Here Goes Nothing

[Samson Blackthorne]

Sami hummed softly to himself as he made his way into the arena and stood, waiting. As he did so, he ran his fingers idly through the mane of his horse, picking out the odd speck or two of dust. He'd spent plenty of time on grooming over the last day or two, figuring that it would probably be a good way of getting to find out more about the horse's temperament, at least on the ground- of course, there were plenty of horses who were sweet as sugar on the ground and sheer hell to ride. Of course, the same was true in reverse.

[Joanne Blackthorne]

Jo had intended to be first into the arena, but she had to admit that she'd been somewhat distracted, rather unusually, by something sparkly; it had, as it turned out, been someone's helmet, but, for a moment or two, she'd thought that someone had left a disco ball lying around in the tack room. Still, she was here now, which was the main thing, and she didn't allow herself to feel nervous as she led the gelding- her gelding- into the arena, carefully closing the gate behind her, and stood, distractedly attempting to plait his mane.

[Katherine Carr]

Before leaving her office, Katherine made sure that the machine was set to pick up as soon as the phone rang, and put her mobile phone into the holder on her thigh, as anyone with emergency would know to call her on there if the office phone went to the answering machine.

Walking into the arena, she smiled to see that both teenagers were still on the ground. "Please mount up when you are ready." She said with a deeper smile. "This isn't a test, and you aren't being graded on it, so please try and pretend that I'm not here." Doing her best to put them at ease. "Today's ride is just to make sure that you get along and I've paired you with a horse you can learn with." She moved to stand near the centre of the arena, where she would hopefully be out of the way, and she had a pretty good view of the entire arena with little movement.

[Samson Blackthorne]

Sami gave the woman an awkward grin as he automatically checked the girth, slipped his foot into the stirrup and hopped up onto the horse's back. For all that she said it wasn't a test, it certainly felt an awful lot like one, and he felt a bit awkward as he sorted out his reins, adjusted his left stirrup slightly and then glanced down at the barn manager. What was he supposed to do now? Riding aimlessly wasn't exactly something he'd done a lot of, although he supposed he was going to have to get used to it sooner or later.