Storymania - Obsessively Ignorant by George E Mesure

Obsessively Ignorant
George E Mesure

“So what’re you going for?” Casey sauntered up to Alice, clad in some of 1993’s finest jockey kit. Alice, on the other hand, was wearing a slightly soiled kit which she had bought for just over Ł15 from a jumble sale in the centre of town. The girls were fellow jockeys-in-training whose birthdays coincided and both had decided that their 21st birthday present would be their own horse to ride as a present from their respective parents. Now Casey’s parents had no problem financing such an extravagant present for their darling daughter. Although they had brought Casey up spending no more than an average family so as to teach her the value of money, her parents retired comfortably with a rather hefty sum stashed away for such occasions as this. Alice’s parents, on the other hand, were rather perplexed at the request made by their daughter but their unconditional love towards her felt like Ł100 million to her. And so they scraped and saved to make sure they could pay for a fairly high quality horse.
The big day came, it was a Saturday. Alice had been offered to stay in Casey’s apartment’s spare room in order for the, now, giddy schoolgirls to arrive at the stables at the same moment. Casey awoke with a start, sat up with a grin spreading from ear to ear and ran to Alice’s room as if standing upon a rocket.
“Alice today’s the day! I’m going to find my Chestnut!” (Both girls had already chosen the names of their horses in their sheer eagerness).
“You’re right! And I, my Barney!” Alice, too, awoke with a fairly inhuman snappiness about her. The friends jumped with each other as the reality of the situation still made them scream with glee. A hurried car ride followed a rushed breakfast and upon arriving at McKinley’s Stables in North Yorkshire Alice and Casey parked and immediately began their search for a horse fit for them to ride.
The next 3 hours happened very quickly. Now, let me tell you that Casey and Alice had been friends from the age of 12 through attending the same horse riding lessons. Both had flourished and both seemed to have excelled at a similar rate. Casey had always been extremely sympathetic towards the fact that Alice was not quite so well off as herself making a joke of any hardship Alice faced concerning money. This changed.
Once the 2 girls had found their chosen horse they agreed to pay and sort out paper work and so forth which would take the company workers some time to fill out. In the mean time they went into a small visitor’s room at the stables to purchase a coffee from a machine there. They showed each other their chosen horse in a hand-made catalogue compiled by Mr McKinley himself.
“Well isn’t that a stunning coat on your horse Casey?” Exclaimed Alice feeling ever so slightly sore that she had to present a horse with a coat nowhere near as glossy as the one on Casey’s chosen horse to her friend.
What happened next could not be repeated as Alice had never heard such vile, hurtful words from her friend: Casey had given up on being nice and feeling sorry for Alice. She cursed with a foul mouth at poor Alice who could do little but sit there looking aghast. Alice realised her horse wasn’t as good looking as Casey’s but did she need to tell her in such a malicious manner?
Alice and Casey were no longer friends.
Several months passed and in that time Alice worked extra hours and cut corners where she could so that she could finance the upbringing of her horse. Unlike Casey, who had a rather shallow look upon the maintenance of her horse, she felt that health and training must come first with her Barney as it didn’t matter how glamorous her horse looked, it would not be safe to ride if it wasn’t being fed and watered well and trained often. So she spent every free minute caring for her beloved horse and only a half hour for every day to groom him.
If Casey had heard this was happening she would have laughed at Alice and felt that Alice’s horse would portray Alice’s inner ugliness. A rather self-obsessed girl, Casey had always felt that she was the prettiest of them all throughout her school years and carried this pompousness into her adulthood. She believed that ‘a pretty horse is a healthy horse’ as she would often say whenever the subject arose. So Casey took different actions in the upbringing of her horse. She spent hours grooming and washing its coat. She would buy the most expensive products to clean the horse’s hooves and she even put supplement pills in its food which helped it grow a glossy coat. All this attention went into the beauty of her horse that she would then have no time to train the horse or to stay around and ensure it ate the right food and drank enough water to stay fit and healthy. Casey had effectively pulled the wool over her own eyes. Chestnut’s health was deteriorating but naive old Casey could not see it.
One day in December Casey and Alice quite literally bumped into each other in the stables. It was odd as they had happily managed to avoid one another until now.
“Oh no! You spilt my horse feed! That stuff’s expensive; please watch out for me if you see me in the futu-“Alice cut off from her rant as she saw who it was. Her posture changed somewhat dramatically to mirror her reaction to seeing Casey.
“Whatever. Like you could afford anything worth having! Your horse is a mess you fool, how can you put effort into an ugly beast such as yours? It’s a disgrace. Have fun being poor.” And before Alice could even begin to take in what had just been said to her Casey flounced into a hurried stride so as to avoid any rebut.
