The Storm Before Dawn

Chapter 4

Later that night after we were in bed and Zara was asleep I snuck down stairs to go say hi to the horses.

I closed the kitchen door and got into my boots. As I walked over to the barn doors I was thinking about what Zara had said.

Why would she only like me? Was it a woman who beat her or was it a man? Why would she like me if she was beat by a woman? And why wouldn't she like Amy, Andrea or Zara if she was beat by a man? All these questions were running through my head along with many more.

I open the barn doors a crack and walked over to where a sticky note was stuck to Sky's door.

A,
Sorry I missed you, I came when you were eating dinner. See you tomorrow!
~Z

I was sad that I missed Zœ, Zœ was another one of my friends. She rode her horses Red Hot Pepper and Jump For Joi here because Pepper was a horse that my mom rescued and Zœ adopted. I hoped that we could jump tomorrow. Zœ and I love to jump so I hoped she would want to jump tomorrow.

I walked down the aisle to where we put Dawn. She was standing at the back of her stall looking really weak but determined to live. I was happy she was regaining the will to live.

"Dawn," I said

She pricked her ears at me and took a few steps towards me. She trusted me already and we only got her today.

"Good girl"

I thought about what Zara said earlier that she liked me and now I really think she does. I am not sure why but maybe because I was the one who rescued her but I couldn't be sure.

I walked back up to my room and crawled back in to my bed my mind at ease.

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I woke up at 6 am to go feed and muck out the horses. Then I remembered that Zara slept over last night so I threw my pillow at her.
"Wake up!"
"No"
"Lets go see the horses"
"Fine"

We got up and got dressed, luckily we didn't care what we looked like because we were just going to see horses anyway. It only took us about 10 minutes to walk down stairs and get into the barn.

We each grabbed a wheel barrel and started on either side of the aisle and would meet in the middle. We decided to skip Dawn and the other new horse Rapid dash also know as Dash. Dawn was on my side and Dash was on her side so we had the same amount. Then we had to clean the other three barns all of which had 10 horses in it. So we each had to clean twenty stalls a chore I hated. We took about 2 hours to clean all of the stalls. It normally took about 3 hours to clean all of the stalls so with Zara helping I shaved off a hour.

Once we were finished cleaning all of the stalls we made sure all of the horses had water and hay then headed inside to eat breakfast.

My mom had made waffles with strawberries and blueberries. We devoured all if them in like 5 minutes. Then we headed upstairs to change out of our jeans and in to our breeches/jodhpurs and tall boots. We headed down to the barn again to exercise Sky and Zara's horse Liberty AKA Jet. Jet is a bay pony that my mom had rescued a few years ago then Zara adopted him.

We decided to go on a trail ride and race back. Both of our horses loved it! They tied on our race though Jet had been in first until Sky wanted to win. Sky also decided to add in a little playful buck. We cooled them out and out them away. Then we got out the next horses, two of the borders horses that the owner was away on vacation.

Their names were Iron and Tulip. They were dressage horses so we mainly did things like Walk, trot, canter, and a few more complicated moves. the most advanced I got was a little bit of piaffe and passage just because these were really talented horses.

Our final horses we worked before lunch were Dawn and Dash. All we did was see if they would let us enter their stalls and sit in the corner and see what they do. Dash stayed at the back of her stall the entire time but Dawn actually walked towards us and stopped a few paces before us.

"Good girl"

Then we decided that that was enough so we slowly got up and left the stall.

We walked into the house laughing and giggling. My mom flashed us a quick smile before turning back to the stove where she was making grilled ham and cheese, one of my favorites! She finished them and slid them on plates with Doritos and we ate it in about 2 seconds we were so hungry from working all morning!

Once we finished lunch Zara said she had to go but would be back tomorrow morning to help me muck out stalls again. We said our goodbyes and Zara left. I walked back out to the barn and Zœ ran up to me and tackled me like she does every time we see each other.

She asked me if we wanted to go jumping and I said yes. She went to get Joi her jumping horse while I went to get Flash my training project. I had been training Lightening Flash for about two months and he was doing really well! His owner owned a really fancy jumping barn that I had visited and when a horse got loose I did really well catching it so she wanted to see if I could train a horse that her trainers didn't have time for. I had been training him ever since I think I am training him for a year or two until he goes back.

I tacked him up and put on his figure eight bridle and met Zœ out in the jumping arena.
"How high do you want them to start?" Zœ asked me.
"Lets start with a simple 18 inch course. I think we'll warm up over that the put it up to two, is that fine with you?"
"Yep can we also put up a three foot so I can practice over that?"
"Fine with me!"

We set up a course of seven jumps all at 18 inches or lower. I finished warming Flash up while Zœ went over the course first. Then, when she had finished we went over. I aimed him at the first cross rail and trotted over it, Flash decided that he was going to canter it so I let him go and have some fun. We flew around the course and let loose some energy.

Once we finished Zœ and I set the jumps up to about 2 foot. She had an amazing round and I clapped for her. I let Flash go and he had another amazing round! I was amazed at how well he was doing, only a month ago he couldn't go over trot poles now we were jumping 2 foot. I asked Zœ if I could go again. I had Flash go around again and he had another amazing round. Then, I tried something I had never done on Flash before.
"Hey Zœ?"
"Yeah?"
"You want to put them up to 3?"
"You sure you want to?"
"Yeah I think it's time."
"Ok!"

We dismounted and raised the jumps up to three feet. I cantered Flash around for another minuet before heading him towards the first jump. He tucked his legs under him perfectly and landed clean. Then the next jump, next jump, next jump, we were on our second to last jump when I signaled him to take off too late. He nicked the pole with his back legs and I heard the pole flop to the ground. The last jump was approaching 1,2,3, now I signaled Flash to take off and he sailed clean over it.
"Yes! We did it!"
"Nice job Asha!" called Zœ from the other part if the arena where she was watching.

I cooled Flash out and took off his tack and gave him lots of apple horse cookies. Not enough to make him sick, but enough so he knew he did a good job. I put him away and said bye to Zœ because it was already 6:00 time for dinner.

I ran inside and sat down just in time for dinner. We had Mac N Cheese with bacon in it. It was really good! After dinner I went outside to feed the horses their night time feed. When I got done it was 8:00 so I got into sweats and went outside.

I reached Sky's stall and took her out I took her out to our big pasture. I climbed on Sky and took her halter off. I turned on my back and stared up at the stars as Sky grazed along peacefully. I was our there for about a hour and just laid there, I finally decided to go inside and go to bed because I was really tired from working and playing all day.

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The next morning I woke up at 6 am to the sound of restless horses. I wondered what was bothering them because normally they don't wake up until 7-8. I walked down the stairs into the kitchen where Andrea was already up. Her face looked worried as she looked on the cabinets for something.

"You know what's bothering the horses?"
Suddenly her face grew solemn.
She didn't answer for a minuet then said "The vet's here"
"Is the vet clinic open already?"
"No it was an emergency"
I was getting worried when I asked,
"What happened?"
"Dawn collapsed......."

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