Flying Changes

Chapter 2

Once Chester had his bridle on, I lead him into the ring. A little girl on a horse named Whiskers was having a lesson in the ring. I brought him to the middle,and got on using a small block. Once Jen got in, she told me to start trotting. I brought Chester to a trot.

"More pace, he's just being lazy. Good."

After trotting for awhile, Jen told me to let him breathe and then she gave me a jump course. There were 5 jumps, so she made up a random course for Chester.

"You're going to start with the blue diagonal jump, change direction, do the line with the red jump to the black oxer, to the brown jump in the middle, then around to the green one. Got it?"

"Yeah. blue, red, black, brown, green?"

"Got it."

I started Chester cantering, then we started our course. We'd moved onto 2 feet and 8 inches for most of our jumps. The first jump went smoothly. I turned Chester around to the red jump, then went straight to the black. They were both pretty tight, because I messed up my counting, but I focused on returning to the brown jump. That one went smoothly also, so I turned him around to the green jump. The green was the biggest, and we went over it the best, for some reason.

"Beautiful! The line was tight, but other than that, that was great. Do that one more time, then you're done."

I did the same course again, then let Chester walk around for him to cool down. Once he was cool enough, I got off and lead him back into the aisle. This time I lead him to his stall.

"Dakota?" Heather called to me.

"Yeah?"

"Your mom just called from up the hill, Ryan wants to ride."

"Okay, can he ride Spot or Casper? They're both inside."

"Sure, Spot's available."

I untacked Chester while waiting for Ryan to come down, and I also asked my boyfriend Dylan if he wanted to come help me work later, and he said he was coming.

Once Ryan got down, I showed him where Spot was.

"So, this is Spot, you've ridden him before?"

"Yeah, but not for awhile."

"Cool."

Another worker, Carli, came down with 2 horses. The horse she was riding, Liberty, and also Twinkle.

"Hey, Dakota, I just saw something on Twinkle's leg, just checking that it's okay."

"Oh, thanks..."

"No problem!"

I took Twinkle and put her on the wood post. I looked at each of her legs.

"Yeah, it looks like she has a little cut, but it should be okay."

"Okay, good."

I went to the office to find Hazel, the vet that was always there.

"Hey, Hazel, can you just check out Twinkle's leg?"

"Yeah, for sure."

She came to look at it. Twinkle seemed a bit sensitive to it.

"Was she walking different?" She asked Carli.

"Don't think so."

Hazel examined Twinkle's leg. "It looks okay, just a thorn or something."

"Okay, does she need anything?"

"No, maybe just some rest. She will get that tonight, though!"

"Okay, thanks! I'll keep her inside for now."