Stop and Go and Stop Again

[Tobias Xayarath]

Grab your foals, meet me in the starting arena.
-Mr. X

Tux grinned as the printer spat out a piece of paper, taking it and a roll of scotch tape along with him as he left the office. After he had finished taping it to the door of the classroom, he pulled the door firmly shut, although it was, as always, unlocked. As he headed along the lane, which was still roped off for the foals, just in case, he thought about what the class would be doing. They had been working on leading on a halter, and most of the teams seemed to be getting it really well. However, today would be a day to put them to the test.

After reaching the arena, he looked around, reassuring himself that the boombox was still in place near the center of the arena. They were, and he spent the rest of the time as he waited for his students to arrive setting up another station, at one of the short edges of the arena, where a number of twine loops hung from the fencing. He began organizing the grooming boxes he had brought out, throwing two soft brushes and a couple of rags into each, before he spaced them evenly along with the rings.

That done, he returned to where the boombox stood, waiting for his students to arrive, greeting each one with a smile and the instructions to simply start working the friendly game (handling each part of their body) with their foals while they waited for the rest of the class.

@neigh
Cara-Jean Kitchi
Gretchen Holmes
@running5
@jacobturcotte
@maeve
Othello Buskirk
@paisley
@ronan
Stefan Eder

[Cara-Jean Kitchi]

Cara stood in the bathroom of the barn her assigned mount live in, fixing the French braid that held her hair back, and twisting it up into a bun, holding the whole thing in place with hairspray, her leotard underneath the bark colour knit jodhpurs, white long sleeved t-shirt and a vest that matched the pants. After sliding her feet into her black paddock boots and zipping them up, she picked up her messenger bag and made her way out of White Oak and toward Evening Primrose.

Stopping at the classroom, she saw the note and hurried down to the stall that the filly shared with a couple of others. Collecting the filly's multi-coloured halter and lead and then let herself into the stall. "Bonjour mes petits." She greeted all of the foals softly as she offered each of them a tickle and it didn't take her long to convince Lapin that she wanted the halter on, and with a bit of manoeuvring, she managed to exit the stall with only the filly she was leading.

Sine she had first been paired with the filly, she had done a bit of work with the Haflinger, working on earning the baby's trust and respect, and she found that Lapin now only nipped her when she was confused about something she was asked to do. With the lead slipped through the ring of the halter, as opposed to clipped to it, she led the flaxen chestnut out to the starting arena where their teacher was waiting for them.

She paled slightly to realise that she was the first to arrive, but, keeping herself in check, she bowed her head toward the man, not an ounce of emotion showing on her face, and entered the arena.

[Othello Buskirk]

Othello had come to the decision, after much talk with his parents, that Harry wouldn't return with him after the Christmas holidays. Leo's health was going downhill, mostly because of whatever the doctors had him taking, and he had come to the conclusion that mounted classes just weren't in his near future, so for his remaining six months at Blue Ridge, he would take a step back from riding and just learn about horses from the ground.

He left his Stufolk Punch's stall and made his way to the Evening Primrose barn and laughed when he saw the note on the classroom door, with a shrug, he made his way down to the stall where Witt lived. "Hey little man." He greeted the Morgan colt as he grabbed the light yellow halter and entered the stall. He dodged and sidestepped the other foals that lived in the stall and laughed as the chestnut colt turned his bum toward the boy. "Come on silly." He laughed as he walked around the colt, following him in circles a couple of times before he convinced the foal to stand still and accept the halter.

After the time it took Witt to actually walk forward, the final escaped the stall and made their way down to the starting arena. "Hey Professor X." He grinned as he entered the arena and halted Witt.

[Stefan Eder]

Kai left Lupus in the paddocks, with a light rug over her back, then headed back towards the barns, beginning the trek more than halfway across campus to get to his next class, or rather, extracurricular activity. It wasn't scheduled in the school day, which was the only real difference that Kai had found, that and the fact that there was no requirement to do any of the extracurriculars offered.

As he entered the Evening Primrose barn, he headed towards the classroom, stopping short as he spotted the paper posted there. After scanning it briefly, he turned away again, heading towards the stall that his assigned filly shared with the other that belonged to the barn manager, a Marwari, if he recalled correctly. After he had managed to halter Tess, he carefully led her out of the stall, making sure that Jigsaw stayed behind, as that was not something he wanted to be responsible for.

They reached the arena with no incident, and Kai let himself in, smiling at the teacher as they were greeted and given their instructions, "Good afternoon, Mr. Xayarath." He found them a spot in the arena, then started running his hands along the grey filly's body, returning to scratch between her ears in between, her favorite spot.

