Reining

[Sarah Worthington]

Sarah walked to the reining arena, a clipboard in her arms to check attendance, and hold patterns. Entering the arena, she turned her cell phone volume down so it wouldn't spook any of the horses if it were to ring. This way, if it rang and it was an emergency or something, she could still hear it instead of putting it on vibrate or silent mode. 

She stood against the fence, waiting for her students to show up. Mentally, she went over the plan for today. A nice warm-up followed by an easy pattern to get them used to reining now that summer was over and school was back in session. It would also give her a gauge of what they needed to cover again, followed by where they could start out next class.

Most of the names on her attendance list were familiar, Julius, Adonya-Blythe- and Sina were in her reining class that she had held over the summer. She didn't, however, recognize Jon McCloud or Oliver Cameron, and could assume that they were new students to Blue Ridge, or perhaps taking their first reining class that she had taught. Sarah greeted her students as they came in, telling them that they could start warming up as they entered. 
Tag:Adonya van Rutherford
Jon Atticus McCloud
@neighneigh
Sina Aleardi
@ransom

[Sina Aleardi]

Sina waited patiently for the finger-stick kit to come back with a number of her, finishing with the process of tacking Rolo up while she let it run. Fast they were not. However, by the time she'd slipped the headstall over his ears and the curb bit into his mouth, she had a relatively favourable result. Nodding, Sina tucked the kit back into her saddle bag, and then buckled on her helmet, "Be good, Derecho." She left the dog in 'his' stall and then walked Rolo out into the aisle, careful to latch the stall door behind her.

They made their way to the reining arena and Sina grinned as she spotted Ms. Worthington, "Hello!" She had liked the woman's way of running the summer clinic, and was more than comfortable with her as a teacher. Now they could move on to the fun things!

Or, rather, the warm up. Sina moved Rolo onto the rail and started working him, asking him first for a brief period of walking before they sped up into a jog, before crossing across the diagonal to work on walk-jog trainsitions briefly without being in the way of the other students. Once back on the rail, another light tap brought Rolo into a controlled lope, which they sustained for a good lap before slowing again to a walk.

[Adonya van Rutherford]

Blythe circled around Kodak in the cross-ties, looking critically at the gelding's coat, but she couldn't find anything to complain about. A nod sent the sophomore scurrying off to prepare her own mount for whatever she did. After tightening the saddle more, Blythe grabbed her helmet and lead the gelding out of the barn.

When she reached the arena, Blythe glanced around at the students already present, spotting mutt-girl on her paint nag - Wait, not even hers. She wasn't good enough for her own horse. Looked like she was the only student already present, which didn't bother Blythe too much. The rest could either show up or not, if not, semi-private lesson for her. As long as Sina didn't slow her down, that was.

Blythe tough about this, as she mounted Kodak and fell onto the track around the arena to get the gelding loosened up. Once in the saddle, she promptly stopped thinking about the others who shared the arena with her, and focused on getting the gelding supple and ready for the class, whatever Ms. Worthington had planned for them. She'd been working with the gelding on sharpening his spins, though, and now they were working more on just general sharpness of their transitions and movements, and a bit of bridle-less for freestyle, because that was just fun.

[Sarah Worthington]

Sarah marked both Sina and Blythe as present. Sarah glanced at the time on her phone. She'd give the other students a few more minutes to get here, and if none showed, she'd begin class. The class would go by and her attention would only have to focus on two students, making it semi-private, instead of five students. It'd be nice as wouldn't have to switch her attention every few minutes onto a different student to make sure they were doing alright and weren't experiencing any trouble or anything. 

Pulling the pattern out of her pocket, she glanced it over. She grabbed six orange cones, and after spacing them out placed three on one side of the arena and three directly across from other cones. Sarah also grabbed a white colored ground pole, and placed it next to the fence where she could easily move it once they started on patterns. She moved out of the way of Sina and Blythe, before standing against the fence next to where she had set her clipboard and pen. Though she wouldn't mind only teaching two students, it wouldn't make a good impression on her if the others showed up late to class, or didn't show up at all. 

