BRIAR RIDGE ACADEMY// ELITE

Chapter Two

The entire barn is filled to the brim with horses and riders. Every stall in being used, all the tack lockers are tacked, and lessons are booked from 9:30 AM to 7:00 PM. Every day.

Dana Roberts, the official Briar Ridge scout, who I met over the summer, has chosen Hillcrest to host the trials for the scholarship. Such a fuss over one scholarship.

There are three days of trials, and then the finals. One of the trials is in Hunter/Jumper, another in Cross Country, and the last in Dressage. You must pass all three to advance to the finals. The finals consist of a discipline of your choice, judged by all coaches at Briar Ridge.

Horses are randomly drawn every day, unless you own your own horse. For one day of the competition, you are allowed to ride your own horse, and the rest, you must ride different horses.

The barn has never been this busy, and I imagine that once the scholarship has been taken, it will be empty again. I brush off my breeches as I stand up, and walk over to Lemon's stall. I have taken over caring for him, after Clover got hurt. Lemon flicks his ears forward as I approach. I rub his nose, and take a peppermint out of my pocket. He bites it out of my hand, and nods once he eats it as if to say Yummy, more!

I shake my head and pat his nose before I walk down the aisle. I was able to schedule a lesson for 12:00, at the barn.

Since there are so many people here, and we are a small barn, we don't really have room for everyone. Our largest barn is the 20 stall boarder, and no one, except for boarders and caretakers, is allowed to go in there. Which means we have three barns left to fill with people. The only downside is that those are our schoolhorse barns.

Several of the schoolhorses got moved to a private barn, at someone's house. Anyone who rides the schoolhorses that were moved takes lessons there for now.

Lemon, being in Barn 3, was supposed to be moved, but Laurel let him stay. Laurel let all the caretakers, or at least the ones who do the most work and are at the barn everyday, choose a horse to keep in the barn. I chose Lemon.

I crash into someone while she walks by with a bucket of feed.

"Oh, are you okay?" I look down at her and help her up.

"Yeah, I'm fine. But could you help me find a broom? I need to sweep up this mess." She points down to the ground, where the feed has spilled.

"Of course! It's in the room next to the tack room. Would you like me to refill your bucket though?" I ask after showing her.

"That would be great. Triple Crown Alfalfa Forage Blend. In the feed room, next to another pink bucket." The girl tells me, before she runs to the cleaning room.

I pick up her blue bucket, and make my way to the feed room. I feel like an owner. People are staring at me, and it makes me feel awesome. Because I look like I have a horse.

I walk into the feed room since the door was already open, and head to the back, where a pink bucket is. Next to it, like the girl said, is feed. I grab a scooper that she had in the pink bucket, and scoop a good amount out. Then I put the scooper back in the bucket, and walk back, down the aisle.

The girl isn't there, so I check the cleaning room and see that she's grabbed a broom and is pretending it's a microphone. I am about to take a step back since her eyes are closed, but she opens them. Her face turns beet red.

"I- I am so sorry, I didn't mean to-" I stutter.

"No, it's okay. Thanks for getting my feed. My name is Blair, and my horse is Masie. You're Kennedy, right? The girl who takes care of Masie sometimes?" Blair asks, and I nod.