Refreshing Change

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Now that spring was here to stay, Jason was eager to get on the trails. He hadn't gotten a chance to wander down many of them before the winter descended. He whistled as he readied his Oldenburg. Tickle picked up on his rider's upbeat attitude and showed some of his own, repeatedly striking the ground with his foreleg. Jason chided him only  half-heartedly, as they were nearly finished in the crossties anyway.

Before long, horse and rider were clopping peacefully down the Green Hill Trail. They had been down a few of its forks, but not the Meadow Trail, where Jason intended to go today. It was a touch too chilly under the trees, in his opinion. Besides, the open area would be a good place to run, and he had heard there was little stream that ran across the trail as well. Jason nudged his horse into a nice trot, not too slow and not too fast. Both of them appreciated the chance in scenery from the same walls of the indoor area they had frequented during the winter months.

Jason tapped his heels gently against the gelding's side. Tickle responded by jumping into a canter, starting out slow but gaining speed as the trees thinned. Perched in a half-seat position, Jason could see the telltale sparkle of sunlight reflecting off of running water, and guided his horse towards it. A little desensitization wouldn't hurt. Because of the relatively short distance to the stream, however, Jason kept his horse to a reasonable canter.

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 It had been a while since Zak had been out in such good weather with his mare Pleasure. He had woken up this morning and looked out the window to see a nice spring day ahead of him. He got dressed into his riding gear got his JTE riding hat and put his boots on and zoomed out of the red ribbon house.

 He had taken Pleasure from her stall and tied her up next to the crossties and took his grooming kit out the tack room and gave his mare a thorough grooming then tacked her up. She pawed the ground excitedly as Zak done her girth before mounting outside the barn. When they reached the green hill trail Zak nudged her into a calm trot which went into with a leap of happiness and a few moments later he simply nudged again and she went into a lovely canter. When she went back into a trot the trees were starting to thin.

 Pleasure saw the horse and rider before Zak did and made a snort and patted Pleasure's neck and looked up and seen what his mare was looking at it was a horse cantering with his rider and Zak waited for a while until the boy had finished cantering before going trotting up to him and saying hello.

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With the sun at his back and a light breeze whistling past his ears, Jason couldn't stop the grin from spreading across his face, even if he wanted to. He looked ahead to calculate when he should be slowing down, and found himself counting strides to the river. He laughed, amused at his subconsciousness, and reined his horse in. Tickle resisted at first, but obediently dropped both a gait and his head as his rider began to scissor the reins. Jason noticed a movement off to the side and turned to see another pair trotting towards them.

He slowed Tickle down to an easy, ambling walk as the horse and rider came closer. Jason knew he hadn't met the boy before, but thought he might have seen him walking around the school before. He didn't think that they shared any classes; certainly the horse was unfamiliar. Tickle pricked his ears towards the mare, though he didn't stray from his path. Jason raised a hand in greeting to let the other rider know that he'd seen them, but waited to verbally greet them until they came within hearing range.

"Hey there." He said. "Beautiful horse you've got there. But then again, I'm partial to splotched horses." He joked, gesturing at his own mount. "Name's Jason, and this is Tickle."