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Sebastian to the other end of the arena. “Get him into a canter and then bring him back over the jump,” she told her.
    “Aren’t we doing flatwork exercises first?” Issie couldn’t help asking. She was used to doing dressage as a warm-up with Avery before their jumping sessions, but Ginty clearly had different ideas.
    “They’re showjumpers, not
haute école
schoolmasters,” she said dismissively. “They don’t need to warm up.”
    Issie didn’t say anything more. She sat on Tokyo and kept her eyes on Natasha as she turned Sebastian and rode him in hard towards the upright rail.
    “Use your stick!” Ginty instructed. Natasha already had her whip raised, and gave the horse two solid thwacks with her riding crop right in front of the jump.
    At the touch of the whip, Sebastian leapt. Issie could see straight away that he was an athletic jumper. The gelding lifted his front legs up neatly and began his arc.He would have cleared the rail easily — if it weren’t for Penny and Verity.
    At the exact moment that Sebastian took off, the two girls positioned on either side of the jump both grasped on to an end of the top rail. They waited until Sebastian had his front legs over the jump and then they lifted the rail out of its cups and quickly hoisted it up another twenty centimetres in the air.
    Sebastian didn’t know that the rail had been raised, or that his hind legs were no longer lifted high enough to make it over the jump. He bashed both fetlocks hard against the painted pole. Issie could hear the crunch of bone scraping the wood as Sebastian literally didn’t know what hit him. He landed on the other side of the jump looking quite shaken and bolted forward to get away.
    Natasha was prepared for his reaction. She yanked hard on the reins to pull him back and then brought the dark bay gelding around to rejoin the others. She had a smile on her face as she rode back towards Ginty. “Good, Natasha!” Ginty said. Then she turned to Issie. “That’s how it’s done. Your turn!”
    Issie was stunned. “Are they going to lift the rail when I jump too?”
    “That’s the plan,” Ginty confirmed.
    “But Tokyo will hit it!” Issie didn’t understand.
    “That’s the point,” Ginty told her. “If the horses lift their legs up high enough, they won’t hit the rail.”
    “But the horses don’t know that the rail is being moved.”
    “Not at first,” Ginty agreed, “but after they get a few bangs they exaggerate their leg lift and soon they’re clearing the rail with room to spare. That’s why we rap them. It makes them nice clean jumpers who never graze the poles.”
    Natasha, who had been listening to Ginty’s explanation, was compelled to stick her oar in. “Rapping is what the professional riders do,” she told Issie with a know-it-all tone. “All the showjumping stables do it.”
    “Come on, Issie.” Ginty seemed so self-assured that Issie felt silly for making a fuss and being unprofessional. “You’ve got half a dozen horses to ride today, so let’s get moving!”
    Issie’s heart was racing as she rode Tokyo to the other end of the arena. Had Natasha been telling the truth when she said all the proper showjumping stables did this? It seemed so cruel to hit the horses in the legs onpurpose, but Issie had to have faith in Ginty. She was one of the best trainers in the business. She must know what she was doing.
    Beneath her, Tokyo was trotting with a loose, free stride. Issie already instinctively liked the big Hanoverian mare. She seemed sound and sensible. Hopefully, she was a good jumper too — because Issie was about to take her over the upright rail.
    As she turned Tokyo to face the rail Issie felt her heart race a little more, but then it always did that when she was about to take a jump. She looked at the fence ahead of her and focused on the task at hand. Tokyo had a huge stride, but she collected up neatly and came in towards the jump with a bouncy canter. Issie pressed her on