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Post by Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω on Sept 9, 2010 3:43:05 GMT -6
Aurora led Tonka into the outdoor arena. The skewbald pony was wearing his saddle and bridle, the child was wearing a pair of pint-sized jodhpurs, tiny riding boots and a flashy black helmet was secured beneath her chin. She grinned at the gelding as she pushed the gate closed. The smile slipped though as she wasn't tall enough to reach the latch now that she had the gate between her and it. She frowned as she pushed the gate again, hoping it would click. Giving up, she pushed the gate so it at least looked closed, she led the gelding over to the mounting block.
Even at the age of almost four, she knew what she was doing around horses - for the most part anyway - and she was confident that she would be alright in the arena by herself. Miss Carr knew she was out here and the woman could see the arena from her office window, so the child knew that she was still being watched, even if the woman wasn't in the arena. Tightening the girth another couple of holes, she pulled the stirrups down, stepped up onto the mounting block and swung her tiny frame into the saddle. "Good boy." She told the tiny Shetland as she threw her arms around his neck when he stood like a rock as she fumbled around for the other stirrup.
Once she was set, she gathered the reins in her little hands and used her legs to get the pony moving forward, which he did without too much argument.
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Post by sepia on Sept 9, 2010 6:48:59 GMT -6
Positively skipping his way down the aisle, even while hefting a saddle, bridle and numnah, Julian dropped - okay, placed enthusiastically - his load on the door of Dance With The Stars' stable, beaming as the pretty bay mare raised her head inquisitively. "Hello, darling," he said, as he let himself into the stall and placed her headcollar on. "How do you feel about a bit of a ride?"
Shortly afterward, Julian was leading Dancer out of the barn, and mounting using the block at the entrance. As he fiddled to make his stirrups the right length, the mare standing very patiently, he contemplated where he'd take the mare: dressage, he knew, was her thing, Miss Carr having informed him that morning that she thought he could learn a lot from the experienced mare, when she'd told him that he'd be riding her now, for a bit. May was still officially 'his' school horse, but he was finding himself riding several of the other school horses, now, ones that stretched him in different areas.
Roscoe Arena, he decided as he tightened the girth a notch, and responded to Dancer's beginning fidgets by swinging himself upright again and letting her walk on. He felt like fresh air today and, anyway, when he'd stuck his head into the indoor arena earlier it had looked pretty busy. Approaching the large outdoor arena, he was somewhat surprised to see what looked like a very small horse with a very small rider pottering around in it. He could only think of one person it could be: Aurora, Mrs Chambers' kid. He hadn't known she was allowed to ride by herself, but he didn't think he'd do any harm by going into the same paddock as her.
"Hello," he called out brightly as he leaned down to open the gate... only to discover that it wasn't shut properly and swung upon at a shove from his hand. Well. That made things easier. Easing Dancer inside, they executed a very neat turn on the forehand and shut the gate again, Julian making sure to slide the latch across assuming - correctly, as it so happened - that Aurora had been too small to manage that particular feat. "Hope you don't mind if I join you?" he continued, nudging Dancer into a walk and letting her warm up for a few minutes on a long rein.
"Oh, I'm Julian, by the way - don't think we've ever officially met, right? Well - nice to meet you, officially!" And, apparently, even four year olds couldn't contain Julian's run away tongue. In fact, the concept of actually being older than someone was rather novel to him, youngest of seven siblings, so this was certainly a new experience. He just had to hope he didn't mess it up, somehow, and have Miss Chambers murdering him because he'd traumatised her daughter. That wouldn't be at all good.
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Post by alylovesyouuu on Sept 10, 2010 0:28:05 GMT -6
  Kylie drives up to the ranch in her squeaky clean black Camaro. She parks her car and puts up her sun blocker things, and gets out. Locking her car she turns around and looks at the barn. She's here and ready to ride. Kylie knows that she should practice in the arena for a little bit though, and get Duxe's anxiousness out. He's been trailered and flown everywhere lately, and he needs to be exercised. Her blue diamond cowboy boots thud against the dirt as she makes her way into the stable. Ah crap. She snaps her fingers, and spins on her heel, walking back to her car. Kylie opens the trunk and grabs all of Duxe's tack out of the back of her car. She turns around again and walks towards the barn.
