About Midnight Dalliance
by S.J. Frost
28 pages / 11600 words
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For as long as he can remember, Dalton Harrington has loved horses. He’s watched in awe of the horses and riders in the competition world, but no horse and rider team captured his heart more than Sweet Revolution and Kelvin Crofton. Years of hard work has put Dalton’s dream of becoming a great rider within reach when he purchases the black stallion, Midnight Dalliance. Though he knows the horse is a destined champion, poor treatment and bad training has left Dalliance with scars he’s not sure he can help the horse overcome. When he takes Dalliance to a show, he meets Kelvin for the first time, and under Kelvin’s gentle guidance, he realizes he and Midnight Dalliance may not be the only ones destined to be a great team.
Sample
As he gazed at the horse, Dalton remembered the first
time he saw Sweet Revolution eight years prior. He’d been fifteen, still
living in his hometown of Ashford in Kent, England, and was watching a
show jumping competition on television, dreaming of someday competing at
the same level of the world renowned Grand Prix riders. He felt
hypnotized by the horses’ sleek coats, their fluids movements, their
power as they flew without wings over the jumps. Bays, grays, blacks,
and chestnuts came one after the other, then the announcer called out a
new horse with his unknown twenty year-old rider.
The moment Sweet Revolution stepped into the ring the crowd had fallen
silent, as if struck speechless by the stallion’s beauty with his
tobiano coat of glistening black and winter white, his mane and tail a
blend of both colors. When he cleared his first jump that day, it was
the beginning of his legend. “Revie” became adored by people around the
world, but for more than simply his flashy pinto coloring. Graceful and
fearless, no jump could intimidate him. Show jumping, dressage,
cross-country, there was nothing the stallion didn’t excel in.
With the rest of the equestrian community and enthusiasts, he too became
a devoted fan of Sweet Revolution, but for him, it was more than the
stallion’s amazing ability. Also on that day eight years prior, as the
camera zoomed in on a smiling Kelvin Crofton praising his horse for the
clear round they’d just jumped, he felt something deep inside him
respond. After that day, he strove to learn everything he could about
the American rider.
He discovered the Crofton family owned a large ranch in Texas and were
famous on the Quarter Horse circuit for the fine cutting and reining
horses they bred. Despite Kelvin having diverged from his Western roots
to English riding, part of it continued to hold onto him as he had
gained the nickname, “Cowboy”, among those on the eventing circuit for
the beige cowboy hat that never left his head except when he entered the
show ring, then immediately returned upon exiting, making for a rather
mismatched image of him in his formal show attire of white riding
breeches, white shirt with white stock tie, black jacket, and tall black
English riding boots.
He thought Kelvin’s ways were incredibly charming, even though he’d
never actually met him. He’d ridden all his life, but breaking into the
same level of world class competition as Kelvin was no easy thing. For
one, it took money, a lot of it, something his family didn’t have. For
second, he needed an extremely talented horse, which also took a lot of
money, or at the very least high connections with people who owned
quality mounts, another thing he didn’t have, and when he tried to make
those connections, no one was willing to put an unproven rider on their
priceless horses, for which he couldn’t blame them. Horses of such
caliber were of far greater value than his own meager life.
But those days were behind him now that he owned Midnight Dalliance.
At least he hoped he those days were behind him. A tendril of doubt
snaked through his heart as the image of his black Hanoverian stallion
came to his mind. It’d taken every bit of the inheritance money from his
grandmother to purchase the horse, so much so that he couldn’t afford to
get the stallion back to England, forcing him to remain in the States
with the horse, which he didn’t view as a bad thing. Upstate New York
had been a beautiful place to live, and he had a feeling that from what
little he’d seen of it so far Kentucky would be lovely to call home for
a while. What troubled him was he had thought the stallion was destined
to be a champion, but after four months of working together, now he
wasn’t so sure.
Dalton exhaled a hard breath to expel the negative feelings inside him.
It wasn’t the time to worry about that. This was the first, and probably
last, time he would ever see Sweet Revolution in person.
Kelvin brought the stallion to the center of the jumping ring. He
unbuckled his riding helmet and removed it, extending it out to the side
as he bowed in the saddle to raucous applause and blinding cameras. He’d
done nothing more than canter the stallion around the ring, but he
could’ve won Gold in the Olympics again for all the celebration. He
placed his helmet back on his head, not bothering to buckle it, and with
a subtle touch to the stallion’s left side, he turned Sweet Revolution
away from the crowd toward the gate leading out of the ring.
Dalton stepped back to join the gathering of riders and trainers waiting
for Kelvin and Sweet Revolution. He hastily combed his fingers through
his short, dark blond hair. As they exited the ring, Dalton flashed a
bright smile up at Kelvin, but Kelvin’s gaze remained focused downward,
he seemed oblivious of the cheers and calls around him. Dalton turned in
place as they passed by, watching Sweet Revolution slowly walk away,
wondering why there had been tears in Kelvin’s soft brown eyes.