Sparkly Patterns (open)

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Rory hummed softly as she got Beau ready for a ride, she loved the way the bright pink saddle cloth looked against the mare's dusty brown coloured coat. She smiled as she held the bridle up to the mare and slipped the bit gently into the mare's mouth and the kissed Beau's nose before fastening the throatlatch.

As soon as Beau was ready, the grooming kit had been put away and Rory had her helmet on, she removed the crossties and halter from the mare's head and led her outside into the bright sunlight and then down to the arena. She had picked to work the mare in the early morning, as the heat was still rising and as soon as lunchtime hit, she would have to wait until early evening to work the mare, and during the summer, the indoor arena was always so busy with the students and instructors using it, and as she technically wasn't a student just yet, she graciously bowed out of their way.

Getting to the arena she was more than happy that it was empty and she confidently led the mare into the arena, closing the gate behind them, and led her over to the mounting block. Rory then went through the process of checking the bridle, pulling the stirrups down followed by tightening the girth, checking the stirrup length, grimacing because the leather was brand new and really stiff, before she circled the mare, lining her up to the mounting block, stepping up, placing her left foot in the stirrup swinging her right leg over the mare's back, and lowering herself gently into the saddle.

Even though Beau was only half a hand bigger than Globe, she felt huge as she squeezed the mare forward and then halted her a few steps away from the block before she moved her left leg forward and tightened the girth another couple of holes. She gently slid her leg back and rubbed the mare's neck. Cara had always told her that horses never liked being patted, they preferred a rub to a slap, and the horses that Rory worked with proved the fact as they never complained. She then gathered her reins, mentally checked her position in the saddle, remembering what Ms Carr said during class, and squeezed the mare forward.

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One of those people who had the ability to be unreasonably awake no matter how unceremoniously he had been turfed out of bed, Kareem was also a morning person, and saw no point in sleeping in and missing daylight hours. Especially not when he had a full day's work ahead of him, and especially not when that day's work was his first day of work, so he certainly wanted to make a good impression! As such, he'd woken early and hastened himself down to Red Willow Barn with alacrity, checking the schedule carefully and deciding to get started on riding some of the school horses. While most of the horses in the barn were actually owned - or at least looked after - by students, the school's own group of horses still needed care and exercise.

It didn't take long before he'd retrieved grooming equipment and the right tack, and then Kareem was approaching Thanh's stall, allowing the mare a few long moments to take in his scent and gently lip at his hand. She seemed to be calm, friendly and not particularly perturbed by the appearance of this new person, so he set to grooming and tacking her up with practiced efficiency, keeping up a quiet running commentary in his first language as he did so. He often talked quietly in Arabic while he worked with horses, a habit he'd picked up working with a skittish gelding back home who had been far calmer with a stream of words running into his ears, which had reassured him as to where people were, and had given him something to focus on.

Putting his hat on and pulling on his gloves, Kareem decided that he'd work Thanh on the flat this first time, and so he led her towards Roscoe's Arena, which didn't seem to be designed for any one discipline. Given that it was still cool he didn't particularly want to ride indoors, and he rather felt that he'd prefer less of an audience his first day on the job.

It looked like he was still going to have something of an audience, however, as he was clearly not the only early riser and there was someone else in the arena ahead of him. One of the younger students, by the look of her, on a pretty bay Anglo Arab. The notes on Thanh hadn't mentioned her being one of those mares who disliked other mares but Kareem paused by the gate to check her reactions; you could never be too careful. Thanh flickered her ears in the direction of the other mare but didn't seem angered or unsettled by the concept of being around the other female, so he continued on with his plans.

"Good morning, Miss," he called when the pair inside the arena were riding in his direction and not so far away that he had to yell, "Would you mind if we joined you?"

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Rory wasn't exactly enjoying her first ride on the mare, she found that Beau's trot was slower than Globe's so the speedy movement that she was used to moving too was throwing her off balance with her new mare, it was going to be like learning to ride all over again, and she didn't like that thought as she'd just spent the last year getting used to riding Globe, her first horse, as she'd been riding ponies up until then.

She checked her watch and saw that she had been riding for an hour, not that they had done much, and she was closer to tear than she was to feel like she had actually accomplished anything. She let her body go slack in the saddle, and pretty much sat there like a sack of potatoes. She was no longer enjoying this, she wanted to get rid of the mare and go back to Globe, but she knew that Beau had been purchased for her for the classes she had asked to attend when classes started up again, as she wanted to compete in the next show and she couldn't do that on Globe.

