Canterwood Crest

Chapter 2: And Summer Begins

I mount and meet with my best friends. Brit is a pale but has the prettiest eyes, chocolate dark brown. Her hair is also a silky brown and she recently got ombré done to it. Mads is completely opposite. She is medium tan and has blonde hair that is straight. Her eyes are hazel which goes perfectly with her skin. All of us are 12 and have been besties sense kindergarten.

Brittney's horse is a beautiful sliver dapple Rocky Mountain Horse. His name is Storm, and he is such a good dressage horse. Maddie has a Haflinger which loves to do cross country. The mare is named Sugar and she is super cute.

We all walk together to the warm up arena. The path that leads to it is surrounded by many trees and plants. Entering the outdoor arena, we walk for twenty minutes and begin to warm up our horses. We separate to give one another room and I begin with a rising trot letting him stretch out his body. With the longer rein, Abba makes use of it lowering his head almost to the ground. Several laps later I come back to the walk. We begin with a large figure eight changing his bend at the center, making sure he moves around my leg with his whole body engaged. I pick up the trot with a shorter rein continuing the figure eight. Working on his frame, he begins to round up. Once he was on the bridle, we moved back to the rail.

I felt so connected with my horse, each step felt right and the unison between us was growing bigger. I kept telling my parents how much I wanted to buy this special pony. Hopefully I will be able to.

We come back to the walk and change gaits into the canter. With my hands always soft on him, he is still round. Practicing shortening and lengthening, we begin to circle and I decide after enough work this way we change direction. I turned into the doubler and did a simple change to the right lead, now tracking right. After some time, we melt into a wonderful warm up and soon enough my instructor comes in watching us. I didn't even realize she was watching until she called out to us, "wow beautiful work you guys" Emily says.
As she signals for us to follow her, we reach our  outdoor jumping arena.

We started with a warm up cross rail. "Okay Chloe you can lead the lesson," Emily says. "Why don't you trot over this small fence and halt three strides after." I pick up the posting trot and reach my fence with impulsion, we jump over the warm up fence landing and counting in my head... 1...2...3... "whoah," I say to Abba. He smoothly comes down to a halt waiting five seconds and then walking away. "That was beautiful! Keep up the good work," Emily says to me.

As the lesson goes on we move into our course. "Okay girls the course is the cross over, to the doubler, then left turn long approach single, to the 5 stride line, rollback to the Liverpool and to the triple combination," Emily tells the class.

I was the first to go. I started at a trot making a circle to warm up. I moved into the left lead canter and came to my first fence, a low 2'6 vertical. Seeing our distance, I raised higher out of my saddle following with my hands over the jump. I felt his knees tuck under him and he leapt over it. "Great first impression Chloe," Emily says. Focusing on the next fence I count down until I lift out of my saddle again. Landing on my right lead we begin over to the doubler. Feeling Abba getting excited I decide to sit a little deeper. His ears flick back at me and he settles. Moments later we soar over the wide 2'9 Swedish oxer. Coming over to the rollback, I turn my head to find the center of my next 3'0 fence. Our pace stays the same and we where airborne for what felt like minutes. Coming down to our combination, we begin with a one stride and move to a two stride. I push a little for the second half of the combo but we have room to spare and he clears it. I stroke and pat him over and over again. "Good boy Zabba! Good pony!" I say to him. I was so proud.

Emily says, "Chloe, that was an amazing round. Really good job! I could barely tell he was getting excited after your cross over, but regardless you handled it perfectly. The rest was flawless. Very good job!"

The rest if my class went and looked good. Emily gave us a reminder to come if we want to help out decorate the barn for our summer party. I made a mental note to help with it!

Mads, Bri, and I took our horses to the barn and decided to go on a trail ride. "I'm gonna I bareback." I said. They chimed in with yeses. I untacked and got back on Zabbers. We walked out together and went to our favorite lake. The summer breeze hit our faces and whistled in our ears. "I will text my dad we will be ready in an hour," I said. "Wasn't he watching the lesson though?" Mads asked. "Yeah, but he needed to go home first," I responded.

While we waited for dad to answer, I asked, "so, do you guys want to help with the summer bash?!" "Yes!" they both said. "Great! We should ask Emily after the trail ride and.." *chime* *chime* *chime* "Oh my dad said he'll come in about an hour. So we should head back once we reach the creek, ask Emily, and then head home!" I said. "Okay sounds good! We should also rent a movie tonight, and get popcorn, ooh and.." Mads said. We gave her that look. "Yeah yeah I know I get carried away. That's just who I am!" We all started laughing.
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We got to the creek and I slipped off my boots. Then I rolled up my breeches and peeled off my sweaty socks. Abba made his way into the water. He splashed and pawed at the water. He LOVES  the water! I laughed at him and hugged him. Mads took a pic of me and him. "Ooh send that to me!" I said. "Okay." She said. Once I got it I posted it on Instagram. My caption was: "first day of summer spent well!" And I tagged them. I posted it. "Awww." They both said. I checked the time. "Oh we should get back now." I said. And with that we grabbed out stuff and headed back to have a fun night.