Duxe whinnies when he hears Kylie walk in. Kylie smiles as she turns the corner and sees how excited he is to see her. She strokes his soft face, making sure to massage his muzzle because that's what he loved. She puts his halter on and unhinges the stable door. Kylie swings it open, and reaches to stop it from slamming but misses it. *BANG* Duxe spooks and runs out of the stall. Kylie pulls back and pets him, calming him. She ties him up and does a quick brush on him, then starts to tack him up.
Kylie checks her stirrups, making sure their the right length, then she leads Duxe to the outdoor arena. She doesn't notice until she gets near the top that there is already two other people inside the arena. She sees a man, and a young girl riding a pony. Being new, Kylie automatically assumes this is a father and his daughter. What little did she know. She droops the reins over her should and strokes his shoulder, before grabbing her hair and putting it into a ponytail. Alright boy, be good for me. I don't need any injuries. Kylie leads him to the gate and unlocks it. Duxe walks in calmly, ignoring the other two horses inside the arena. He was a serious competition horse. Only focused on what he needed to be focused on, that's one of the things that Kylie absolutely loved about him. She grabbed the reins and led him to the center of the arena, so they were out of the way of the other riders. She wanted to kind of stay away from them, not distract them from whatever they were doing. Putting her foot into the stirrup, she hoists herself up and swings her leg over, bending over to put her foot in the other stirrup. She pats Duxe, and adds slight pressure to his side. Duxe begins to walk to the outside of the arena, knowing the normal warm-up routine. Kylie watches the little girl as she confidently rides around the arena. I wish I was like that when I was her age...
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Post by Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω on Sept 10, 2010 2:22:17 GMT -6
Aurora looked over at the sound of a teenage boy's voice. "Sorry 'bout the gate." She said sheepishly and fell forward as her mount came to an abrupt halt. "I couldn't reach and didn't think that climbing on the gate was a good idea. Miss Carr is watching from her office and I think she would ban me from riding alone if I did anything dangerous around her pony." She squeezed her legs and grinned as Tonka walked forward again. "I'm Rory." She offered Julian. "Why you riding Dancer?"
Shifting her bottom in the saddle, she closed her eyes as she went through the mental list on how to get the gelding to go into a trot. With a nod, she opened her eyes again, took a deep breath, shortened the reins and squeezed with her legs. "I did it!" She squeaked as the pony picked up a gentle trot. However, when she forgot to post and fell behind in the striding, he dropped back to a walk.
Her shoulders slumped as she went through the mental list again and at the next corner, she tried it again. "Yay!" She cheered as the skewbald once again picked up the trot, this time the girl remembered to post in time to the pony's strides.
She was slightly aware of another person entering the arena, but she was concentrating so hard on what she was doing that she didn't dare look over to see who it was.
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Post by sepia on Sept 10, 2010 7:13:15 GMT -6
"Heh, yeah, probably a good idea to avoid climbing on the gate. No problem for me to shut it - Dancer's ace at standing still," Julian replied, as he tried to figure out whether one of his stirrups really was longer than the other, or if his legs were just being different lengths today. "And I think Miss Carr wants me to get more into dressage. I prefer to jump, so she's been putting me on a few more of the dressage horses lately." He grinned, entirely unrepentant about his love of the adrenalin rush he got while jumping. Dressage, while he appreciated it's usefulness, and beauty, and all, just wasn't quite the same.
Watching as the small girl did her best - and succeeded, after a few false starts - to trot, Julian resisted the urge to add his own cheer in as she entered the pace, not managing to restrain his grin at the look of utter concentration on her face. He wodnered, idly, as he shortened his reins and began to ask Dancer more seriously for a good, stepping-out walk, what it would have been like to start riding at such a young age...
His train of thought, though, was interrupted by someone else entering the arena, and he turned his head, assessing the new entry even as he flexed Dancer around a twenty metre circle. The newcomer was... someone he didn't recognise, but clearly another student, older than him. Well, nothing for it but to be nice, right? Finishing his circle, he executed a neat change of rein, and repeated the exercise in the opposite direction, asking Dancer to maintain the contact but also to stretch long so she could loosen up.
