New around here... (Sara)

[Sarah Greenfield]

Sarah unbuckled the strap of her Charles Owen helmet and swung her leg over the side of her bay Oldenburg jumper, Super Lad. The gelding had been a bit foward today and had resorted to his old habit of rushing the fences, causing three rails to topple over into the sand.

Thirty minutes after the first rail, Laddy had decided to finally listen to Sarah. The pair had finished their day over a small course (which Laddy had jumped clear) and were now heading in for a quick rinse off.

Tugging the bridle off, Sarah replaced it with the gelding's leather bridle and clipped him to the crossties. Soon, the light devoucoux was off as well, and was propped up against the wall just outside the entrance.

"Ready for a quick scrub?" Sarah cooed to the bay, reaching for the black bucket with her sponges. Laddy flickered his expressive ears in response, eyes trained on his girl as she filled the bucket with warm water.

"Whoa now."Sarah said sternly as she approached the gelding with the bucket, sponge in hand. He had a reputation of being silly when it came to stuff like this. Sure enough, Laddy snorted and tugged against the black ties that held him. "Darn it, Laddy!"The instructor growled at the horse and he seemed to recognize that the decisions he was making were the... wrong ones. With a shake of her head, Sarah began to sponge the gelding off, moving her hand in quick, sweeping circles to get the sweat marks of his dark coat.

ooc- geez, sorry for the long/crappy post. I've never done anything with a wash rack before o.O It'll get better, I promise.

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[Sara Jane Lyena]

Sara slipped from Balian's saddle and looped the gelding's reins over his head. They had worked on a bit of normal conditioning for a while, before starting on running the barrels. Walking the horse over to the corner where Cinder lay waiting, she dropped his reins, effectively ground-tying the gelding, then moved back to the barrels. She heaved them back into their positions in the shed off of the arena, then walked back to her horse and dog. As they walked out of the now-cleared arena, Sara looked at Balian, who was rather sweaty. Despite the chill in the air, she decided to take him in and give him a good wash.

Leading the gelding into the wash racks, she could see that there was already a horse and woman there. She smiled at the lady, seemingly a teacher, although a young one at that. She used Balian's reins to tie him to the wash rack that she had chosen, then hurried to take off the saddle. She carried it with her as she made her way into the barn, Cinder following behind her. After dumping the saddle into her tack locker and grabbing her bucket, which held all of her supplies, and Balian's teal halter, she made her way back to the wash racks. With a quiet word, she sent Cinder to lay down by the edge of the area, leaving Balian between the dog and the other horse, then set to switching the headstall with the halter.

[Sarah Greenfield]

The clop of hooves on the wet cement shook Sarah from her task at hand. Standing on tip toes, she peered over Laddy's moist back to catch the view of another girl leading in a sweaty gelding with a western bridle fixated to his head. Catching her stair, the other girl smiled at her before going back to her task at hand. Great, Sarah thought. I'm meeting students by staring at them like some wierdo. She shook her head at herself and set the bucket down, dropping the sponge into the water with a plop. "Looks like someone had a good schooling." Sarah stated as she ducked under Laddy's dripping neck. She nodded at the gelding's sweaty body. "Its nice to see the students work around her."

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That was one of her biggest pet peeves- people who owned horses, but refused to work with them. There were so many girls on the circuit these days that refused to do any work themselves and instead used expensive grooms. Sometimes riders even used trainers that schooled their horses for them- they simply waltzed to the show ground and... showed. It brought a smile to her face to know that there were still places where people spent quality time in the barn.

[Sara Jane Lyena]

Sara noticed the teacher watching her and glanced away, hoping that the lady didn't think her rude for staring a bit. She had just started trying to get the hose to spew water at the right temperature when she heard the woman's voice. She smiled slightly, "I doubt he considers it a schooling, if you ask me." She knew that her gelding loved barrel racing, which was why she had decided to stick to the sport, instead of trying to get an all-around western training under her belt. After reining, barrel racing was the most fun anyway, so she couldn't complain about that. At the woman's other words, Sara frowned slightly. Here at the school, it seemed normal, and nearly everyone was in the arenas more than a few times a week. Before that, she hadn't had any practice with institutions of the school's scale, so she had no idea what the woman was on about. Shrugging it off, she proceeded to get Balian wet with the lukewarm water, then started massaging the soap into his coat. Fishing around for a topic of conversation, Sara asked, "If you don't mind, what do you teach?" She hadn't seen the woman before, and she would have known if she taught western.

[Sarah Greenfield]

The girl adjacent to her contorted her face in a seemingly confused look, leaving Sarah to quietly ponder what she had said that was so confusing. More than likely it had to do with the comment about students working. She shrugged her thin, muscular shoulders. It really wasn't worth fretting over.

Instead, she returned her attention to her gelding. Since his earlier repremanding, Laddy had stood quite quietly, his expressive face holding a look of boredom. Bath time was much less interesting then the jumping they had just done! Sarah shook her head at the silly gelding, dipping her sponge into the wash bucket for what felt like the millionth time, wringing it out slightly and making large, sweeping circles on the bay's clipped coat. Slowly, the dark sweat marks were erasing and instead blending in with the rest of his wet coat. She sighed contentedly. There was something soothing about bathing a horse. Well, usually anyways.

Her rambling thoughts were broken by the other girl's voice and her ears scrambled to catch the answer that was thrown to her over the sound of water splashing onto the concrete floor. Ah, that question- Sarah had been waiting for it. "Show Jumping," The instructor replied, not bothering to return the glance that she felt at her back, knowing that most horse people understood that eye contact was no required while doing chores. "My name is Ms. Greenfield. Sarah Greenfield to most of the horse world." Her mind briefly fluttered to her old life of being the equitation super star of the United States, but she shook the thoughts out and glanced at the western bridle that remained on the other horse. I'm assuming I won't be seeing this particular pair in any of my classes?

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[Sara Jane Lyena]

Sara turned her attention back to working the shampoo into Balian's grey coat as the woman responded. As her suspicion was confirmed, Sara smiled at the grey fur, although it was just a thing of observation and luck. She listened as the woman introduced herself, shrugging as she heard the name. The woman seemed to be a big name in show jumping, or at least have been, but since she had always focused more on her western riding, Sara had no idea who she was. However, that was no reason not to be polite. "It's nice to meet you, Ms. Greenfield." She finished Balian's side and walked around him, rubbing his nose for a moment before she put down the bucket of suds again and started soaping up the gelding's other side. His fur had just started drying slightly, although the soapy water wet it down right away. As the show jumping teacher asked her a question, Sara laughed, but shook her head, although the teacher probably wouldn't see the motion, "Nah, I'm more of a barrel racing, reining type of person." She considered, "I doubt you would want us in your class, anyway. Balian and I would be more likely to weave around the jumps than go over them."