Morning Workout (open)

[Andie Simone]

Being the senior (not head) barnhand for the Broodmare barn, also gave Andie the job of exercising the mares - that is when they weren't heavily pregnant.

That morning she have brought the mares in from the pastures along with their foals and put them in their stalls with their breakfast and a fresh haynet, ever so thankful to the help from the student barn hand she had working with her. And then after spending time with her own pregnant mare, while the other finished their food and it digested, she then walked down to the tack room and came out carrying the tack that belonged to the young amber champagne Tennessee Walking Horse. "Hey Suede." She greeted the mare who had just raised her head from the bucket of water. "How about we go for a ride?" She took the mare's olive halter from the hook by the door and entered the stall. "There's a good girl." She said as she slipped the noseband over the horse's nose and flicked the poll strap over her poll and buckled it before leading her out of the stall and tying her to the hitching ring.

After giving Suede a thorough grooming and then tacked her up and led her out to the decently sized arena that was part of the mare's area. Once in the arena, she easily mounted the mare an began to gently warm her up, allowing the mare to break stride every now and then if that's what she needed to do and then settling her into a good frame and a nice forward momentum.

[Peter Solomon]

Peter hung up his phone in disgust and left the office, breathing deeply in an effort to calm himself. The man transporting his newest acquisition had had a very, very thick accent, so it had been hard to make out what he had been saying, but it had seemed that he had gotten the wrong information with the mare, because he had continually said something about a 'Babe'. Peter had corrected him, speaking the mare's name carefully, and the man had argued insistently, leaving both of them frustrated, but at least Peter knew that Arwen would be arriving within the hour.

Deciding to find something to calm himself down, Peter found himself at Corazon's stall. He pulled the mare out of her stall and into one of the grooming stalls before carrying her grooming kit down towards her. After grooming her, he tacked her up, intending to do a bit of jumping with the mare, which had been his original plan for the afternoon anyway. Grabbing her reins, he led the mare towards the arena, although he stopped at the gate as he saw that it was already occupied. Shrugging philosophically, he unlatched the gate, calling, "Gate!", and entered, leading the mare into the middle of the arena to tighten her girth and mount up.

Shifting into the saddle, he found his own spot on the track, keeping the mare at a sedate walk for the beginning, focusing on the mare's stride and motion as a way of forgetting about the conversation that he had just completed. Of course, it still rang in the back of his head, something that he wouldn't forget for some time thanks to the curse of his memory, but even as he picked it apart, he couldn't figure out what in the world the transporter had said. If the wrong horse got moved out here, Peter was going to have a word with the company, and the mare's previous owners.

[Andie Simone]

Andie smiled as she got Suede into a nice frame and moving with good impulsion from her haunches, that she couldn't help the groan when she heard the call at the gate. That was, until she remembered where she was and there would only be a couple of people that would be entering this arena.

"Good morning, Sir Solomon." She greeted with a bright smile when they got close enough to the other pair so that she wouldn't have to raise her voice - as she learned that yelling, even a greeting, tended to ruin a good session. "If you have plans, please don't let us get in your way." She chuckled and shook her head as her mount grew annoyed of her rider's shift of attention and gave a pig-root with a squeal to match.

She sat deep as she encouraged the mare forward again, and growled when Suede dropped her neck and hollowed her back. "Yes, I realise that I took attention away from you for like two minutes, but that doesn't mean you can suddenly act like a brat." She said as she asked for a halt halt, pushed the mare forward and then asked for another half halt and nodded when the mare regained her beautiful frame and was once again moving from behind.

[Peter Solomon]

Peter smiled at Andie as the girl approached him on a mare that was unmistakably Suede, "Good morning, Andie." He liked the barn hand, and knew her to be a diligent worker, so he didn't even think to question if the morning chores were done before she had started exercising the mare. At her offer on the run of the arena, he nodded, "Thank you. I was thinking of perhaps taking Corazon over some jumps later on, but I don't need to set up a full course, so you should have enough room as well."

He saw the mare misbehaving and instinctively moved to gather the mare's reins, a reflex that he had come to hone when he had been riding Knight, but he hadn't needed to worry with the more mild-mannered mare. With the tightened grip, the mare flicked her ears back, obviously annoyed. Peter frowned at himself and released his grip, moving the mare into a trot to cover the moment. As the mare recovered her good temper and Peter once again lost himself in a work, he almost tuned out Andie and Suede, only keeping track of their movements with the minimum that he needed to keep them safe.

[Andie Simone]

Andie grinned but kept her concentration on the mare as the last thing she needed was for the mare to throw another tantrum otherwise it would ruin the entire session.

When her boss mentioned putting some jumps up later on, the young woman perked up a little as she knew that jumping was possibly on the plans for her young mount's training. "Sir Solomon, since she's not in foal, would you object to me trying her over a couple of low - and we're talking lower than pre-novice - fences?" She asked with a hopeful smile, and then she could continue the mare's training and might possibly get her up to novice before she was in foal.

She bowed her head to the man, offering him a graceful dressage salute and got the mare moving again, suddenly deciding to work the mare though a dressage test, one that would only use have the arena so that they would stay out of the way of the other pair. After all, the man was her boss and keeping in his good books kept him happy and when he was happy so was she. It was just because of where she was before she returned to Blue Ridge, that she tried not to be anywhere alone with the barn manager, she didn't want to put herself in a position where rumours from the barn she had been a pupil at could come back and slap her in the face.

"You really are a good girl." She whispered to the mare. "You just need to keep your head in the game and forget that you are a bratty toddler at times." As they got to the corner, she asked for a trot and then asked the pretty mare for a half-pass but Suede only managed to get to the middle of the arena before her concentration wavered as she caught sight of a bird and let out a squeal.

