Post by archibald on Jul 9, 2012 20:58:36 GMT -5
Thankfully, the transition from Mitch being head trainer to Ash had gone fairly smoothly for Close Racing, as it was Ash had been just as much in charge in the first place as Mitch had been, so there really wasn’t too much of a big difference in what went on. It was entirely understandable why he’d wanted to do it too, he was a single dad and they all had known how hard it was to juggle that with running a racing stable, and he deserved the break. Jo didn’t think she’d end up having kids herself, unless she decided to retire from jockeying and by some miracle Jordan decided that he wanted them. Neither of which events was going to happen any time soon.
She wandered down to the practice track, spotting Lily already down there with one of the grooms, Ash standing by yawning widely, not blaming him for being so tired, what with having new twin girls on top of early morning starts and all. “Morning sunshine,” she greeted him, when she reached them, grinning at the much taller man. He waved slightly, rubbing his eyes for a few moments.
“Just a light breeze for her today, I don’t want to push her too hard before we get to her race, the last thing we need is to burn her out already or get her injured,” he told her, once he seemed to have managed to muster up the energy to talk, and Jo nodded, turning to the groom, who gave her a leg up onto the tall bay filly’s back. Lily jigged a little underneath her, still getting used to the whole thing, but at least she was fairly level headed about the whole thing, considering her age and all.
The groom helped walk her to the gate leading out to the track, since there were no track riders in sight and the filly still needed a little guidance when it came to actually getting out there. Soon they were out on the dirt track, Jo angling her towards the inside railing to run her along, urging her forward into a brisk trot for now, keeping it up for a few lengths to stretch her out and warm her up, before moving her into a canter for a short distance. She slowly let her have a little more of her head, urging Lily even faster, into a slow gallop, keeping the bay Thoroughbred at a slow pace, as Ash said, they didn’t want to overdo it today. Lily fought the bit for a little while but eventually gave up trying to get her head away from her rider, settling down into the pace Jo wanted her to set. She just hoped that she would be that easy to pace in an actual race, it would definitely be helpful to her, and she didn’t exactly like fighting the horses she rode too much on everything.
By the time Jo pulled her back down to a trot again, the filly was covered in a light sheen of sweat, but nothing too over the top, thankfully, and she seemed to have handled it well, definitely seeming calmer than she had at the start of the session. Now all that was left to be seen was whether her conditioning would do her any favours in her next race.
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