[Jon Atticus McCloud]

Late. Always bloody late. Jon’s alarm, which he’d stupidly forgotten to set, he had been playing video games with some of the guys until late, did not wake him up for reining. He'd had to take a nap for actually attending his classes this morning in celebration and because he was pretty exhausted. Thus, he was currently sprinting towards the barn to get Xy ready for their reining class. Reining was a class he actually enjoyed, so he was extra pissed off he may have missed it. Panting slightly as he skidded into the barn, narrowly missing a few freshmen as they were coming out with their horses. Spluttering a half-hearted apology, he slowed to a power walk as he passed the barn manager, and quickly gathered Xy’s tack.

The gelding seemed to sense Jon was a little desperate this afternoon as he complied beautifully in the tacking up process. He left the barn a little more calmly, Xy leaning into him a little for comfort. Jon managed a smile, patting his neck fondly. ”We’ll do good today buddy. Just take no notice of everyone else. Just focus on me.” He gave the handsome appaloosa gelding a pep talk as they walked to the reining arena. The gelding, however, became more and more wired as they approached the arena, meaning Jon would have a tough lesson this morning. He knew he’d just have to remain calm and already had decided to blow off the rest of his classes for the day to recover.

”Sorry we’re late.” Jon apologised to the teacher as they entered the arena. Xy snorted nervously, taking in the other horses with ears pinned completely forward on his head like radars, his whole body tensing as he pranced on the spot. Jon took him to a quiet corner of the arena to circle him a few times, getting the gelding to relax some so he could mount. When Xy stood still, Jon did just that and adjusted his saddle to get comfortable. Xy snorted again, but kept still. He hadn’t looked at who else was in the class, he wasn’t interested. Xy was his only focus. ”Okay bud, walk on.” He asked him softly, smiling as Xy took off into a smooth walk, a pleasant surprise from the jolt he was expecting. They slowly began to warm up, Jon pleased that Xy began to settle as time went on.

[Deleted]

Cole stretched in the barn beside Bullseye, it was nice to be out of that dang truck and be horseback again! Beside him, Bullseye stood ground tied, relaxing a hind leg as Cole went through the familiar process of tacking up. Cole quickly brushed his winter coat down, taking off any stray clumps of Texas dirt before tossing his saddle pad on. Next Cole swung his heavy ranch saddle on from the off side, as he always found it quicker to let down his girths. Cole hesitated a moment before keeping his back girth on, it was quicker to just keep it vs take it off and put it back. Cole hesitated even more as he looked through the bridles he brought. Bull has been straight up in the bridle for about a year and a half now, however they may be doing things today that Bull or himself was not familiar with and so Cole finally decided on riding him in the two rein setup today, this way, if he needed to make any corrections he could stay out of Bull's mouth. Bullseye continued to stand ground tied after he was bridled and Cole finished putting his grooming equipment and halter away. Cole took a slightly worried glance at Bullseyes legs before mounting, left hand in the mane and right on the horn. Bullyseye wasn't a reiner, he was handy and as such didn't have sliders or skids on. Today Cole would speak with his instructor to see what the plan of action would be for that. Cole had ridden away from the barn and had almost forgotten he was now required to wear a helmet, a quick pit stop and he had the unfamiliar piece of equipment on his head... Over his old ball cap. He had to maintain some semblance of dignity. 

Cole arrived on time to the reining arena and quickly took everything in before beginning his warm up. It was strange being in an arena, and apparently Bullseye thought so as well, he normally calm gelding rode just a touch more high headed and his ears were in overdrive. Bull had loosened up a fair bit just from the barn so Cole got to business. He lifted his left hip and Bullseye picked up an easy going lope on the left lead. Cole kept his rein hand, his right hand down and relaxed, just above Bullseye's mane, his left at almost a right angle as he went with his horse. Cole paid attention to the other riders in the arena and casually loped a couple circles, a soft breath out and just sinking his weight down to bring Bull to a slower lope and just a lift of his hand and body to move out more. Then he moved on to a counter canter, a left lead on a right circle. The softest shift of his inside leg to ask Bulls ribcage to maintain a bend was all he needed. Then he continued his lope down the arena fence, just shifting his right back back to get a lead change. At that nice and straight leadchange he gave the gelding a rub on his neck "Good boy, this isn't something you practice much hmm?" 

