The Storm Before Dawn

Chapter 18

Well here goes nothing...

I got out of our truck and start to walk over to Brittaney. She hugged me and shook my hand.

"I am really excited to see how well you have done with Gunner and Onyx!" She squealed.

"I hope you are happy with them!"

"We'll just have to wait and see"

She helped me unload Gunner and Onyx and put them in crossties. Then we walked back out and grabbed their tack trunks, my helmet and my jumping vest.

Gunner's color theme was teal, where Onyx's color theme is purple. I figured that teal went with purple really well too. My jumping vest was also teal, and my helmet was gray with, yes you guessed it, teal stripes. I don't know if you can tell, but I love the color teal!

I saddled up Gunner while Brit saddled up Onyx.

"Wow she is so much better at being tacked up!"

"Thanks!"

We led the two of them out to the dressage arena. Brit decided that I should ride Gunner first, I mounted Gunner and started warming up. Gunner felt a little nervous, but otherwise responsive and fluid. We trotted around and suddenly, we clicked. Before, we were a good team, but now we were perfect. I felt like the two of us were unstoppable.

"Wow!" I heard Brit whisper by the gate.

I asked for a canter, and we glided. His even hoof beats on the ground, the peace of becoming one. No longer was it him and I, it was US. We glided along, and I cantered across the diagonal and asked for a flying change. We had never done this before, but I thought we were ready. He switched leads without even blinking an eye.

We finished by doing some extensions. Both at the trot and at the canter. When we pulled up at the gate, Brit's mouth was almost hanging open.

"Now that was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!" She almost screamed.

"I can't take all the credit, he did the work!" I said patting Gunner.

"I guess I need to raise your pay!"

"What?"

"$200 is a starting pay, most of my trainers get paid $100 a week for one horse"

"And I thought I got a lot of money at $200!"

"We'll see how you do on jumping both of them and then dressage on this girl," she patted Onyx, "But if you do even half as good I may raise it to $300 each a month!"

All I could do was stare at her with my mouth hanging open.

"Are you serious?"

"Nope," she said popping the p, "I just go around handing out money to strangers!"

"Wow," is all I am capable to say.

A few minutes later, I have cooled out Gunner and loosened his girth and am now warming Onyx up. Like Gunn she was tense, but was still responding nicely.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•

Forty-five minutes later I am warming Gunner up for jumping. We are still in perfect sync and flowing perfectly. This course of jumps are 3'- 3'6 easy for Gunner and I, but Brittany doesn't know that.

I circle Gunn and guide him to the first jump. We soar over it in perfect sync, once more not two, but one. We land and focus on the next jump, a double oxer. Once again we soar over it, with room to spare. The rest of the course goes the same way, jump,land, jump, land, perfect.

At the end of the course I ask Gunner to trot.

"Hey Brittany?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you raise them a foot?"

"You sure?"

"Positive!"

She raises them up, and once again, we have a perfect round. Gunner was a little winded, but otherwise great for jumping two rounds in a row.

"Ok now I may sound crazy, but can you raise them to a solid five foot?" She didn't even respond, she just stared at me and then did what I asked.

I have to admit, I am always nervous jumping anything over three foot, but I have never been insane enough to jump five foot. I am praying that I don't get hurt and that I make it through this safe.

Once again I circle before the jump them point Gunn towards a the first jump.

3...2..1. Up

We glided around the course until we got to the last jump. I signaled him to take off a split second to late, and he knocks the rail. I don't notice until I hear the THUMP on the ground behind me.

"Ok now THAT was amazing!"

"Thanks Gunner is pretty amazing!" I smiled the frowned," but I knocked a jump."

"Who cares?"

"Ummmm... Me"

"Ok if you do but you were jumping five foot and only knocked one jump, that is pretty amazing!"

"Yeah I guess your right" I start to smile again.

"I want you to enter the Three day eventing show at the end of next month. They have the TDE classic class, but they also have open classes in each of them. You can show Onyx in the classic and do open on Gunner in both Dressage and Show jumping!" She blabbered on, but I tuned out. A show on two amazing horses!

"Can I bring Flash and Dawn too?"

"Yes yes yes! You can even invite your friends to the show too!"

"Yes!"

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•

I looked over at my clock 11:00AM. After practicing with both Onyx and Gunner in all three categories I was exhausted. Onyx jumped well, but not as good as Gunner. Those horses amaze me. I think with the proper training they could be Olympic quality horses.

After looking out my window I see the horses grazing in the pastures, where we left them out after working them. I see Flash and Dawn, Gunner, Onyx, Sky, and Star. Star reared up into the night sky and I snuck out of the house to go see them.

As soon as Dawn saw me, she trotted up to me and I climbed up on the fence and swung my leg over her. Finally, after over two months she was finally filling out.

I signaled Dawn to canter and off we flew through the pasture with not a care in the world...

Andrea's POV

Asha has been sneaking out of the house at night more often. I think being by the horses helps calm her. The way she rides, one with the horse and care-free. Maybe one day... Maybe