Beginner's Western [Belle/Students]

[Daniel 'Dan' Mattock]

Daniel led his liver chestnut out to Roscoe’s arena for today’s lessons. The mare had happily followed him along, looking around at the surrounding area. He had hoped that the horse would be on her best possible behavior today.

The man opened the gate in front of him and closed it quickly behind Vega He led her out to the center of the arena, where he mounted the quarter horse slowly. The pair started out slowly walking around the fence of the arena, wasting time. He was about twenty minutes earlier than he should have been, but he wanted the horse at least started in her warm ups before the arena filled up.

The pair trotted lightly, zigzagging, and changing gaits in between passes, trotting and walking. His gaze flip flopping between the quarter horse beneath him and the gate, waiting to see if the students would let themselves into the arena. Vega came to a walk as they passed the gate. Something Dan had been teaching the mare, as she used to pick up her pace when she neared the gate. Finally, once they had been about ten feet in from the gate, he dismounted, checking the girth. Then mounted back up.

Ooc: Have your characters let themselves into the arena.
Modified the post too, Dan just has Vega.

[Annabelle Archer]

Finally Mr. Mattock had notified her that he would be setting up the class. Belle was very excited at the fact that she would be helping him. The sun was definatly high in the sky, as if was the afternoon. As she made her way to the barns, she took to serious consideration which horse she would bring. Although Sun would be the better choice as he knew what to do when asked, Belle wanted to reteach Penny to do things other than just barrel race. But obiviously classtime wasn't the time to do it. Heading for the second barn she headed all the way down at to Sun. The palomino gelding's head stuck out of the stall. "Hi, big boy." Belle rubbed his forelock, "You wanna go to work?" With that the gelding's ears perked up. The eighteen year old quickly made her way to the tackroom and gathered the tack, Setting all the tack by the cross-ties, she ran back and got the gelding slipping the sky blue halter on the gelding. Moving him quickly across the aisle, brushing down and tacking him up. Her boots clacked along the aisle flooring as she made her way down to the arena. Already there was Mr. Mattock working his one of three horses. Yelling out the customary "Gate" as she entered the arena. Quickly checking the cinch she hopped up into the western saddle and greeted her mentor and teacher. "Hello Mr. Mattock how are you?" Moving Sun around the arena towards the teacher.

[Ryan Gallahill]

Ryan finished brushing Sunny's coat and stepped back to survey the clean white, no, grey horse. Happy with her appearance, he rubbed the mare's dished face and then went to collect her tack. The saddle was rather heavy, but he had mastered the act of carrying it around, and got it to the mare without a lot of trouble. After tacking the mare up, he grabbed his helmet and led the mare out to the outdoor arena. He called out "Gate" and led the grey mare into the arena. He could see Mr. Mattock and one of his horses warming up, with two others at the edge of the arena. It seemed that the student teacher, Annabelle, had also brought two horses, at which Ryan wondered. There weren't enough people in their class to warrant the amount of rider-less horses, at least not in his mind.

He led Sunny to the mounting block and checked her cinch, then mounted up, keeping the mare at the fence of the arena, watching the goings-on around him. Sunny settled in to wait for other people that would hopefully come to class, and Ryan rubbed her white neck.

[Carlos Rodriguez]

He stared at the saddle, a confused and quizzical look in his eyes. Carlos hadn't a clue as to how to do up a western saddle, as he'd never done so before… He was glad his mare was so patient, even though she also had never seen or worn anything western.

The boy sighed, placing the bridle over the horn of the saddle and took the leadrope of the black rope halter, leading the light grey, almost white, dappled Lusitano out to the arena, where he waited for the spot around the gate to clear out. "Puerta!" He called as he walked inside the arena, the mare following obediently. He had read that a western rider wore not the same style of clothing as an english rider, so had shown up in jeans and a button-down long-sleeved white shirt. He'd gotten 'western' riding boots a few days prior.

