Building Skills

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    Cora was extremely pleased with Sophie's progress - she'd owned the mare for just over a year, and the Oldenburg had learned her job quickly. She still had a good deal to learn, but Cora had started putting up advertisements for her, knowing that it would probably take a little while for her to find a buyer, and an intermediate rider would be able to handle Sophie well at this point. She'd learned to jump well, and Cora had been working her higher, gradually, not wanting to push her. More frequently, she'd been working on bringing out the hunter in Sophie - lots of horses could jump high, but it took more training to make a hunter out of one. 

    Cora had decided to do some ground work with the mare, as she'd been jumping her a lot lately, and wanted to make sure that she still had the basics intact. She'd never really lunged her a lot, and decided to bring a lunge line and whip to the round pen with her, working her on the line before taking it off. She wanted Sophie to be able to lunge properly both in and out of the round pen. After grooming Sophie, she clipped on a lead and led the mare to the round pen, switching her lead rope for the lunge line once they were inside.     

    Clucking, she sent Sophie out, giving her enough line so that the mare could work around the edge of the round pen. She asked her to walk first, letting her get used to the space, and then asked her to pick up the trot. Sophie burst into the trot, head high, tail flagging, clearly full of it. Cora waited for her to settle down, making her keep the trot until she had developed a good headset, working evenly and balanced. She was mainly working towards balance, which could be difficult for a young horse in a circle so small as the round pen.     

[Fionn Paquet]

Finn hitched his camera bag further up his shoulder. His Nikon D3100 was around his neck, so the bag really wasn't necessary, but he liked to carry it, as it had his spare lenses as well as extra batteries. He knew that his father saw photography as being below him, but the boy thoroughly enjoyed capturing the moment on the screen, freezing the moment forever.

He had been at the pastures since the sun had come up, making use of the one day that they weren't in the gym, capturing early photos of the two horses that spent all of their time out in the pastures, he also took photos of the frost patterns on the ground. Once he had finished at the pastures, he made his way toward the arenas, hoping to be able to snap some photos of early morning riders - and hoping not to get his head bitten off by those who didn't want to be photographed. However he didn't find anyone in the arenas, no surprise there as who wanted to get up this early in the morning.

He was about to take the camera strap from his neck and head back to his dorm to download the photos when a movement caught his attention and he saw someone with a horse in the round pen. He knew that pen time was rather personal, but he was sure that if he didn't get too close, he could capture some images of the rich bay horse who was around the pen. He recognised the woman in the pen as one of the equestrian teachers, but he wasn't in her class, so he wasn't sure of her name. He snapped picture after picture, pleased that the device was silent, capturing the mare as she moved.