Stone Brook Academy(A Horse Story)

1. you'll never fly if your afraid of falling

"Tell me pretty lies, look me in the face, tell me that you love me, even if it's fake...LO WE'RE HERE!"

My music is interupted by my sister screaming at me. My anger quikly fades away as I realize we are pulling into Stone Brook Academy! My sister parks the car and we head to the admissions office together.

"Hello Sweetie, what can I do for you?" The lady at the front desk said.

"I am Lauren Smith and I'm a new student here!" I say enthusiastically glacncing at my sister.

"Ok please let me know if any of the following information is incorrect...
Age: 15
DOB: Jan. 18th, 2000
Grade: 10, all correct?" She says.

"Yup!" Me and my sister say at the same time.

"Ok! Here is a packet with all your information, keys, and codes! You can unload your stuff snd have a great time!" We wave our goodbyes and go to unload Nemi and his tack.

I clip his leather lead and chain to his leather halter and lead him towards the barn.

"The packet says he is in stall 27 and that's also what number your tack locker is." My sister yells from behind me.

We find his stall and it is beautiful! It is 12x14 with a black hay net, black water bucket, black grain bucket, and on his stall on a gold name plate it reads "Something Special" with "Nemi" under it in smaller letters.

After Nemi is all settled in my sister, Anna, and I go to put my stuff in the tack locker. The locker is HUGE! I start with my saddles. I put my eventing saddle, dressage saddle, and show jumping saddle, on the saddle racks than I hang up a bridle for each saddle plus my cross country bridle. Than I hang up his black halter, shipping halter, and extra set of reins. I hang up a cotton lead rope to go with each of them.

After I finish putting all his boots, brushes, and my helmets in the locker we head to the car to get my dorm supplies. According to the packet I was in Oak Dorm room 3, and my roomate is Olivia Jenkins. I was so exited. We get my stuff out of the car and head to the dorm room.

We walk up to the door to see the door cracked, Anna pushes the door open and I see a very pretty small brunette girl putting a photo up above her bed.

"Hi! I'm Lauren, but you can call me Lo, you must be Olivia?" I say politely and enthusiastically.

"Yup but you can call me Liv haha." We small talk as Anna and I start decorating.

The walls are light blue and they have a big window that covers half the back wall. It has a bathroom with a seperate bath and shower, and two closets. There are two full size beds with a desk and spinny chair across from each. The floors are hardwood but there is a dark blue carpet that takes up most of the floor. My bed spread is white with blue accents and pillows, while Liv's is white and navy blue zebra stripes.

I hang up pictures of me and my family, me and my friends, and me and Nemi. After we finish I say goodbye to Anna. The Liv and I head down to meet the dorm monitor/riding instructor.

We find her office door open, so we walk in.

"Hi i'm Lauren and this is Olivia! We are both new this year!" I say.

"Yes of course! I'm Liz! I'll teach you guys for private lessons and I am the head coach for the Junior Varsity riding team! Nice to meet you!" We all chat and talk about ourselves for another hour.

"Have you girls signed up for testing yet?" Liz says.

"Testing?" Liv and I say.

"Yes there is Beginner, JV, Varsity, Advanced, and National teams. Everyone is tested to see what team they are on, since you are in grade 10 you will most likely make Varsity, in the common room there are time slots, you test with five other riders! Go sign up! The rings are open so you can practice whenever want! You can jump and do cross country only with a partner though, have fun!" Liz says then waves us off.

We sign up for tommorow's time slot at 9:30am, together. Then we decide to go practice. We tack up our horses and meet in the dressage ring. Liv's horse is a Bay horse that's about 17.1hh named Sky or The Sky's The Limit.

We work on some advanced level dressage moves and flatwork than we decide to practice show jumping. There is a simple course set up consisting of verticals and oxers ranging from about 1.20m-1.40m. We both do warm up jumps than the course twice giving eachother corrections as we go. We then decide to give the horses a break and grab dinner before we do cross country. I take off Nemi's bridle, loosen his girth, and tie him next to his hay and water.

I meet Liv out front and we walk to the pizza place that's on campus. We order a medium pepperoni and ham pizza to share and we both get a dr. Pepper. We finish around 5:45 and head back to the barn to work on cross country. We re-tack up then head to the intermediate/advanced cross country course.

We start by just hopping over some log jumps then running the horses through the water a few times to get them used to it. Then we run the full course and time ourselves. Afterwards we head back to the dorms to have a movie night. While Liv gets drinks I get some food from the common room.

We end up watching Secritariat and eating Popcorn with chocolate, sour straw bites, and twizzlers. Then to drink we have water, dr. Pepper, and cherry coke. Around 9:45 we shower than go to bed dreaming about our day of testing.