Alice chose not to pursue and simply turn to her horse saying the following.
“Don’t you worry my love, one day, we’ll show her we can still be the best horse and jockey in the world no matter how impossible it looks. And then she’ll see that beauty go further than the thickness of your coat. I know you’re the best horse there is. That’s what drew me to you on that day.” And with that she adopted a self-satisfied smile and went to return home.
Time, again, sauntered by as both girls became rather talented jockeys. Alice and Casey had formed to some extent a spiritual bond with their horses. Both Chestnut and Barney would see their riders approaching and give an acknowledging whinny, showing that they recognised their faces. They both loved their horses dearly. However any observer of both bonds would feel that Alice and Barney’s companionship ran deeper than Casey and Chestnut’s where it was more that Casey loved her horse’s coat and her horse loved the attention that was given to him by Casey.
Once more, the girls’ timetables coincided and they found each other sharing the same track. At the end of her ride Alice set her horse up for the night, found her car and made to start the engine when she was stopped.
“Please don’t go yet! I’ve a few things to ask you!” Alice looked up to see a man leant against the bonnet of her car looking rather out of breath. The person so desperate to speak with her was called Angus Johnson. He had come to ask if she would step into the shoes of one of two jockeys who had broken various bones after colliding whilst on their own horses and had made the decision to pull out of a race being held in just 2 week’s time. Mr. Johnson was scouting the best two jockeys he could find as quickly as possible.
When Alice realised that he must have chosen Casey as the other jockey she jumped at the opportunity to prove herself above Casey. She agreed willingly and spent a half an hour discussing what would happen in the next two weeks to ensure she was in with a fighting chance of winning the race. Angus Johnson left as suddenly as he had arrived and Alice was left to set off home as before only this time she was as happy as a clam at high water. This is exactly what she needed to get back at Casey’s unexpected foul-mouthing and abuse. She would beat her in a horse race and show the inner beauty that her horse had by proving she was the better jockey and had a faster horse.
Alice and Casey worked non-stop for the next fortnight ensuring that every they felt was necessary was taken care of so that they would be prepared for the big race.
Ignorant though she was, Casey didn’t overlook the lack of training she had been giving her poor Chestnut so she made an effort of getting him fit for the race. However this simply wore the horse down to the point where it often refused to stand if it had been pushed too hard that day.
The big day came and both Alice and Casey awoke, unbeknownst to one another, with the same child-like excitement as they had shown on the day that they purchased their horses.
They first caught sight of each other as they guided their horses into the starting gates. Casey had full make up on and 24 carat gold stud earrings in. Alice had merely washed her face and tied her hair back as best she could. Casey chortled to herself
“No surprises there.”
They mounted their four-legged friends and the adrenaline began to pump.
Alice seemed a lot calmer to Casey who was suddenly aware of the fact that she had put nowhere near enough effort into ensuring the fitness of her horse: She had spoken with other jockeys at the event and they had put so much time into physically training their horse.
Nevertheless the race had to begin.
Alice and Casey, among others, were anxious to get the race over and done with now so as to rid them of the anticipation.
“Jockeys step up to your gate” The man chosen to start the race stood in a pristinely white suit and aimed his pistol to the heavens. A loud bang resounded throughout the race course and the two girls’ hearts burst into action at an even faster rate than the explosive motions made by the horses as the race began.
Both Casey and Alice had greatly over-estimated the supposedly “elite” competition; they quickly pulled ahead from the rest of the horses. Corner after corner, jump after jump, they raced around the track with frightening speed and Casey pulled in just ahead of poor Alice who pushed her poor horse as hard as her own body would let her. She heard a menacing cackle from just ahead of her and she instantly realised Casey, after all of this, was mocking her. A frustrated groan was followed by her, dangerously pulling out into the middle of the track in an attempt to overtake Casey.
Seeing this, Casey dug her heels, further still, into Chestnut’s flanks and pursued onwards. She was so focused on beating Alice and the finishing line was now in sight. She urged her horse once again and that was enough.
With a whinny and a buckle at the knees the exhausted horse crumbled into the floor at breakneck speed sending Casey flailing into a nearby haystack. In her ignorance she overlooked the fitness of her horse Casey had turned it into a wobbly mess who couldn’t deal with the intensity of a horse race.
Alice gracefully took the lead and said the following words to her horse as they crossed the finish line.
“That’s what happens when you spend all your time and money on worrying about how things look and not on how they perform and are looking on the inside.”
End