West Palm Riding Academy

chapter one

A cool early-autumn breeze brushed against my cheeks, blowing loose strands of hair out of my face.

I urged the steady chestnut gelding below me into a canter in the corner of the arena.

"Wrong lead," a voice rang out from behind me.

"I know, thanks," I said, slowing the horse back to a trot.

I turned Prince, my cousin Emilia's horse, around and we trotted a serpentine before picking up a correct-lead canter at the other end of the arena.

Emilia clapped from the center of the arena and I smiled at her as we flew down the fence.

"Move that up to the next notch," I called out, sliding the reigns into one hand and pointing to the tiny crossrail next to us.

"Actually, make it a vertical," I corrected, giving Prince's inside reign a soft pull to keep him on the fence.

I watched as Emilia struggled, but finally dropped one pole and raise the second to the fourth bar.

"Thanks," I yelled out, "now step back."

I directed Prince in a quick circle before centering his body with the jump.

Emilia watched as I encouraged the gelding over the fence, his back hooves knocking the pole off the bars.

"Crap," I muttered, patting Prince and slowing him into a walk.

"We've got to work on getting his legs up," I began, "you also got to watch your lead while you're on him, there won't be anyone to tell you if you're on the right one."

Emilia nodded and began rambling about something, but I tuned her out as I gave Prince another pat.

Suddenly, she was standing right next to me.

"Can you take him for a few more rounds?" she asked, smiling greatly.

I looked down at Prince, who seemed to have caught his breath and had his ears perched high on his head.

"I guess I could take him through a bounce grid with some ground poles to work on his back side," I told her, dismounting the gelding. "Walk him while I set it up."

She nodded in response and I turned to set up my bounce grid.

Recently, my grandfather got me and Emilia enrolled in West Palm Riding Academy, Georgia's highest-ranked equestrian boarding school. It lies by the coast, a straight fifteen-minute drive from the glorious beaches. West Palm is known for it's prestigious campus grounds, it's top-class riders and the prix-level horses.

My horse, Irish, was purchased from the academy around seven years ago as a filly by my grandfather's nephew, who trained her and relocated her here as a gift to my grandfather.

Price was a rescue that my aunt's friend heard about online, and decided to adopt. She trained him incredibly well. He's completely bullet-proof, not so much a show jumper, but can carry anyone anywhere and over anything. 

Then, she got into a car accident. Sadly, she was paralyzed from the waist down. Somehow, she got the news that Emilia had a growing interesting in horseback riding, and generously gave Price to Emilia, who kept him with Irish at my grandfather's barn.

Grandfather's barn is in east Michigan, but as soon as he heard that we both got into West Palm, he sent the horses down to his friend in Georgia, which is where we are now, setting up bounce grids for a horse that's better off teaching rather than being sent with an green rider, blinded by her cockiness, to a prestigious riding academy.