She hunched her shoulders up to her ears, not caring how she looked and just felt sorry for herself. However, she was jolted out of her melancholy thoughts as the reins were ripped through her hands as a rather large sneeze burst out of the mare. "Bless you." She said to the mare as she flexed one hand and then the other, pleased that she was wearing her riding gloves. She continued riding in her sack of potatoes stance and realised that she was actually moving with the mare and Beau's pace felt really comfortable, she was no longer on auto pilot and riding the mare as though she was sitting on Globe.

She looked up, once again startled out of her thoughts by a male's voice, she giggled and grinned from ear to ear. "Sure you can." She replied brightly. "Beau and I don't mind. Beau's new though and she hasn't met Thanh before." Having lived at the academy all her life, and being completely horse crazy, she knew the names of all of the academy horses and even though she had never ridden the pretty Arab cross, Thanh was one of her favourite school mounts.

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The cheerful combination of giggle, smile and chirpy greeting brought an answering smile to Kareem's face as he responded. "Thank you - hopefully they will get along, but if not then Thanh and I can work elsewhere." Thanh, though, for her part, merely whickered in the direction of the other mare as Kareem opened the gate and led her inside; Kareem wondered if she'd been at the Academy long enough and seen so many new horses cross her path that she wasn't now bothered by newcomers.

Feeling that the enthusiastic response he'd gained probably deserved a better reply from him, he added, "I'm Kareem, by the way. I take it that the lovely little mare you're riding has not been yours for long, then?" While the pair didn't seem to quite be in sync with each other, Kareem's eye had been drawn by both the neat conformation of the girl's horse and her fluid movements.

As he spoke and listened for an answer, he was multitasking, giving his tack one last check, tightening Thanh's girth and running down the stirrups which he'd already adjusted back in the stable. Satisfied, he lead the black over to the mounting block and swung into the saddle, lowering himself down lightly onto her back. Thanh was clearly both quite fresh and wanting to gain the measure of her rider, for she attempted to walk off before Kareem was settled. He set himself a little firmer and reminded her to halt again, and after a moment's contemplation she did so, standing quite still as Kareem did the girth up once more.

"Now you can walk," he murmered, squeezing her forward with a gentle but firm pressure from his legs as she spoke. Thanh responded eagerly, setting off into a swinging, forward walk. Maintaining only the very lightest of contacts - just to remind Thanh that he was still there but still encouraging her to stretch and loosen up - Kareem kept on in the walk, initially just once around the outside of the ring, and then into circles of different sizes all across the ring. As he encouraged her to keep swinging forward and to stretch down a bit, he kept a careful eye on where the other occupant of the paddock was, not wanting to interfere with what she was doing.

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Rory smiled brightly. "Beau will just have to deal." She replied. "There's always the chance that they will be in a class together and would have to get used to her then. They are only riding together it's not like we're asking them to move in together."

She nodded as he asked about her mount and she curled help the slight curling of her nose. "Yeah, mom and Ms Carr think I have outgrown my gelding, so mom found me Beau here." She shrugged slightly, unsure of what else to say about the mare she was riding, as this ride hadn't exactly been the best ride in her life. "She's quite different from Globe. I'm Rory."

She kept the mare to the track as the man completed his final check of Thanh's gear and mounted. She knew that now there was an adult in the arena, and one who obviously knew how to ride, she should pick up her riding style, sit up a little straighter in the saddle and show off this school for what kind of riders they produced, after all she had been riding here for the past ten and a half years. However, as it was, she just couldn't find the enthusiasm to ride nicely - which was really sad when she had worked so well with the mare during the first of the Natural Horsemanship clinics.

Without realising it though, as she continued her sack of potatoes riding style around the arena, she was beginning to feel the mare's movement and her body, as floppy as she was sitting, was actually moving in time with the mare. So, while she was trying to make her ride as miserable as possible, she was working out how to move in-sync with the mare that she was riding. And slowly, but surely, she posture was picking up and before too long she was sitting tall in the saddle, with her shoulders back and down, ear, hip and heel in line, toes forward, heels down. A smile played on the fourteen year old's lips as she realised what was happening and she nudged the mare into a trot, forcing herself to just bump along until she worked out the mare's stride, and after a quick look down to make sure she would rise on the correct diagonal, she began posting to the trot.

