Heart over jumps.

Rising above it

  I entered the lounge room and my theory about who the owner of the car was proven to be correct. Hunter sat in a chair and on the arm of it sat Briana, they were so caught up in flirting that they didn't even look up. Blake and Trent however did notice and Blake patted the seat on the couch beside him but I pretended not to see instead I grumbled a "hello" and went up to my room.
Moments later there was a knock on my door and before I could respond Blake and Trent entered my room. "You OK?" Blake asked.
I nodded softly "I will be".
"Want to talk about it?" He questioned again.
"Not really, Trent knows" I answered. "Can we just change the topic please? What did you do on the weekend?"
"We had fun, it was a great bonding experience and you should have seen Stephanie's face when she realised that you're the one who bought Champ. I got to ride Champs sire actually, he was amazing! You should see the place it's gorgeous, like the stud farms you see in magazines" Trent said.
"But to teach Stephanie to become a better horse person we have her working hard on ground work and she's banned from riding until she begins bonding with a horse" Blake said.
"You guys really connected there didn't you?" I asked, it was obvious that there was something between them, you could tell by their body language towards one another.
"Well yeah we're kind of together" Trent blushed.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner? You two make a cute couple!" I exclaimed, and they did I was happy for them. My reaction made Blake blush too.
Eventually they talked me into going down to the lounge again. Though Hunter and Briana where still flirting they at least noticed my presence this time. Briana even stopped and turned to me "Hey, I'm Briana".
"Hi, I'm Eden" I greeted.
"Nice to meet you, you all have a beautiful home" She said. OK so I may not like the fact that she's flirting with my crush but she seemed genuine.
"Like wise and thank you" I responded.
"You ride right? I saw the horses out in the paddocks they look gorgeous" She asked.
"Yeah I do, we actually all go to the equestrian high school down the road, well apart for Hunter. Blake, Trent, Hunters brother Seth and our friend Haley they live here too but are away. The blur roan paint is my boy Bandit, I couldn't wish for a better horse" I answered.
"Oh, that's impressive! I heard it was pretty tough to get into that school" She turned to face me properly giving her attention to me. Hunter frowned at me making me smile, obviously he didn't approve of me stealing her attention.
"There were a lot of people try out, I guess we were lucky to have good runs that day. We're actually improving there and are all doing well" Trent informed.

"So do you ride?" I asked Briana.

Briana spent the next 5 minutes telling us about her horse a bay mare Honour who she done the occasional show on but mainly hacked out and practiced at the farm where she boarded.
"That's awesome, you should ride with us someday" I offered.
"I'd love to!" She exclaimed "I don't really have anyone to ride with".
I got an idea then to really piss Hunter off "I was actually about to go ride, I need to exercise Haley's mare Vanity but I'd also like to do some jumps with Hunters brothers horse Rusty. You could ride one of them if you want, I'm sure they wouldn't mind"
"Really? I'd love too, jumping is my favourite" She beamed.
"Well let's go" I smiled and stood, she stood too and followed me from the room.
I took her to the paddock where all the horses where grazing and introduced her to each horse, we brought Vanity and Rusty and tacked them up then I gave her the choice of which horse she wanted to ride, she chose Vanity. We mounted up and rode to the jumping arena.
Briana looked at the course and her mouth dropped open "We're jumping that high?" She asked nervously.
I gave a slight laugh "All our horses are over capable of championship A grade jumps thanks to plenty of practice. But I'll lower them some, I want to get Rusty to concentrate more on technique rather than how high he is jumping. Which grade do you jump?" I asked this so I had an understanding of how high to set the jumps.
"I just started jumping C grade with Honour but have done some B grade jumping in the past" She replied.
"We'll set them at about 80 then?" I confirmed and dis-mounted.
"Sounds good to me. I'll walk the course then take Vanity around the outside for a while, she has a bigger stride than Honour" Briana nodded and dismounted as well and proceeded to pace out the jumps.
I found myself actually enjoying her company which made me feel bad for her, Hunter had her wrapped around his pinkie finger. He would play her as if she was nothing but a sex object as he had to so many girls in the past. "Maybe you should warn her" My conscious said. But when I looked at her my thoughts flashed back to her flirting with Hunter and my jealousy made me shake the thought out of my mind.
I finished setting up the jumps and Briana was still riding around the outside to get used to Vanity so I took Rusty over the course once. I paced him slower than usual to really get his concentration on the jumps and me; I made sure all my cues where clear to him. He really picked up on the slower rounds, focusing on technique.
I admit that the past months practice had really made a difference for both Rusty and Seth. Well they had transformed all of us in one way or another, the school was really helping us to further our abilities. I had always been a fan of 'going back to basics' so as to make sure bad habits didn't have a chance to stick but the school had really made the importance of that obvious. Sure they wanted us to perform well but they made it clear that you had to work with your horse and always gave feedback about what you needed to change instead of letting it continue so that you could advance in your riding. If it got to a point that a rider or horse weren't coming along as they should be then they had a one on one 'back to basic' lesson to correct the mistakes or find the issue.
For the next round I picked up the pace again now that both Rusty and I were concentrated completely. "That was amazing" Briana applauded.
I gave Rusty a pet on the neck and shot a smile at Briana "Now it's your go". She gave me a nervous look "Don't worry you'll do great, trust in Vanity she'll take care of you".
With a nod she asked for Vanity to move on with a slight kick and a click of her tongue. They made their way around the course; she took it steadily as I had with Rusty. Her focus never broke until she completed the course and let out a sigh of relief and she praised Vanity then looked to me with a huge smile.
"What did I tell you? That was great! Your focus never strayed for even a split second, you have so much ability and room to grow as a rider" I noted, causing her to smile even bigger.
We took the horses around the course a few more times and then we went for a fifteen minute trail ride to cool out the horses. Once we got back we groomed them and then Briana helped me get all the horses into their stalls, rugged and fed before going back inside. She really was a great person, now I couldn't bring myself to hurt her or break her trust by telling her about Hunters ways. I'd talk to him about it instead.