Upon entering the arena, Carlos looked around for the instructor through the few other students riding and warming up their horses. He really would need help, as he still didn't have a clue as to how to set the saddle or anything, and that was, what he'd heard, the class was for… to teach people such as himself how to ride western. He did, however, take the time to set the bridle on the mare's head; it wasn't all that different from it's english counterpart… just no noseband and the earpiece was single… and the reins weren't buckled, but split and much longer than what he was used to.

But the saddle… the saddle was what got him. He didn't have a clue how to work at it, and finally he spotted the instructor. "Perdón," He raised his voice loud enough to be heard by the name, "Excuse me, el senor, I do not…" He trailed off and gestured wordlessly to the saddle, which was still uncinched on the mare's back… Probably not even sitting correctly… The thought flew, unbidden, across the teenager's mind and he shifted a little, slightly embarrassed at calling attention to himself in such a crowd.

[Oliver Pattersen]

Oliver strolled into the White Oak barn, smiling to the barn hands he passed on the way to his Appaloosa cross' stall. "Hey Ollie." He greeted the large horse as he grabbed the gelding's forest green halter and let himself into the stall and slipped the halter over the horse's nose. "Come on." He led the horse out and down to the grooming stall where he clipped the cross-ties onto the halter and then slipped into the tack room to grab the gelding's gear.

It didn't take him too long to get Ollie looking tidy and tack him up. Once the simple western bridle, he found that the gelding responded better to the medium port curb bit with sweet iron mouth then he did to a snaffle, though the boy was looking at getting him a happy mouth bit.

Once the gelding was ready and Oliver had a helmet on his head, he led the large spotted horse out to the arena. After making sure the gate was clear, he led the gelding through and over to the mounting block where he easily swung his tall frame into the saddle and asked the gelding to move forward, as he knew that Ollie wouldn't handle being asked to stand still for too long and he hoped for the lesson to go through without the gelding throwing a tantrum.

[Daniel 'Dan' Mattock]

Daniel glanced over his shoulder when he heard a familiar voice. He smiled slightly seeing Annabelle was the owner of the voice. Vega sat back and rolled around to face the other pair in the arena. ”Hello Annabelle. I’m awesome. How about you?” He asked his junior instructor. Hopefully with the small amount of students he had, she would stay occupied. Today he had just planned on seeing how comfortable everyone already was in the saddle. His eyes floated away from Belle and landed on another student entering the arena. ”Would you please continue to ride along the rail until the others have arrived?”. He asked to the boy, then turned his attention back to Belle. ”I’m sorry that today might be a little boring for you.” He apologized early, just in case she wouldn’t have much to do. After another two boys entered he smiled, and gave instruction to the last one. ”Just walk you horse along the rail for a minute.”

Before he went to help the boy he spoke to Annabelle once more. ” Will you make sure they have their saddle’s on properly? Ask them to come to the center and check?” Immediately after he dismounted and walked with Vega over to the unsaddle horse. ”Saddle problems?” He asked genuinely as he lifted the saddle and pad up, so it hovered over the horse slightly. ”First you want the saddle pad on properly, so set it high over the horse’s withers, then slide it down so that it over laps the withers this far.” After following his own instructions he gestured to the first bend in his index finger.

”Now the hole under the horse should line up with the front of the pad.” The saddle sat on the horse nicely, now needing to be cinched. ”You had it on pretty much correctly, it was just a little low.” He paused a moment to grab the cinch and brought it around. ”This part isn’t much different than an English cinch. There is just only one buckle.” He finished cinching the mare then turned to the boy. ” So at the end of class I would like you to unsaddle, then re-saddle your horse. For now, come join the others. As he walked over he thought of one more thing. ”I suggest for the next lesson, if you aren’t comfortable with split reins, try barrel racing reins. They are shorter, and in one piece.”

As Dan joined Annabelle and the others, he took a deep breath and smiled. ”As you guys know, this class is where I teach you guys how to feel comfortable in the western saddle, and look it too. Today, I want to see how comfortable you are in the saddle as of now, and I will build from there. Pretty simple right?” His eyes ran over his three students mounts very quickly, glancing at the saddles and reins. ”I want you to ride you horses at a walk on the fence until I say stop. When I say stop, return to the center.”

OoC:Not very good. I did it on my phone sorry.