Riding Class Read Free Page B

at a time in a flat arena. It often amused Lisa and Carole that Stevie, who was boisterous and somewhat disorganized, was so good at a controlled, highly organized sport like dressage. Belle was becoming good, too.
    “What does your horse like?” Emily asked, turning to Lisa.
    “Prancer doesn’t know yet,” Lisa said. “She isn’t my horse, either, but she’s the one I usually ride.” Lisa described the Pine Hollow lesson horse to Emily.
    Emily bent over slowly, and carefully tugged at P.C.’s leg. P.C. lifted his foot immediately, and Emily cleaned the mud out of his hoof with a pick. “I guess P.C. doesn’t know what he likes best, either,” she said, her voice somewhat muffled from leaning against P.C.’s flank. “He does everything I ask, but he doesn’t exactly look like a dressage horse, does he? His neck is three feet wide.”
    “He looks like a great horse,” Carole said, although she could see that P.C. did have a very thick neck.
    “He’s perfect and he’s beautiful and he’s tremendously ugly,” Emily said, straightening up and beginning to slowly make her way down P.C.’s side. “Facts are facts.”
    “There you go not making sense again,” Stevie said.“You thanked us for what we didn’t do, and now you say your ugly horse is beautiful. Or your beautiful horse is ugly.” Stevie grimaced; she hadn’t meant to call P.C. ugly. Most of the lesson horses at Pine Hollow wouldn’t win any beauty contests either, but they were good horses and Stevie loved them all.
    “Whichever,” Emily said agreeably. “Facts are facts.” She lifted and cleaned P.C.’s rear hoof, then held on to his tail for balance while she moved behind him to his other side.
    Carole began to brush P.C.’s mane. It was soft and nearly tangle-free, which Carole knew meant that Emily probably combed it out almost every day. “You must spend a lot of time here,” she said to Emily.
    “I do,” Emily replied. “I love it. I can’t remember when I didn’t love horses. I’ve been riding since I was four years old.”
    “You started even earlier than I did,” Carole said.
    “You started earlier than any of us,” Lisa added.
    Emily finished picking out P.C.’s hooves, then collected the grooming tools from them and put them in her bucket. “I started as soon as the center opened,” she said. “My pediatrician rides, and she knew it would be good for me, so she signed me up right away.
    “I have cerebral palsy,” she continued. “That means mybrain was injured somehow before I was born. Cerebral palsy affects people different ways, but in my case it means my muscles, especially in my legs, don’t work right. They’re too tight, sort of. I can’t move my legs easily, and I don’t have very good balance. That’s why I fall down.”
    “Does it get worse?” Lisa asked. She wasn’t sure if it was a polite question, but she wanted to know.
    “No,” Emily said. “Muscular dystrophy can get worse, but C.P.—cerebral palsy—doesn’t. I’m a lot more mobile now than I used to be. Riding has really helped me a lot.”
    “ ‘P.C.’ is the opposite of ‘C.P.’,” Carole realized.
    “Yeah, but that’s not why I call him that. I call him P.C. because he’s my Prince Charming.” Emily gave P.C. a hug.
    “So is that why they call it therapeutic riding?” asked Stevie. “Because riding is your therapy?”
    “Sure,” said Emily. “It makes me stronger the same way that it makes you stronger. Only maybe it’s better for me, because—well, you could ride a bike, right? And that would make you stronger, too. I can’t ride a bike or—what else do you do? I can’t do aerobics—”
    “I suppose I could, but I wouldn’t want to,” Stevie cut in. “All that jumpy-dancey and spandex—ugh!”
    Emily laughed but continued her explanation. “I do regular physical therapy—I call that P.T.—at home everymorning. It helps me, but it’s boring. Riding’s different. It’s … I don’t