Shaking her head, Andie asked the mare for a circle, which she turned into a figure of eight to change rein and worked her around in the other direction.

[Peter Solomon]

Peter shook his head as Andie asked about jumping the mare, "I don't think that would be a problem." He knew that, according to the mare's papers, she was supposed to be trained in jumping sooner or later, but he had never undertaken it himself, and if Andie wished to do so, he had no issue with it, "As long as you don't push her too high, too fast, that is." He returned the mock salute, with the little grace of one who had never had to compete in dressage, then turned to their own workout.

Once he had settled Corazon after his slip, he asked the mare for a trot, letting her set her own pace for a round of their half of the arena before he worked on collecting the mare's trot, then later asking her to extend it for a lap. The mare moved well, obviously a result of both her hunter training and her polo training, which Peter had yet to make use of. He had looked into the sport for a little bit of fun, but hadn't found a reason to test the mare yet, although she had been said to be a decent 'pony' for the sport.

[Andie Simone]

Andie smiled and gave the mare a pat on her neck, excited about being able to train the youngster. "I promise that today will me nothing more than tiny cross-rails, and I give you my word that I won't push her. I like a horse to fully understand the idea of pre-novice fences before moving them on anyway." Andie also knew that even though the mare was a jumper prospect, the young horse may not even take to jumping anyway. Just because that's what her parents did, didn't always meant that the foals would follow in their footsteps - or hoof-prints depending on how you looked at it.

As she continued to ride the mare around the arena, she planned out the jumps she wanted to work Suede over. Thinking about jumping made her think about where she had worked as a pupil... She thought things had been going really well at Silver Spurs. Their boss was a really good judge of horse and he carefully bred his own stock. She knew that she should have ignored his advances, but he was so sweet about it, and she thought he was being genuine and that he really did like her.It was when they started sharing a bed that she knew that she was making a mistake. However, it was the fall she took three months later and then her speedy departure from Silver Spurs that she knew that she had been made a fool of, especially when she was given the warning never to speak about what happened.

She flopped forward on the mare's neck as Suede bucked. "Sorry wee one." She said as she sat tall again and turned her attention back on the mare, quickly raising a hand and wiping the tears from her cheeks, suddenly angry at herself for thinking about it and then crying. However, it wasn't so much the loss of the position that hurt her so much, it was the fact that she had been pregnant before that fall and not afterwards.

[Peter Solomon]

Peter nodded again as he heard Andie's plans for the mare, "That sounds like a good start for her." He glanced at the mare, thinking, but he wasn't sure about her training before she had come into the ownership of the academy, and only passingly familiar with the work done with her before he had arrived to the Evening Primrose barn, so he didn't speak about what he suspected was only a half-hearted assignment of 'jumper' talent. The potential was there, but no one had helped the mare to realize that, so to speak. He thought about letting her assigned student continue the work in the early months of the pregnancy, but as the mare's first foal had been a miscarriage, he wanted her to have optimal conditions for her second try, as he couldn't justify a third for her.

Having tested Corazon's range of trots, making sure that she hadn't miraculously forgotten the cues since the last time he had worked her, he nudged her into a canter, relaxing into the motion as he could stop posting. They passed Andie a couple of times, but he had almost completely tuned out the girl apart from her current location, focusing his attention on again cuing the mare to extend or collect her canter, before asking her to change her lead. Once he was happy, they worked a couple of figure eights, and when he was sure that Andie was on the other side, a trotted spiral, before he slowed the mare to a walk again and glanced over at Andie, "I think I'm going to set up some jumps for Corazon, would you like me to set up a couple of pre-novice for you and Suede?"

[Andie Simone]

Andie pulled herself together and once again rode the mare properly, using her body language to apologise to the mare for her sloppiness in the saddle. She jumped as the barn manager spoke, but she quickly recovered and gave the man a bright smile - so many years a cheerleader made the Hollywood smiles come easily. "That would be great, thanks. Just a couple of cross-rails, please, something that she could jump, but low enough for her to step over if she chooses not to." She said as she kept Suede moving easily around the arena, keeping out of the way of the man who was constructing the fences and the mare that he had been riding.

When the fences had been set up, she looked at the two cross-rails. Rubbing the mare's neck, she kept her hands light on the reins as she deepened her seat a little and held the mare steady with her legs, but not gripping and confusing the youngster. Asking Suede to walk forward, they approached the fences with confidence, the mare echoing what her rider was offering. Andie asked her to walk around the fences and then to do a figure of eight around them. When she was happy that the champagne Tennessee Walking Horse was settled with being around the fences, she then began to set the mare up to approach the first fence. Lining the mare up, she sat tall in the saddle as she asked Suede to move into a trot and they headed toward the fence. Keeping her breathing even, she smiled as the pretty mare got closer and closer to the fence. Even though she knew that the mare might either pull out at the last moment or grind to a halt and then just step over the obstacle, she didn't change how she was sitting, as she didn't want to give the mare any idea to doubt what she was being asked to do.

As they got a stride away from the simple cross-rail, Suede seemed to gather herself together, even at the trot, and then launched herself into the air as they flew over the fence as though it were twice the height. "Good girl." Andie praised her with a pat. "Just try and jump smaller." She laughed as they trotted forward and the mare repeated the same process over the next cross-rail. Shaking her head, Andie steered the mare away from the cross-rails and rode her in circles away from the fences, planning what she wanted to do with the mare - as it was obvious that Suede didn't have any objection to jumping.