Blue Ridge is a fictional town located deep in the heart of Kentucky. It is home to one of the most well known equestrian academies in the United States. Students and staff from all over the world join the academy for what it has to offer. Do you have what it takes to join us and learn from the Academy?
Smilys were made by Sapphire Heaven of LiveJournal.
The mini-profile hover follows a tutorial by Kagney of Adoxography.
Photos in the skin used under CC from Flickr.
Post by Martijn van der Berg on Jun 16, 2015 8:26:32 GMT -8
Martijn nodded as he heard about the girl's parents, then chuckled at her brother's antics, although he felt bad after a moment, "That must have been hard on you, on both sides." He didn't know where to go from there, so he was quiet for a moment, looking forward out at the trail. A cloud drifting across the sky darkened the world slightly for a moment, but a glance upwards told Martijn that the lone cloud was nothing to worry about. Even if it did rain slightly, they weren't in any danger of a downpour, and the heat would probably dry them off before they even returned to the barn.
After a few moments of riding in silence, Martijn spoke again, "So what do you want to do?" It didn't seem like the girl wanted to talk, and he didn't really know what her plan was. Just running around the trails aimlessly didn't particularly appeal to him either, but perhaps Rachel had a particular destination in mind. Or probably not, considering she hadn't been heading out to the trails originally... But perhaps she had some idea of what she wanted to do, and could do, since Martijn didn't know exactly how limited she was in her riding, both ability-wise and safety-wise.
Post by Rachel Deacon on Jun 17, 2015 4:57:14 GMT -8
Rachel lifted and dropped one shoulder in a shrug as Martijn commented on how it must have been hard on her. She had heard the slight chuckle but thought nothing of it. Her brothers had thought of it as hilarious, as had the few friends she had told about it. After a couple of years, her mother had put a stop to those particular antics by blindfolding the pair of them and forcing them to try to make their way through the house. Their prank of moving the furniture had stopped very quickly afterward.
She looked up as he asked another question, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks in embarrassment as she realised how strange it must be to just go out hacking without any clear thoughts of what one hoped to achieve.
"I, uh, don't know. I just... My old coach sometimes took me out on a lead rein, but apart from that I've never really ridden out of an arena before. I'm not allowed to go out hacking on my own for obvious reasons." She paused for a moment, her fingers playing with her gelding's short mane. "I didn't really think that you were supposed to have plans when going out on the trails. I wanted to give Alpha a break from just being ridden in the arena, that's all."
Rachel Grace Deacon | Sophomore | 15 Ghost | GSD | Service Dog Phoenix Rising | 'Alpha' | Paradressage
Post by Martijn van der Berg on Jun 18, 2015 19:58:57 GMT -8
Martijn listened incredulously to Rachel's admitting that she had no plan. Shaking his head, he spoke, "Yes, most people tend to have a plan every time they take their horses out. How long they want to work them, how far they want to go on a given day, something to frame their work." Although he wanted to think badly of Rachel for not having such a plan, he realized that she perhaps didn't ride without someone telling her what to do. As much as it was annoying for him, to have to be that person, he couldn't really blame her. Even if that wasn't the case, it made it easier to try and keep his mind on being polite.
"I think we've been riding for about half an hour now. I was planning on taking Ritske out for about an hour, so now'd be a good time to turn around if I wanted to match that." He did still have another horse to work, after all, "However, if you had other plans, I can throw Sy into a round pen and just run him for a while." If she wanted to stay out on the trails longer, that was. Now he realized how good his family had had it, with their Eurosizer. Made it easy to exercise horses that couldn't get ridden!
Post by Rachel Deacon on Jul 5, 2015 6:55:35 GMT -8
The urge to somehow hide behind Alpha was a strong one as Martijn spoke about generally having a plan when hacking out. Rachel ducked her head, embarrassed that she hadn't even thought about it, that she had considered hacking out to just be something that you didn't have to plan particularly. It was what you did when you didn't really want to plan anything, or want to inflict anything too onerous on the horse. The whole point of coming out onto the trails for Rachel had been to simply give the gelding a break from riding in the arenas.
She fiddled with her reins but quickly stopped when Alpha tossed his head in protest, dropping her hands to rest on the crest of his neck just in front of his withers. "Sure, we can head back. I don't need to work Alpha hard today, I just needed to get him out and moving since he had a pretty difficult session yesterday. I don't want him getting stiff." She patted the gelding's neck, smiling slightly. The poor thing had been worked quite intensely on his collections the previous day as Rachel prepared a new dressage test that she hoped that she might be able to perform at a competition at some point.
Rachel Grace Deacon | Sophomore | 15 Ghost | GSD | Service Dog Phoenix Rising | 'Alpha' | Paradressage
Post by Martijn van der Berg on Jul 13, 2015 19:02:59 GMT -8
Matijn nodded as he got the okay from Rachel, "Stopping." However, he let Ritske walk on a couple more steps before he cued for a halt, giving Rachel a chance to stop Alpha before he did, so they didn't have a collision. Once he'd halted, he looked back towards Rachel, "I'll ride past you and then wait, I don't know how you cue Alpha to turn around, but there's plenty of space all around, and the ground is flat, so you can take whatever space you need."
He walked the Frisian past the Dutch Warmblood, then halted again, turning back, "Whenever you're ready." Once Rachel had gotten herself and her horse situated again, Martijn nodded to himself and then clucked while he cued the gelding forward. Not a cue the horse was trained to respond to, but an audible one for Rachel.
A short ride took them back to the barns, and Martijn halted, grinning, "And here we are." He paused, "I can find a barn hand for you. I'll be right back." He wasn't planning on spending too much time in the barns, and he wasn't technically working at the moment anyway. He dismounted and walked Ritske to the hitching post, throwing the horse's halter over the bridle for a moment before he walked into the barn, soon returning with the same man that had been helping Rachel earlier, "It was a pleasure riding with you, Rachel, but this is where I take my leave of you."