Soon, Cole noticed the instructor setting up some cones and a ground pole, anticipating that the class would begin he guided Bullseye to the center of the arena, a soft "whoa" and shift of his seat had his gelding burrying his hindquarters in the ground. Cole tipped his helmet covered hat to the instructor and other students. He knew all too well how much you needed your own thoughts when riding and didn't want to bother anyone, but also didn't want to seem rude. 

[Sina Aleardi]

Sina focused on Rolo, repeating a similar process to the gelding's other side as she watched the goings-on in the arena. She was already discounting Blythe's censorious gaze, knowing that the girl just would never be her best friend, and having come to terms with it long ago. However, luckily, it appeared that they would not be the only two students in the class! Two more students, one on a pretty app and the other on another paint, had entered the arena. Sina watched them sidelong for a moment, taking in each horse's behavior and keeping out of the corner where the boy was calming his snowcap slightly before mounting. After running the gelding through a few circles and a couple of lead changes, Sina fell back onto the rail and let the gelding slow to a walk on the loose rein, patting his neck briefly.

When Ms. Worthington started setting up the arena, Sina knew she was too curious to watch Rolo fully and followed the other student into the center of the arena. As the boy tipped his hat, Sina inclined her head in response with a small smile, then turned to look at the cones and the pole with curiosity. What were they going to be doing with those?

[Adonya van Rutherford]

Blythe turned from circling the arena to running a couple of serpentines, asking Kodak for a lead change at the center, as well as in the quarters, so he was doing a counter-canter for portions of the set. After she'd slowed him back to a trot, she watched as first one boy, and then the next, entered the arena. She didn't recognize either of the boys themselves, although the appaloosa was distinctive enough that she knew immediately why she recognized it. Her nose wrinkled as she rode a wide berth around the boy and his fidgety mount. If he wasn't careful with his horse, someone would mistake it for pork, and they'd finally have a decent amount of bacon in the cafeteria.

However, before she could be bothered to speak to the boy, she noticed Ms. Worthington setting up the poles. Finally, they wouldn't just be riding in circles around each other. She pulled Kodak up a good distance away from mutt-girl and her new friend, although she didn't doubt the boy would run off as soon as he saw the thing she called her companion. Noting the gesture the boy provided, she raised an eyebrow, considering her options before she nodded just slightly. Perhaps he would learn the error of his ways quickly... One could hope. He wasn't too bad looking.

[Sarah Worthington]

Sarah noted that there were two new arrivals on her attendance list but since they didn't give her their names, she would have to get them after class. One of the new arrivals had a nice horse, though he seemed to be more for working than for reining, but some working horses were good at reining once they understood it. Sarah much preferred training working horses to rein than training a western pleasure horse to rein. "Would one of all y'all be willing to ride through the cones and tell me if they're straight?" She asked as one of the students quickly did before coming back and saying that they were straight. That was good, because she wouldn't want any of the cones to be crooked and mess up the students when they were doing the pattern.
"Alright, let's get started." She said as everyone came into the middle. "You're going to trot over the pole and canter on the left lead after the pole. Canter through the line of cones on the left side of the fence, weaving between them and changing leads each time you weave. At the third line change, cut across the end of the arena and turn right after the first cone on the right side of the fence. Change leads in the middle and turn right after the second cone on the left side of the fence, keeping between the second and third line of cones. Change leads again, and turn left after the third cone, swapping leads in the middle. After that change, turn right and go down the middle of the arena where you'll stop and back at least one fence length before walking off on a loose rein." She said, walking the pattern as she spoke so they would know what it would look like. 
She told them that one of them could get ready to go, if they didn't have any questions and turned to watch the patterns, ready to make any notes of things that needed to be worked on. "Don't forget to tighten up your split reins before you start the pattern, and I'd like to see at least one fly in this pattern. A sliding stop or a regular stop will both be fine, so do whatever you're more comfortable doing." She added before one of her students went. 

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Pattern
1.Trot over pole and canter after pole
2. Canter through cones lined up on left side of the fence, doing line changes each time you weave between the cones.
3. At the end of the line changes, turn after the cone on the right side of the fence and go between the first and second line of cones across from each other, changing in the middle.
4. Go between the second and third lines of cones and change in the middle.
5. Change in the middle after the third lines of cones and turn right.
6. Go down the center line and stop in the middle of the arena. 
7. Back at least one fence length and exit on a loose rein.
Feel free to PM me if you don't understand the pattern or have questions about it!