Rider Of The Mustangs (Draft)

Training

Chapter Twelve: Training

"Okay, go warm him up while I get a game plan going." I tell Kyla when we reach the small hunter ring. She nods her head, reminding me of a bobble head, before urging Whiskey away and around the track.

I make my way to the centre of the ring where Mikaela and Skye stand looking over the trot poles set up on one of the long sides. I stop beside Skye and pull her into a side hug before turning to look at Mikaela. She smiles before suddenly plopping down onto the sand.

"We should get him at least over the trot poles today even if he's only trotting over one." I suggest our goal for this training session.

"Good idea, I'll set up one right in the middle!" Skye grins before dragging one into the middle and dropping it. She comes back to our side before hurrying back so it's actually straight.

"Can you head over and grab me some food?" I ask her as I pull out a ten dollar bill. Skye snatches it from my hand and takes off cackling.

"Buy me a deep fried Mars bar while you're at it!" Kyla calls as Skye dashes out of the ring. I roll my eyes before turning to glare at Kyla.

"Start trotting!" I call out. She gives me the middle finger salute before urging Whiskey into a trot around the ring. I turn to look at the two jumps that are both small cross rails with about five strides in between them.

Just as I'm about to tell Kyla to start cantering, I feel my phone begin to vibrate in my pocket. I pull it out and frown as I see the caller ID. HOME it says in big letters across the screen. It must be an emergency. I wave Kyla over and once we're all gathered around I press the accept button and put it on speaker.

"Hey, what's happening?" I ask as I hold the phone in between us all. "Kyla and Mik are listening too." I add as an after thought. Nobody says anything for a minute and I know something terrible has happened. Please don't be anything too horrible. "Hello?" I ask when still nobody says anything.

"-put it on mute, dumb ass!" The voice of Tessa O'Riley shouts in the background. There's some grumbling and then I realize that Jack must be on the phone, he's never been tech savy.

"Well, how was I supposed to know?" Sure enough Jack grumbles. "Oh shut up." He says to someone in the background. I face palm as they totally forget they called me for a reason.

"Yo! Morons, you called?" Mik shouts closely to the phone to grab their attention. Everything falls silent for a moment or two.

"Ah right, well we have some good news and some bad news. And the bad news is very, very bad news." Jack says.

"Give us the bad news first." Kyla says. "We have some news too, but that can wait till we get home." She adds.

"Rogue's band was poisoned." Those four words cause us all to stare at each other in horror. Rogue is our twenty-three year old Mustang stallion with a palomino roan coat. He is going to come in to be retired in our Mustang field where we can keep an eye on him and make sure he is well fed and healthy.

"How bad?" Mik chimes in. There's silence and I find myself sitting down before I fall down. Mik joins me as we wait for the news.

"He died along with Echo, Monty, Pep and Summer." Jack finally says with sorrow. "And we're not sure if Candy, Arrow and Moonie will make it."

"What about their foals? Are they okay?" I ask as I realize the foals will be nibbling at grass now with most of them being roughly six months.

"The foals are fine a few had some stomach aches, but they're all okay at the moment. We have them all in the indoor arena right now." Jack says.