Stable Hearts by Bonnie Bryant Read Free Book Online Page B

Peso’s stall and started grooming him quickly. They didn’t want Jessica to have to miss too much of her lesson.
    Carole didn’t need to hurry the way Stevie and Lisa did, and she was increasingly worried about Dime. What could spark such a huge behavioral change? In all the years Carole had ridden at Pine Hollow, she’d never known Dime to throw anyone deliberately, and here he’d done it three times in one week. Something had to be wrong.
    Carole replaced Dime’s bridle with his halter and fastened him to the cross-ties in the stable aisle. She was certain Dime couldn’t be lame, because he’d looked perfectly sound every time he’dbeen galloping riderless in the last week. If his feet or legs were hurting, he would limp.
    He could, however, be hurting somewhere else, and the most likely place seemed to Carole to be his back, because he kept bucking. She took his saddle off and carefully examined both it and Dime’s girth for anything that could hurt him—any worn or broken places, any sharp edges, anything at all. Everything looked normal. Next she removed his saddle pad and went over it even more carefully. It was possible for a burr or a splinter or even a sharp piece of hay to get lodged in the pad. The saddle pad looked freshly laundered, and again, she couldn’t find a thing.
    Next Carole examined Dime’s back, where the saddle rested, and his girthline, where the girth fastened around his middle. She looked for sores, scratches, bumps, clods of dirt, and anything else that might cause him discomfort when he was wearing a saddle. Nothing. Dime was well groomed and his skin was smooth.
    Carole put her hands on Dime’s back and pressed down. Could Dime have a pulled muscle? She couldn’t find a single spot where he flinched or seemed to feel any pain.
    “Dime,” she said to him, “this would be so much easier if you could talk. What’s the problem?”
    Dime cocked one ear forward. He looked a little sulky, but other than that he seemed okay. He didn’t have a runny nose or runny eyes, and he didn’t cough.
    Carole went to the tack room and came back with Max’s stethoscope and horse thermometer. Even though Max always called the vet, Judy Barker, when one of the horses was sick, he kept these instruments on hand to help determine whether he should call her. Every responsible horse owner knew how to take a horse’s vital signs. They were often the best clue to the horse’s health.
    Dime’s temperature was 100 degrees, perfectly normal. Carole used the stethoscope to listen to his heartbeat and count his pulse. Those were normal, too.
    “Just like Mrs. Reg said,” Carole told him. “We can’t find anything wrong with you.” She counted the number of times Dime breathed in a minute, because if he was panting he could be in pain, but that, too, was normal. Finally she used the stethoscope to listen to Dime’s gut.
    Bra-AAP!
The loud rumble made Carole giggle. She was always amused by how loudly horses’ stomachs grumbled when heard through a stethoscope.
    “You don’t have colic,” she informed the pony. When a horse colicked, its entire digestive system shut down, and its stomach and intestines made no noises. “I just don’t know what’s wrong with you. Dime, you’ve got to start behaving again.”
    Carole tried a little pep talk. “You’re such a good pony. I know you can do it.” While she brushed the sweat marks off Dime’s back and the arena sand off his legs, she told him what a good pony he had always been, and how happy he had made the little boys and girls he helped teach to ride. She told him how valuable he was to Pine Hollow.
    “We need nice ponies like you,” she said as she unclipped the cross-ties and led Dime into his stall. “Look here, look out the window,” she told him. “You can see the riding ring. Isn’t your new stall nice? Max gave it to you because he wants you to be happy.”
    Dime turned and bared his teeth at her. Carole jerked her hand out of