Reining

[Sarah Worthington]

Sarah glanced at the sheets of papers printing. She had planned to work on patterns that day since they had gotten dismissed last class before she had seen everyone's patterns. She cursed under her breath when she realized that she had printed off the wrong patterns and that the printer was running out of ink. She'd have to make a trip into town to get some black ink to replace it. She loved her printer, but damn if it didn't take up copious quantities of ink. 

She ran her fingers through her hair before grabbing the papers along with a pen and turning them over. She quickly scrawled out instructions on the backs of them and checked the time. She hurriedly turned off the computer and logged out before leaving her apartment and going down the reining arena with the roster and a pen. Sarah entered the arena and made sure that nothing was in the arena that wasn't supposed to be. She moved a few cones to outside of the fence before going over her lesson plans. They'd start out with rollbacks that day, and maybe go onto flying line changes and sliding stops before going onto the easy pattern that she'd written out. The easiest patterns were often the ones most messed up by people over complicating them. 

She waited for her students to come into the arena and absentmindedly went over the lesson plan once more before checking the roster. Sarah knew that new students came in all the time, though it was mostly English students that came in. She hadn't seen many western riders come in late. Her jaw almost dropped when she saw her nephew's name on the list...or at least someone with the same name as her nephew. Lucas was a common first name and Walker was a common last name. Certainly Lucas wouldn't have come to a boarding school. Sarah checked off the students as they entered. She'd give them fifteen minutes or so to warm up before explaining what they were going to be doing. 

---

Tagged: Lucas Aidan Walker
Jon Atticus McCloud
Honor Noel Matthews
@caiti
Adonya van Rutherford
Sina Aleardi

[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, noting that she was the first student to arrive. That worked for her, it meant she could set the direction of her warmup. She knew better than to hope to get a private lesson. She knew that Sina at least would show up, the girl never seemed to miss a class, although she did drag down the caliber of education. What other dregs of society would she have to deal with today?

Once in the saddle, she promptly stopped thinking about the others who may or may not arrive to share 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.

[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 favorable result. Nodding, Sina tucked the kit back into her saddle bag, and then buckled on her helmet, checking again to make sure her tubing was hidden under her shirt. She'd learned that lesson the hard way, more than once! "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 liked the woman that they had teaching the class, she seemed to tolerate no messing around, which was just fine with Sina. Safety first, while riding, especially in class.

Sina noted that Blythe was already in the arena with her horse, then 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 transitions 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.