[Deleted]

With a third horse under his watch, Jackson learned to split his time evenly among his assigned equines. Vallie was something else. He often spent most of his divided time with her in the pastures watching her run around, though he did take time to earn her trust. She was a big foal already and he didn't need to be ran over by her if she decided to not like him. Jackson ended up at the filly's stall and haltered her. She wasn't that hard to catch now but at the beginning of being paired with her she liked to play a game Jackson called keep away, it involved her staying out of reach of her handler.

Jackson slipped an apple slice to the filly and led her to the arena where the students were informed to meet. Once there he saw three other students there and Mr. X. Mr. X informed the boy of what to do while they waited for the rest of the class to show up. This was one of the many exercises that Jackson did already but it never hurt to do is again. Running his hands down Vallie's legs and stomach the filly stood there, occasionally taking a step or two away only from the ability not being able to stand still.

[Deleted]

    After her last technical equine class, Maeve took care of Ella and turned her out before making one last check around the White Oak Barn to make sure that there wasn't anything out of place that she could fix or help out with. She always found herself trying to squeeze in extra work between her classes, helping out the barn hands whenever possible during the day. Checking her watch, she realized that she would have to hurry to her to her Foal Handling class, and rushed across campus, breathing a little quickly by the time she got there. 

    Finding the note on the door of the classroom, she hurried back to Hazy's shared stall, collecting herself and his halter before she opened the door. The Haflinger colt was generally pretty happy, though he wasn't exceptionally bright, and for all the time Maeve spent with him, she didn't suspect that he liked her any more than he did anyone else. Still, he was eager and friendly, which was more than could be said of all of the foals, and Maeve was quite fond of him.

    Haltering him, she led him to the starting arena. She found a spot a bit away from the other pairs and began to run her hands over Hazy's body, starting at his withers, and running them down him barrel, then to his hindquarters and legs. 

[Deleted]

Amber read the note on the door and got out the halter and lead rope for Fifi.  She was nervous because, although she had gone to visit several times, she had never haltered the filly and taken her out by herself.  The idea of that was kind of intimidating and she wasn't sure if it was allowed.  Apparently, not only was it allowed but it was expected.  She really hoped that her nerves wouldn't wear off on the filly.

The filly trotted up to the gate when she saw Amber coming.  Amber smiled, her nerves lessening, somewhat.  "Hey girl" she greeted, scratching Fifi behind her ear.  "We have a big day today."  

Fifi shied away when Amber first tried to put the halter on her.  Amber pulled it away and pet the foal for a little bit.  "It's ok girl" she soothed.  She tried the halter again, more slowly this time, and Fifi held still while she managed to get it on.  "Good girl" she praised.

Amber carefully opened the gate and gave the lead rope a gentle tug.  The filly hesitated before slowly walking forward.  Amber smiled, as she gently closed the gate behind her, and lead the filly away.  Fifi seemed to want to walk behind Amber instead of beside her, like Amber wanted her too, but she was glad that she was at least coming with her.  

When they got to the arena, Amber saw some of the other students and foals already there.  She smiled shyly, at the instructor and lead Fifi to the spot a little ways from the others.  She wished that they weren't doing the friendly game because she knew from Natural Horsemanship Class that she didn't like that game.  She ran her hands along the filly's body, but pulled away when Fifi flinched and started again in a different spot.

[Gretchen Holmes]

If Gretchen could say one thing about her foal, it was that the little filly was cute, very cute. But she was certainly not the easiest to work with. Not because she was mean or anything, she was a sweetheart, when she didn't need to do something. Maybe it was a pony thing, Gretchen knew ponies liked to be lazy. She just didn't realize that ponies were literally born lazy. 

So, with yellow halter in hand, she cornered Rain in the stall and wrestled with the pony for nearly 20 minutes before finally managing to clip the halter on. She'd come early because she'd known it would take that long, it had actually gotten better. The first time had taken more like 45 minutes. Once Rain was haltered, Gretchen tugged her out into the isle and stopped to catch her breath before heading out for class. Rain stood quietly, looking around the barn lazily. 

Once she'd caught her breath, she tugged Rain as gently as she could out to where her teacher had asked them to meet him. Rain trailed behind her at a snails pace, and to Gretchen it felt more like she was leading a stubborn old donkey than a young filly. Once they'd walked about halfway though Rain seemed to give up on being lazy, and picked up her pace so that she walked alongside Gretchen quietly. She smiled at the little filly affectionately once they'd lined up with all the other foals, ruffling Rain's forelock playfully. Rain nudged her hand with her nose in return, and Gretchen played with the little pony's mane until they started.