Name In Lights

Chapter 2

        I see one Sergio Grasso tall boot stick its way out of the Escalade, followed by the poised princess, that is Mackenzie. More accurately to me, however, she is the she-devil in Tailoreds. She saunters out of her car and gives me a sickly sweet smile along with a wave. Gag. Mackenzie is one of those people who are so fake they make Barbies look real. She changes path from the barn and starts to walk over here. I try to send her ESP messages to just turn around and go back, but obviously my skills need some fine-tuning since she is still en route. I swear under my breath before I conjure up in my sweetest voice, "Hi, Mackenzie." 

"Oh, hello there Taylor, slacking off again?" Somehow she still manages this in that disgustingly sweet voice.

"You know me, Mackenzie," I say with a 'who me?' shrug, "That's why I still cream you at every show." I say without a stutter, "You know, by slacking." I see a look pass her face. The look that shows me that I made her ever-present and oh-so-annoying cockiness faulter. The look lasts about as long as it takes her to come up with a slam. About 5 seconds. Which, unfortunately, isn't long enough for me to thouroughly enjoy. 

"Maybe if my Daddy was a millionaire, I would win too." She snapped with narrowed eyes.

"Oh, really? Because those Sergio Grassos and Pikeurs speak otherwise." I didn't understand why it had to be like this with her, but I wasn't going to let her run me over. "Now, if you would excuse me, I have some "slacking" to get back to." And with that I trotted back to my warm-up. Not even slightly fazed.

        I knew I had more money than most people. I heard the whispers at shows, about how "nice" the horse was. Or how they would die if they got to ride a horse like that. It used to drive me crazy, but somewhere along the road I just kind of stopped caring. That's when my riding took off. When I stopped caring so much, I started riding better and better. There are still the people who think I win since I'm rich but now more and more people are commenting on how "nice" and "quiet" of a rider I am. I was once again jarred out of my thoughts, by the ever large presence of Tara. "He looks nice." she comments thoughtfully. I beamed. "Now let's get started. You can begin by taking the stirrups off your saddle."

        One grueling ride later, Perry and I were both sweating, leaving me to wish I had left the sweater at home. After cooling Perry out and taking care of him (I liked to take care of my own horses unless I was in a time crunch),  and riding a couple more horses, I took my lunch and water out of my tack trunk and gulped at least half of the bottles contents. I devoured my poorly made sandwich, and got up to walk to the sale barn, where my next ride was located. On my way, I checked my phone to find some new messages:

Mom: How are the boys? Ready for Harrisburg?

Becka: Want to hack Dream and Jazz together?

Sarah: Want to come to a party from your old school tonight?

I gladly ignored the last text. After switching from my public school to having my private tutor so I could focus on riding, I didn't want anything to do with my old "friends" who were almost as fake as Mackenzie. And that's saying something. I responded to the first two:

New Message To: Mom

Perry was good. Still have to ride Sparky, Dream and Skylar.

Along with Perry, my large junior hunter, I owned 3 other horses: my junior jumper, Now You See Me or "Sparky", my small junior hunter, Beatiful Dreamer or "Dream", and my equitation horse, Sky High or "Skylar". With only 3 weeks until Harrisburg, it was approaching crunch time. That's when all the moms who usually don't get involved too much with the horses, turn into Dance Moms 2.0. Yeah, it got that scary. 

New Message To: Becka

Sounds great. Say around 3?

        I looked up to find myself in front of my next ride, Triple Threat or "Teddy", a promising prospect that could do all 3 rings, finding himself the name "Triple Threat". I took the reins of the large bay warmblood from Carlos. Part of what made Teddy so good for all 3 rings, was the fact that he had an amazing brain and was drop. dead. GORGEOUS. At 17.3hh, just his size made him hard to miss. Add in the fact he was the most gorgeous shade of blood bay, with four large socks and a super thick blaze. His only problem was he could be a tad bit green and spooky. It didn't bother me though, it made him all the more careful. If I didn't already have so many horses, I would have bought him myself. I hoisted myself into the saddle and walked back to the large outdoor. As I walked in, I saw none other than Mackenzie, getting a lesson on her large junior hunter, Amazing, or "Mae". They actually looked decent. If Mackenzie would just lay off her mare's mouth, they could actually win some. Not that I would admit that to Mackenzie...