Daisy and Dancer Read Free Page A

answer and I didn’t want to miss my chance. “Doesn’t it make you nervous, performing in front of people?” I asked shyly. “Because I could never do it.”
    Kate gave me a big smile. “A few nerves beforehand are good, because they keep you on your toes,” she told me, “but I know that during the performance I have to be calm and confident for Starlight. My stomach usually does a big flip just as I mount up, but we always enjoy it once we get out there!” I smiled back – I thought she’d say she doesn’t get nervous at all, so it was amazing to think that even she does!
    And I’m so glad I have her advice about that because…

    We’re doing our own riding displays at the barbecue party on Friday!

    Sally had been keeping it as a surprise and she announced it on the yard before our lesson this afternoon! She and Jody are going to help us make up fun five-minute displays in pairs (well, me, Rosie and Isabel will be a group of three).

    Millie asked if she could do a handstand on Magic and then backflip off like Kate did and of course they both said, “No!” Millie went “Oh boo!” to that, which made everyone giggle.
    We’re going to use our lessons to work on our routines. I was excited about it, but I was also thinking, how on earth am I going to perform in front of all those people?! And Mum and Dad are picking my bros up from cub camp on the way here, so my whole family will be watching.

    Although we’ll only have our normal saddles and we can’t do anything that daring (because you need to train for years and years to become as good as Kate and Starlight) Sally says there are plenty of things we can do. She told us to get thinking about themes too, to make our displays different from each other. Lara and Brooke are doing cowboys (well, cow girls !) and they’re going to ride in checked shirts and jeans, and have cowboy music, and do a bit of line dancing at the beginning of their display before they mount their ponies.

    Millie’s pairing up with Stephanie, and they’re being clowns and doing some juggling. Millie wants to do it while cantering, but Sally says that’s not very likely!
    Sasha and Libby are doing a dance theme and they’re going to try and get their ponies to walk together up the school and halt and turnat the same time, and maybe even do some rein back, so it looks like they’re dancing too.

    Us three have decided on a gymnastics theme, and in the lesson Jody helped us come up with some ideas for moves, like trotting into the manège twirling ribbons, and bending round cones. Hopefully I’ll be OK at it – I mean, I’m not exactly a gymnastics kind of person. When Isabel suggested doing Round the Worlds on just our hands like Kate did I thought HELP! But luckily Jody said no to that straight away. We are allowed to do normal Round the Worlds, though, and we’re going to halt our ponies in a diagonal line across the manège and do them all in time with each other, so that should look cool.
    We also had a go at vaulting on and off our ponies in trot, by just running beside them and throwing ourselves over the saddle then pullingourselves up. Isabel and Rosie made it on after a couple of tries, but I couldn’t manage it – my arms just didn’t seem strong enough. Also, Dancer wasn’t that keen on me suddenly launching myself at her and she kept skittering sideways, which didn’t help. So we’re going to leave that out. PHEW! I really don’t want to fall off and look silly in front of everyone!
    Sasha and Libby might put the vaulting move in their routine, if they get more confident at it, but they aren’t sure at the moment. I hope Isabel and Rosie don’t feel annoyed that we aren’t doing it just because of me, though. Oh, I’m sure they don’t, they’re so nice, and we’re doing loads of other cool things.
    After