"Hello," he called out, not thinking that he might be interrupting a serious riding fugue. He never, really, considered things like that, possibly because he himself didn't really do 'serious fugue' and also because he tended to bounce through life with such enthusiasm that it was a trifle hard for him to remember that other people weren't always as chirpy about everything as he was. "Striking horse you've got there," he added, admiration frank in his tone as he eyed the brightly marked Tobiano. Stallion, too, he realised, even as Dancer twitched her head up to eye the other horse. He regained her attention by flexing the reins, and hoped that there wouldn't be any problems in that regard.
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Post by alylovesyouuu on Sept 10, 2010 20:58:38 GMT -6
The little girl's voice caught her attention. I did it!
[/i] Kylie smiled to herself, looking straight ahead. The little girl was so cute, it was hard to ignore her. She didn't want to listen in to their conversation, but she couldn't help it. They were all in the arena together, and Kylie knew she was bound to make some friends here. Duxe threw his head again, impatient with walking. Kylie snorted. Jeez Duxe well sorry...don't have to be such a little brat. Kylie sat in her seat, and nudged Duxe's side, lightly clicking to him. He picked up his trot right away, happy to be out and doing something instead of standing in a trailer all day. Kylie got her diagonal almost immediately. She'd been riding horses for years, she just hadn't started out as young as that little girl had. Kylie was fully concentrated on her diagonal, and Duxe's speed when she heard the boy's voice. Hello,[/i] It took her a minute to realize he was talking to her. She tugged back on the reins a bit, and looked over at him, smiling. Hi there, Duxe hesitantly walked, swishing his tail and throwing a bit of a fit. Duxe, stop it. Kylie pat his black and white neck. Striking horse you've got there.[/i] Kylie stifled a giggle. Thank you! Waaay selective breeding, and he's just my gorgeous boy. Pretty mare you've got there. She's an amazing mover. Kylie scolded herself. Well, duh, of course she is. She's a freaking dressage horse. That's a one look summary. Kylie knew she was a mare, just by the way Duxe acted up when he got around her. The pony, Duxe didn't really pay attention to, but the mare, he got excited and a little bit headstrong around her, but Kylie didn't mind. Duxe knew how to control himself, unless asked to do otherwise.[/size][/blockquote][/blockquote][/center] [/size][/right][/quote][/quote] |
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Post by Ω-Admin-Cara-Ω on Sept 11, 2010 14:53:39 GMT -6
"Miss Carr always tells me it's good for people to ride lots of different horses or ponies. I can't wait to be able to ride different ponies!" Aurora said in reply to Julian's comment about the manager wanting him to get more into dressage. "Don't think she's getting you to rider Dancer 'cause she doesn't want you to jump. Cara rides Dancer lots, and she jumps lots too." She gave a bright smile, Cara was her special friend and she was a little disappointed that girl hadn't been the one to discover her in the area.
The small girl managed to get almost the entire way around the track before she misjudged Tonka's stride and fell forward onto his neck, slipping to the side. The pony instantly slowed down and moved himself so that there was no chance of his precious cargo falling to the ground.
The girl pushed herself up, her lower lip trembling a little, maybe this had been a bad idea. She was now seeing that her mother might have been correct in saying that she was too young to be out riding without an adult guiding her.
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Post by sepia on Sept 15, 2010 8:33:16 GMT -6
"Yeah, she's still letting me ride May, so I guess she hasn't totally banned me from jumping!" He grinned, hoping that Aurora wouldn't take him seriously - he wasn't sure how sensitive kids her age were to jokes and sarcasm, not remembering being that age himself beyond a few scattered, rather fuzzy images, mostly of kitchens.
