were the ones competing for the gold medal and not me.
Now I was the one being asked to deliver. Me and my horse. You never knew until you were out there. You always had to wait to find out. And what I found out, quickly, was that Sky had saved her best for today.
These weren’t 1.6 m jumps; today felt half that high, as if we were covering speed bumps. By the time we got to the water jump, she was in the zone and so was I.
We cleared the water, breezed through the triple. I didn’t have to ask for anything. She just nailed it like a champ.
Two fences left. The hardest jumps behind us, the hardest turns. Made the last soft turn. Cleared the oxer.
One to go. To go clean and keep going to the real main event.
“Let’s go!” I heard myself yelling.
Yelling at myself by then.
But three strides before the fence I felt her stumble slightly.
It was almost as if she’d stepped in a hole. Her first wrong step all day. As she made it, she started to turn her head to the right. The rest of her started to follow.
Shit.
I gave her a kick and it got her head squared up. She still took off late, managing to get her forelegs up and over the bright green rail.
But one of her hind legs hit it hard.
Not just hit it, but rattled the living shit out of it.
I felt all the air come out of me at once. Knew it had to be going down. I’d heard it and felt it. Waited to hear it from the crowd, one way or another. Up or down.
And then the crowd cheered.
Only then was I able to exhale, get Sky and me turned around, and allow myself a look at the scoreboard. Knowing I didn’t need to be first. But still wanting to be first, wanting to beat them all, all day long.
76.8.
I’d gone faster than Mom, faster than the Irish guys, faster than everybody, at least for now. It wouldn’t help me in the jump-off. But Mom and I would be the last two riders out there in the jump-off.
I thought: Maybe this is the way the story is supposed to end.
ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOUR
THEY DIDN’T WASTE any time starting the jump-off. The cloud cover had broken into rain and the day was getting very dark, very fast. I’d been too busy to notice that they’d put the lights on at the top of Etoile Royale.
Matthew Killeen went clean. Eric Glynn didn’t. Then Simon LaRouche beat Matthew’s time and he was in first place and the home crowd pretty much lost its shit.
In the steady downpour, I hadn’t noticed Simon having any problem with the footing, didn’t see the rain affecting his horse.
Mom and I were in the gate.