The Riders Academy

The next morning, I woke up early, and tacked Dragon up, putting on his red personalised saddle-cloth, his red boots, his bridle, and his saddle, I put on my body protector, my cross-country hat, and went into the arena to wait on the rest of the group, and chatted with the cross country instructor, Alex. Alex said that he liked Dragon a lot, and that he admired me as a rider. The rest of the class came in, and we got started. I was paired with a girl called Natalie, who rode a liver chestnut hunter, called Oscar. We rode up to the cross-country field together.

At the field, we were given time to warm up. I cantered figure-of-eights, a flying change, collected canter, extended canter, I tried to impress the class. Soon enough, the whole class, including Alex, couldn't take their eyes of me. I showed off a bit, and by the end, they were clapping, even Lucy looked impressed. I trotted back to the group, and we made a start. Dragon jumped perfectly, and I was the star of the class.

The next lesson was dressage, and Dragon got a 45 minute break, before we had to go out and meet Samantha, the dressage instructor. "Ah, I hear you're the new pupil. I seen you at HOYS and Olympia, and I was very impressed." The class came in and we started warming up. I got Dragon on the bit and pushed him into a collected trot, working trot, extended trot. We then did a half-pass across the school, a piaffe, passage, into collected canter, circle, figure of eight, flying change, working canter, extended canter, and then straight into a walk. Spanish walk, extended walk, free walk, and then into a square halt. Once again, the whole class was watching, and looked very impressed. "Right, today, we are going to have a very relaxed lesson. In a line, please, and canter to the back." Dragon preformed perfectly once again.

It was lunch time, and Chelsea, a girl called Erin, a girl called Jess, Natalie and me went up the street together. We talked about horses, Erin rides a bay warm blood called Liberty, and Jess's horse is a cremello arab, called Euphoria. Chelsea specialises in Showjumping, Jess specialises in Dressage, and the rest of us are eventers. We got back, and tacked up again, because we had a show jumping lesson with Zara after lunch.

Zara's lesson went very well. The jumps were high, about 3-4 feet. Dragon did the fastest round. Again, everyone was impressed. After the lesson, we had a lecture on tack cleaning by the house mistress, Elenor. I cleaned Dragons black dressage bridle, his saddle and I brushed his saddlecloth. That night, I went to bed with a smile on my face, really enjoying my time at college so far.