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Kareem was glad that the student seemed a sensible sort - while one always hoped that anyone associated with horses would be, that was unfortunately very much not the case. He'd had more than a few encounters with riders who were very firmly convinced that they deserved entire paddocks to themselves, and that anyone who wished to ride in their vicinity was unworthy of it.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Kareem said gravely, and while perhaps he was being overly serious with his words (as he very frequently was), he was also being entirely genuine, for Rory's bright nature was rather charming. "It can be hard to adapt to different horses," he agreed, "And you've probably heard the idea that time and practice are the best solutions far too many times," thoughtfully watching Rory and Beau for some moments before realising that that was probably not very helpful; knowing someone was watching often made people more self-conscious, and it was definitely not his place to comment upon her riding. He was hardly an instructor, after all, and while he had decided it was his duty to step in if a horse was being mistreated or things were getting dangerous, other than that - well, he was merely the barn hand, and unless anyone actually asked about anything, he didn't want to overstep himself and offer. On top of that, while Rory's floppy position wasn't particularly elegant, it was allowing her to move with her horse, and on a new animal that wasn't a bad thing. Kareem wasn't sure if Rory was consciously aware of what she was doing, but the pair was definitely beginning to work more in-sync with other.

Nudging Thanh forward into a trot, still on a soft, relaxed contact, Kareem continued his approach of circles and encouragement to be forward and soft, and was pleased when Thanh responded. She'd clearly decided it wasn't really worth her while to argue too much, and so when Kareem gathered up his contact and encouraged her to carry herself and work between his leg and hand, she did her best to respond. It clearly wasn't the way she was used to being worked, though, Thanh not remaining consistent in her head and frequently stiffening and losing impulsion through her back and Kareem reminded himself that the black mare was primarily a jumping horse, and that it seemed that quite often the Academy horses weren't worked that hard unless they had an assigned rider. With that thought in mind, he decided to do some lateral work to increase her suppleness, get her working through better from behind, and make her more responsive.

As he slowed back down to a walk, he allowed his attention to switch to Rory and Beau for a moment, and smiled at the sight: Rory was well on her way to figuring out the mare's movements, and as he watched she began to post to the trot. "That's starting to look better and like you are on the same page now," he commented as their tracks happened to bring them close together, and then wondered if that was edging into the territory of over-stepping and interfering that he was wanting to avoid.

While half of his brain worried about that, the other half was being far more useful, and was working on getting Thanh to do shoulder in. As a lateral exercise Kareem preferred it to leg-yielding, as it didn't allow nearly the same opportunities for falling out through the shoulders and avoiding the exercise. Thanh resisted the aid, raising her head and bending only her neck rather than stepping inside with her front legs, so Kareem took her onto a ten metre circle and then asked again, legs, seat and lastly hand working in unison. This time, with the bend already established, Thanh managed a few good steps of shoulder in before she stiffened and lost it. "Good girl," Kareem praised, the words accompanied by a stroke, and then used another circle to set her up and start again, praising the mare once more when she managed several more strides of the lateral movement.

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"It's a pleasure to meet you too, Mr Kareem." The man had introduced himself as Kareem, but hadn't offered a surname, and the fourteen year old had always taught to treat her elders with as much respect as she could give them, and currently adding the honorific Mr before his name was all she could do. She nodded to his sage words about different horses, though it didn't help much as she had learned to ride on several of the Academy ponies, so she couldn't work out what her problem with Beau was, it was almost as though she didn't want to get to know the mare, as though she were subconsciously afraid of the bigger mare. "Yes," she agreed nodding. "Time and practice."

As she began to make the effort to actually work with the mare, rather than just ride her, Rory was beginning to find that this mare had really nice movements. Her trot made her seem like she was floating across the arena surface as her hooves seemed to gracefully skim the surface of the sand. Things were going really well when a sneeze seemed to burst from the pretty mare and she slowed down to a walk, which grew slower and slower as she sneezed her way around the arena.

Rubbing the mare's shoulder, not knowing that this was the mare's way of getting out of work, Rory took the chance to watch the man riding Thanh and chuckled softly as she watched the horse resist the man's aids. "She knows what to do." She spoke up, watching Thanh and knowing the mare had been ridden by Cara. "She's just being bratty." She remembered the word that the alumni had used when the pretty Arabian cross was being stubborn. Thinking of Cara made Rory wonder about who was going to exercise the Academy ponies now that Cara had graduated and moved on.