Post by archibald on May 23, 2012 1:26:59 GMT -5
biohazard ,
It was only very early morning, but the weather was already warming up, a light rainfall Jo had encountered on the way to the stable making the air feel somewhat humid. Though, she was glad for the rain, Arty tended to be more of a mudder, and with the rain, the track surface would be good, and the bit of moisture there would be just right for him... and Erin too, when she got to her session. It felt good to get back up on Arty, and right now, she was the only person they trusted to ride Erin, the filly was so green and flighty, she could be a danger to any rider who didn’t know how to handle her properly, or anyone who wouldn’t listen to Johanna’s instructions, preferring to use their own knowledge to do what they thought was best.
Having readied the colt in the barn, she led him out to the mounting yard; the Thoroughbred was fresh, obviously feeling a bit more enthusiastic today than he normally did. “Come on Arty, just a breeze today, pretty easy. Don’t disappoint me, hey?” she spoke to him as she made sure the girth for his light racing saddle was properly secured, adjusting her protective riding vest before a nearby hand helped her up onto the large colt’s back. Aiming him towards the track, she kept him back at a walk, for now, feeling the pull in his reins that said he wanted to run, but she wanted to get her bearings before she let him go.
Arty’s trot felt smooth, for a trot, beneath her – she’d often joked that if he wasn’t a decent racer, he’d make an excellent dressage horse. She had picked up a love of eventing from her mother, and the racing side from her father, and could never seem to be able to separate herself from one world to focus solely on the other. Her crop even dangled uselessly from one wrist, he didn’t need it right now, nor did she use it much, or with as much force as other jockeys she knew did – perhaps letting him know that she did still have it and would use it if he misbehaved too much, or for a small piece of encouragement in the backstretch, but she’d always found that a horse ran better when it wanted to run, not when it was bullied or hurt into doing it.
There was the sound of incoming hoof beats just behind them, and the sound of another horse’s heavy breaths, and another young woman riding a black filly pulled closer to them, catching sight of them out of the corner of her eye. The next thing she knew, the filly was snapping at Arty’s shoulder, the colt reacting with the start of a shoulder barge towards her, picking up a bossy and dominant attitude, he never took crap from other horses on the field. She applied pressure to the reins, pulling him back to one side a little, he was bigger than the filly and she knew that one good knock could leave another horse injured, if he used enough force. She was thankful he acted less like a stallion on track, all business, though off, he’d be just as flirty as any stallion kept at Close.
If she wasn’t in the middle of a workout, and the other rider hadn’t taken off already, she probably would have given them a very large piece of her mind, but instead she just growled to herself, and moved Arty off into a canter, keeping him at a slow one for the rest of the lap of the track, nudging him into a moderately paced gallop once they had done a full circuit, feeling him trying to take the bit from her once they started at the faster pace, obviously getting even more excited than he already was. She kept a firm grip on the reins though, until finally gave up, and stop trying to pull his head away from her.
By the time they had finished the whole breeze, he had settled down remarkably, obviously having worked off that bit of extra energy that he’d had at the start of the workout, although he still took a bit to pull up into a canter, and then into a trot for his cool down. Once she had, and he seemed settled, she reached down to give his slightly sweaty neck a pat, glad that the workout had gone well. And they could only hope that his next race would be the same.