Galloping Hills Academy Book 1: Secrets

Chapter 13- Switching Horses

         T.G.I.F.

          Class let out on Friday afternoon and Katelynne and I headed to the barn for our afternoon lesson. Sadie road in the mornings and we rode in the morning and the evening to get ready for the schooling show.

          I walked down the stable aisle dodging horses in cross-ties and went to Justin’s stall.

          “Hey boy, did you have a good day?” He was sleeping in the back corner of his stall. “Let’s get you ready for our lesson, we have to make you shine.” He seemed to wake up with that and walked over to me. I got my grooming box out of my tack trunk and started picking his hooves.

          Fifteen minutes later I was in the ring, with Isabelle and Carson walking around. I started to post to Justin’s trot. We made two laps around the ring and then I started sitting. I picked up my left and right leads at the canter and then Mr. West walked in.

          “Good afternoon, please spread your horses out and we’ll get started.” He instructed.

          We all spread our horses out and waited for instructions.

          “Start at a sitting trot and drop your stirrups.” This was going to be intense.

          We made two laps before he asked us to start posting. Two laps later, my legs were burning, and when I looked around I could tell everyone else’s were too.

          “Canter a lap then do a flying lead change.” I urged Justin to canter with my legs, hands, and seat, and he picked it up without hesitation. We went around a lap and turned to the middle. Justin did an amazing lead change and we cantered on the right lead.

          “Pull your horses up and line up in front of me.” He said. We guided our horses to the middle and stopped.

          “I would like you to dismount and ride the horse to your left.” I looked to my left and saw Carson, then I looked to my right and saw Katelynne. I could totally ride Cherokee and I knew that Katelynne would love Justin.

          “Cool, I haven’t ridden Cherokee in a long time.” I said smiling at Carson.

          “I want to work on jumping, the jumps are set at 2’4 so there shouldn’t be any problems. Katelynne, you can go first with Justin, Natalie second, then Carson, Edward, and finally Isabelle.

          Katelynne urged Justin forward and did two circles at a trot and two circles at a canter before turning him to the first jump. He jumped the black rail easily and I noticed for the first time, how fluent he was. Katelynne moved slightly in the saddle over the second and they cantered to the third. I started counting down strides in my head and I new Justin was going to shove a step in. Katelynne through herself at the jump, expecting him to take off. She went up on his neck but stayed on. She was rattled but she tried to focus. They got over the fourth and fifth and were cantering towards the final jump, a double oxar. I counted down strides and Justin cleared it perfectly. She road over to us with a frown on her face.

          “Very good Katelynne, Justin likes to shove steps in before the jump and it takes practice to get used to it.” Mr. West praised.

          “Thank you.” She said, a hint of a smile showing on her face.

          “Go ahead Natalie.” I gathered Cherokee and could feel everyone watching me as a turned him away from everyone and started at a circle. I only did two circles before turning Cherokee to the first jump and he sailed over it, his powerful stride carrying us to the second jump fast. We landed from the second jump and three strides later we took off for the third. We landed and I did a half halt because he started to speed up. We cleared the fourth and fifth and I let him speed up a fraction to get over the spread of the oxar. Three, two, one. We sailed through the air and landed cleanly on the other side. We rode over and I tried hard not to smile, that had been a pretty good ride. But I knew that my heels had come up over a jump and my wrists weren’t straight the whole time.

          “Good job, make sure you keep your heals down, I think you should try jumping with no hands sometime. Also keep your wrists straight. Other than that, it was an amazing round. Have you ridden Cherokee before?” Mr. West asked.

          “Yes, I rode him a couple times over the summer.” I said.

          “Okay, go ahead Carson.” I knew that he would do great on Yada. They had a clear round and so did everyone else. We cooled out our own horses and untacked them. I walked down the aisle after cooling and untacking Justin. I found Carson at the end of the aisle waiting for me.

          “Hey, great lesson. You were amazing on Cherokee.” Carson said, putting his arm around my waist.

          “Thanks, you did great on Yaida too. He can be difficult sometimes.” I wrapped my arms around him and let him hold me.

          “Want to go to the Diner then the Sugar Shoppe later with me, you can bring Katelynne and Sadie if you want.” Carson asked me.

          “Yeah, that would be great, then you can come over and watch movie’s with us.”

          “Sounds like the perfect night, with the perfect girl.” He said smiling a mile wide.

          “How about, we meet at the Diner at 7:00?” I suggested.

          “Okay, see you then. I’ll miss you.”

          “Miss you too.”

          I walked down the aisle to find Katelynne so we could go back to our dorm and change and do some of our homework before we start our Friday night.

          “Carson wants to know if you and Sadie want to come with us to the Diner and the Sugar Shoppe?”

          “Yeah, sounds good to me.”

          “You ready to go back to the dorm?” I asked her.

          “Yup, let’s go. We can’t have you starting the water works again cause you miss your boyfriend.” She teased.