Under The Saddle (Horse Story)

Prologue

I was a born and bred horse girl from the moment I became Cheyenne Adams. I learnt that to be a rider; you had to connect with your horse, and to connect with your horse; you had to listen. After all, a horse was an animal completely unique to any other, due to its beauty, grace, power, and loyalty. A horse could love you and listen to you, better than any human. The bond between horse and rider can be so strong, so unbreakable.

That's what my mother would always say. Her undying love for horses was rooted so deep, it could never be taken from her. Like an ancient oak, roots were so strongly spread, they were a part of the soil. Horses weren't just her passion; they were a part of her soil. The ground in which she grew. A passion stronger than anything else in the world.

My mother was a great rider, known by most as three-star Burghley Trials champion and Olympic silver medallist. To me though, she was just Josie Adams; the stand alone best mother in the world. She was beautiful, kind, and loving, and a die-hard equestrian, passing on her love of horses to me.

I was only seven when she was ripped from my life, leaving only my father and me. It had been the Burghley Horse Trials weekend; her fifth one. I had full confidence in her repeating her previous successes. Everyone did.

For the first time ever, I felt that wave of pure terror that washes over you before something terrible happens. That feeling that hits you right in the pit of your stomach and makes you want to curl up in a ball and cry. That makes you realize how out of control you really are, and that there's nothing you can do.

It hit me like a truck as I watched my mother and her horse, Phoenix, galloping toward the water complex. Seconds before his hoof slipped into an almost indecipherable crevasse in the ground.

The small crevasse that a previous horse had unknowingly created.

The small crevasse that ended both Phoenix, and my mother's lives.

It was also the very day that my own life shattered. I felt it. Like an arrow piercing my heart the very moment my mum went crashing into the water. It wasn't the kind of heartbreak that could be fixed. It was the kind that broke you forever.

The world had frozen, waiting for them to surface. I was pulled away by my father, and taken into his arms. Sirens, panicked voices, and rushing feet suddenly broke the silence. Voices echoed around me, but none of it felt real.

Through all the panic, a hollow sound had filled my ears, drowning out the world, and filling my head with the sound of nothing. White noise.

And it never left until I eventually drowned it out. Nothing seemed to fit the empty puzzle piece in my heart like horses had done, but I could never look at a horse the same.

After all, it was a horse that had ended my mother's life.

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Copyright 2014 Abbie Persson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or any other electronic or mechanical methods, unless prior written permission from the publisher/author.

WARNING: In this book you will encounter a possible a reading addiction.

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Hey everyone, and welcome to my book, Under The Saddle! This book is completed, but is also currently being rewritten, so chapters will be updated freshly edited.

My name is Abbie, and I write as a passion, although would love to get some books published one day. I live in New Zealand, and I'm coffee-addicted, eat way too much avocado, and am obsessed with buying new journals and writing lists.

Thank you all for clicking on my book, and I hope you enjoy it! Comments, votes, and even reads make my day every day, but most of all I hope that you enjoy the book <3

|| Abbie xo