"Not actually mine," Julian responded, switching his attention to the other female in the arena (and, heh, he thought that could sound so very different in other circumstances), "She belongs to the Academy - but she is lovely!" He ran a hand down Dancer's shoulder as he spoke, grinning at the other older rider, though keeping half an ear and eye on Aurora, too. "Probably had far too much training to be ridden by me," he added, with a shrug, though from the sure way he casually kept Dancer moving forwards, containing her energy with a light touch on the reins, it was clear that he was rather downplaying his own ability. Not nearly in the same league as some of the people at Blue Ridge, he was still a pretty good rider, matching sympathy towards horses with a determination to get things done, even if he tended to be rather modest about it. Coming from fairly humble roots, and growing up riding other people's horses had meant that Julian tended to be quite quiet about his riding ability. "Did you breed him yourself?"
Catching Aurora's little mishap out of the corner of his eye, Julian's focus switched instantly. "Careful!" he called, rather unhelpfully, but apparently Tonka was quite the gentleman and moved to catch his little rider. Asking Dancer for a turn on the forehand, which she preformed very smoothly, good training coming to the fore as Julian asked her gently and correctly for the movement, he was off riding towards her on a circle in the opposite direction, making sure to keep Dancer working forwards. And then he wasn't quite sure what to do. He didn't know her too well, after all...
"Happens to everyone," he said, seeing her face begin to wobble a little, and scrambling for something to stop her from looking upset. "It took me ages to learn to be able to rise to the trot all the time. Just takes practice."
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Post by alylovesyouuu on Sept 15, 2010 22:29:45 GMT -6
Kylie watched as the girl slipped. Kylie knew instantly what she had done wrong, but she knew she was young and was still learning how to ride, so Kylie wasn't about to judge. She watched as the girls' lip quiver and she felt bad. She knew what the little girl was feeling currently. Embarrassment, and perhaps a hint of fear was somewhere in her tiny body. The pony was experienced though, and knew had to keep a rider on, which was a good thing. Eventually, the little girl would learn how to fall, just like everyone else has had too, the hard way or not. Kylie felt strange, like she was going way to in depth with this. The girl was maybe four or five, she was just starting out. There was no way her mother wouldn't have enough common sense to put her on a pony like the one she was currently riding. Or her instructor, or whoever was in charge of her. Kylie had no idea, she was new.
Kylie focused her attention back on her horse, and the other person riding in the arena with her. He told her that the horse he was riding, "Dancer," was her name, as that's what Kylie had got from their conversations, belonged to the Academy and wasn't really his. She remembered those days. Lesson horses. Oh, it was so difficult to be able to fully love them without getting upset when other people rode them. Even though, you knew it wasn't your horse, it still upset you. That was another one of the reasons Kylie decided to have her own horse, so she wouldn't have to worry about all that extra stuff.
Duxe was getting more anxious every minute, and Kylie was starting to get frustrated. She kissed to him, asking him to canter for her. She tightened her reins, making sure she'd be able to control him in an arena with two other people. Duxe picked up his canter, and glanced over at one of the jumps. It was a small oxer, maybe 2 feet. Kylie smiled, she hadn't jumped in a while, but she wanted too badly. She counted the steps he could take, and went for it. Duxe sped up a little and gathered himself before he flew over the little jump. Kylie went on his neck, but not too much, keeping herself in perfect equitation. When they landed, Kylie sat it smoothly. Her adrenaline was flying through her body. Kylie slowed him down to a walk. She knew that was all Duxe had needed was a little entertainment.
Did you breed him yourself?
[/i] Kylie looked over at the boy. Yes, and no. My parents chose his dam, I chose his sire, so in a sense, yes. I wanted a pretty horse, and I got him. Then again, I was young, so I wasn't looking at bloodlines or all that stuff. I was just looking at the pretty horses. I mostly chose his sire, but my parents looked at bloodlines more. They would tell me no if the sire wasn't suitable enough to their liking. Kylie sighed. She sounded like a stuck-up girl, and she hated it. Her parents were upper-class, the rich kind that only wanted quality things. Even though, Kylie grew up in a small-town, all small-towns have the rich. Anyway, I've been building a relationship with this boy since we were both young. Kylie smiled at him. She hoped that he wouldn't think she was stuck up, because she wasn't. Kylie was just very sneaky and sly, but she loved that.[/size][/center][/blockquote][/left] [/size][/right] |
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