simply-said wrote:The gelding sleepily following Alyson through the aisle with his head down low, his neck lowered down to where Alyson would try to stretch it out in a model class. His stride was slow and lethargic, but he did not drag his hooves along the ground. Willy was not the type to do that. His dark brown eyes slightly dulled with sleep, but still had that kind, slightly energetic spark in his eyes, showing that he was in fact alert to what was going on around him. He was just out of it, something that Alyson noted. She figured the gelding would wake up after she groomed him, he always did.
Ally stopped by a big white board with two-colored dry erase markers written on it and names written on the board. Rider names were written in a red, while all the horses’ names were jotted down in black. Alyson was used to seeing this familiar white board. It was the plan of who was riding whom each day. Her mother had set it up this way as soon as they started getting big, not wanting people to come running up to her each day asking her who they were riding and such. If the name was on the board next to your name, you rode them and if you couldn’t get around to them you had to Alyson’s mom, Carolyn. Ally had nine names next to her name, Fabio, Déjà, Eli, Vinny, Nick, Cat, Lime, Reno, and of course Willy.
It was going to be an interesting day for pretty much every horse on that list was green in one way or another. Most of them were jumpers ether in the making or already being shown as one. Fabio, Vinny, Eli, and Willy were the only ones who did not have some serious jumper plans in the near future. Fabio was a hunter who could be a quite serious large junior hunter or maybe even more, Vinny was an equitation prospect who they were bringing up, and last but not least Eli was a hunter with tons of scope and skill but was a little on the green side.
As Alyson inspecting the list of horses she had to ride, Willy was sniffing a cat that had slinked out from somewhere as Ally had a lazy arm thrown over the bay’s neck. The cat was a white and grey tabby cat named Hermes. At Clear View they named all the cats after saddle brands. They currently had Pessoa, Hermes, and Bates. Alyson glanced down at the two and smile as Willy’s nose nuzzled the back of the cat. “Come on, Dork. Let’s leave the kitty alone.” She said, scratching the gelding’s neck before walking him into the cross ties.
Spinning him around, she clipped him into the two hanging crossties by pulling the silver safety release latches through the hardware of his leather halters with a small snap. Patting the gelding on the neck, Alyson stole into the tack room to grab her devoucoux saddle, a white baby pad, girth, a fluffy half pad, Willy’s supple leather halter, standing martingale, and black polo wraps. Walking back out, she set her stuff down. After setting her stuff back down, she walked over to the radio they had and turned on to her favorite rock station with classic rock playing. Normally they played classical music or the grooms turned it onto the local Spanish channels, but seeing as she was the only one in the barn, she allowed herself to listen to her music as she started grooming her horse.
She first picked up the handy dandy curry with its hard rubber teeth, as she ran it over the gelding’s coat in circular motions over the horse’s coat. Once the entire coat was roughed up, she switched it up for a hard brush and kept on taking the brush over the gelding’s coat until it was gleaming in the light. Her attention fully on her work as she made the gelding shine. Even though they were not going to show, Ally wanted her horse to look show ready. There was no reason not to spend extra tlc on her horse when she had time, the grooming giving her a chance to bond even more. She was so into her work, she had not realized someone else was in the barn until she heard a voice behind her.
She turned around, surprised to hear a masculine voice in the barn mainly filled with females. The only a few men came to the barn, and she had known their voices well, those men had been people she had been around since she was a little tot. This voice did not belong to any of them, in fact a strange boy who looked around her age.
Ally’s eyes darted over the young man in front of her, taking in his rather handsome features before falling on the chestnut mare beside him. The mare was pretty looking, an obvious warmblood and a big one at that. She appeared to be maybe a bit larger then her boy standing next to her, who was very interested in the mare in front of him. Willy was stretching forward into the halter, giving a throaty knicker. So he was the new rider. Alyson’s eyes moved back to the man, he was not what she was expecting. To be honest she was expecting a girl. Although, his gender did not mater to her, she was just surprised her mother had never mentioned it.
“Uh, my mom will be out soon.” She said after a moment of hesitation, “I could show you where to put her up if you want.” Ally said, placing the hard brush down, her eyes staying in contact with the young man’s eyes.
