I stepped out of the stall, pushing the orange wheel barrow out of the way, the wheels squeaked as I rolled it over to the manure pile. It was 12 by the time I finished all my chores, I walked back into the house to change. Slipping on my white tailored sportsman sun shirt, with tan tailored sportsman breeches, and a brown noble outfitters belt. As I got to the door, I zipped my tall boots up, put my long brown hair in a low pony tail, and walked out the door. Whistling as I walked down the short path to the paddocks, I heard Alfie running up to the gate. He knew we normally rode around this time on Saturday's, and he looked forward to it. Jumping around was one of his favorite things. I slipped his halter over his head and walked out of the paddock. He walked slowly besides me, looking around with his ears perked forward, he knew what we were about to do and he couldn't be more excited. I slipped the saddle over his white saddle pad, on his clean dappled back, and put his girth on. The Big in his mouth and bridle over his head, I looked him in the eyes and smiled, making sure he knew, this was gonna be a good ride. I stepped up on the mounting block and slid myself into the saddle, patting Alfies neck with my hand and leading him on to walk. "Hey, Clover, these jumps ok?" I heard a girl say from across the ring, "yea Sydney! Can you stay for a little bit and raise them after a while? I wanna start little and increase as we go!" She nodded her head and sat down on the mounting block to watch me ride. Sydney was one of our stable hands, she normally did some chores in the morning on week days, such as feed, muck stalls, turn out, and exercise some of the boarders horses, and on weekends she would wait in the arena, raise jumps, watch people ride, clean tack, muck out the boarders stalls, feed the boarders horses, and turn in/out. Me and my mom took care of my horse Alfie and Fardela, my mare, because it's responsibility and I find it's easier to bond with a horse when you take care of it yourself. Plus, why own a horse if you can't take care of it? I picked up a trot around the arena and took him over some poles, warming him up to do some jump courses. We had a show coming up in a week, our first ever eventing show, so today I was going to do some show jumping practice, and cross country tomorrow, then dressage on Monday, and back again till next Sunday. We cantered around in each direction, doing lead changes and canter poles to slow him down a bit. I jumped him over some small jumps, and then slowed him down to a walk so Sydney could raise the jumps. "How high you want them? Want me to make a course?" I looked at her and thought for a second, "do 3 feet for about 2 and 2-2,6 for all the others! And yea can you make like a 7-8 jump course?" She started on that, she was quiet and a very good rider, it was always nice having her around. We used to ride Fardela and Alfie together when I had first got him, because I wanted to work with Alfie more and get used to him, so I had her ride Fardela with him. But now that I'm focused more on Eventing with Alfie, we never have time to ride together unless I'm on Fardela and she's on her horse, "Jazzy". She did a lot of stuff around the barn, and she was always really nice, she normally even came to my shoes before she became a stable hand. She used to come and take photos and cheer me on, she's a good friend. She showed me the course and I started to trot around, letting him know we were about to canter a course. I picked him up to a canter and headed to the first jump. When we finished the course, I heard Sydney clapping as she hoped off the mounting block and headed over to me, "you did so good! You're gonna rock this show! I think switching him to Eventing was the best decision you could have made, rather than keeping him in the hunters" I patted Alfie " yea! It is only my first ever Eventing show, and it's really only a small schooling one, but I'm excited! We've come such a long way! I couldn't be happier!" She laughed and patted him with me, I looked at her, "wanna go tack up Fardela and go for a trail ride with me? I'll practice a bit while you tack her up? Plus, I wanna ride her a bit so then after the trail you can maybe switch with me and hop onto Alfie and cool him out or jump him a bit!" She nodded and ran off to the barn to fetch Dela. She was a big chestnut mare, 6 years old, OTTB, she was small for a TB, probably why her racing career wasn't successful. She had a long white blaze and 2 white socks on her front feet, she she knew how to be a hunter! She was beautiful, basically, if you went to a show, you barley had to do any work, she knew she was showing and she was happy too. She walked in the ring with a "just give me first already, you know I'm gonna win" type attitude. I jumped around a bit as I waited for Sydney and Dela, riding the course and getting ready for the show. I slowed down to a walk as I saw Sydney with Dela coming up towards the arena, I walked out and met her, standing next to her as she mounted the 15 hand horse.
