The Fight

3.

     "Now keep your leg on her. Good, that's it, more energy now."

     Alexandra leaned against the fence as she watched Nicola instruct a few of her students. They were all around Alexandra's age, and most of them were quite good. The focus of horsemanship in the UK was so different from Spain or Portugal. Showjumping, eventing, fox hunting and racing appeared to be the main components. Alexandra always found the show environment in the UK fascinating, and Scipio didn't mind jumping, but they couldn't do anything technical or particularly high. He had been taught to jump for working equitation, and his jump was designed for clearing obstacles with ease and efficiency. It wasn't meant to be pretty, and Scipio didn't have it in his nature to respect fences the same way any jumper would.

     "Lower your hands now, you need to keep them quiet. Now use your lower leg...leg, leg, leg."

     Alexandra dragged her attention back to the arena where Nicola was dealing with one of her toughest students.

     Cressida Paxton was a typical egotistical girl who was only in it for the ribbons and her parents praise. She also had a tendency to try and make Alexandra's life a living hell. So she didn't bother to hide the tiny smile that crossed her lips as Cressida struggled with the new gelding her parents recently bought her. Although, she couldn't help but feel a tiny bit of pity for the horse. He was well bred with a nice conformation and a pretty dapple grey coat, not to mention the natural jumping talent and a beautiful bascule jump. But that talent was wasted on Cressida; the horse knew what he was doing, she did not.

     "Are you wishing ill luck on that poor girl?"

     Alexandra flinched before catching herself. She turned to face Callum who'd come to stand next to her without her realizing. Alexandra scoffed, "I'd hardly consider her a 'poor girl'. Besides, it's not entirely undeserved." She replied, turning back to the arena.

     Callum said nothing at first, studying the riders in the arena. "That's too much horse for that girl." He concluded eventually.

     "Exactly!" Alexandra exclaimed, exasperation staining her voice.

     "So why don't you say something?" He inquired, turning those pale blue eyes on her.

     "It's not my place." Alexandra grumbled.

     "Ah. Let me guess, you've said something in the past and it ended up blowing up in your face?" Alexandra winced and suddenly found the fence post in front of her to be wildly fascinating. "Hmm?" Callum pestered, his eyes glinting with mischief.

     She exhaled loudly. "I might have done something as well as just saying something." She muttered.

     Callum only stared at her for a moment before his mouth fell open. "You did not."

     "I did." She said, ducking her head slightly.

     "You rode her horse to prove that what? You were a better rider?" He asked incredulously, a look of utter disbelief on his face.

     "I rode her horse to prove that he wasn't the problem. She was. And I proved that he was a perfectly good horse." She replied, picking at a thread on her jacket. It was awfully torn, with odd stitching and duct tape holding it together in some places.

     "No way. And what happened?"

     Alexandra shrugged. "She still sold him. I was almost fired, but Nicola was too impressed with my riding ability to let me go." She chuckled then, "It took me awhile to live it down too."

     "How high?" He asked.

     Again, she shrugged. "1.50m ish I suppose. I wasn't really paying close attention to the exact height."