It was Saturday, the day of the jumping tournament which I had waited for for three months. I was very excited about that. This horseriding competition would finally help me to change my life. We, me and my trainer, would start later this day and we still had to get the horses and the trailer ready. It was already 9am when I arrived at the riding stable. Usually I had to arrive there at around 6am when we were going to tournaments like this. But luckily our competitions today were taking place in the afternoon and I could sleep longer.

Yesterday, I had already chosen and cleaned all the stuff we would need today. Luckily, because that meant that we didn't need to do so much this morning. But there was still enough work to do.

The first thing we did was loading the horses on the trailer. Afterwards I packed up the remaining stuff and put it on the backseat.

Since I had already got stuff done yesterday, we didn't have to leave yet when we had finished putting all our things in the trailer. So we chilled out a bit in the sun. I could feel the hot sun shining on my skin. It was a very hot day, the weather report had predicted a temperature between 24 and 26°C. Now, Jennifer, my ten-years older trainer and friend, sat down next to me and smoked a cigarette. After she had finished she decided to drive off. We both got in the car.

Jennifer and I went to competitions together for three years now and luckily we got along very well. She would start in two competitions, the one at 11am and the one at 1pm. Her horse, a brown Rhinelander gelding, was called Loriot B. He was just nine years old but he had been very successful in the highest classes of the international jumping. When you saw Loriot you knew he was a champion. He just looked like one. Loriot was big but slim and looked very elegant, the typical sport horse. In contrast to him, Wonderful Lady 11, short Lady, looked very wild. Her coat was orange, almost red. She had some white sprinkles on her stomach and she also had three white legs. Summed up, Lady looked very fiery. But her character was nothing like that.She was a very gentle horse and I hoped we would be able to prove that later in our competition. My competition would start at around 4pm and we were really looking forward to it. To be honest I was very nervous about it. The fear of failing hovered over me like a dark shadow.

Jenny started driving. The streets were full but we didn't have any stress at all. So it was no problem that there was a very slow tractor driving right in front of us. At some days, it would've driven us crazy - but not today. Everything was still very relaxed. Suddenly I became really nervous. I didn't exactly know why but I had the feeling that it wasn't because of the tournament. Stagefright was a different feeling and it wasn't the feeling of fainting neither. I felt sick. I was worried that I had to throw up but at the same time I knew that I wouldn't. It was more like ants in my stomach. It felt like something was going to happen.

"Are you nervous?", Jennifer asked after she had observed me for a while.
"No, I'm not", I answered. She looked at me as if she didn't believe me but she didn't say anything else.

We arrived at the venue twenty minutes later. As usually, the first thing we did was looking after the horses. But Loriot and Lady had travelled like this so many times, they were calmer than we were. So we just gave them some water to drink and hay to eat. Afterwards, we walked over to the jumping arena where all the competitions took place. On our way over we passed by many people. I smelled the scent of horses because there were horses and people literally everywhere. It was a huzzle-buzzle. People shouting, horses neighing and in the background the moderator commented people riding in the competition that was taking place in the arena right now. The sun was shining nicely and there was a gentle breaze. Jennifer was talking to some equestrians I didn't know too well. Of course I listened to their conversation – they were slandering about some other woman. Since they were all way over my age I was more interested in the competition than in their conversational - though hearing the newest gossip was always fun. I very rarely had somebody to talk to at competitions like this because finding people my age was very difficult. Adults were obviously predominant which was very pitiable.

Later, I was told to pick up the starter list for the first competition Jennifer would start in. So I passed by the jumping arena to get to the registration office where I took one of the lists. As always I checked the list for familiar names and horses because I was interested in the people starting and being here today. I was always curious whom I could meet. So I went through the list and suddenly I saw that one name which let my heartbeat stop...

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Hello guys, thank you so much for having a look at this book. This is a new experiment of mine - a book in English. So please don't be too strict with me but feel free to correct my mistakes. This book will soon be available in German. I really hope you enjoyed this chapter,

xLillebie