“I’m ba-ack!” taunted the jinx.
Ellis thought borrowing Kinley Gold had exorcised it, but when the big bay refused a critical jump during her Pony Club rating, she realized her hex had only pretended to leave.
The examiner told her she could not complete the test and the seventeen year old exited the arena in humiliation.
“Whatever I do, it doesn’t work,” she whispered hoarsely into Kinley’s mane. “It’s just no use…”
* * * *
This was the second time she’d ridden someone else’s mount in a Pony Club test. Her own horse, Storm, pulled a suspensory just before the previous one. Because the vet sanctioned his return to work too early, the gelding immediately renewed the injury, dooming Ellis’s chances of passing this next rating.
The persistent jinx seemed banished when I lent her my even
