Hockwood Academy || An Eventer's Haven (Book 1)

Settling In

Apollo settles in quickly, so I decided to ride the next day.

I got there early, (about 9:30 am) and claimed a set of cross-ties by unfolding the wooden collapsible saddle holder and taking my grooming kit out of my tack box and placing it on the ground near it.

I walked in to the tack room and grabbed my saddle and bridle, and stepped back out to place it on the wooden holder, and hung the bridle on my stall.

"Hey buddy," I said as I opened his stall and slipped his halter into his head, leading him out to the cross-ties.

I clipped him in the ties then retrieved my hard brush, since he was pretty clean, he just need a once-over.

When I was done with that, I got my baby blue hoof pick and simply tapped his leg and he lifted it right away. I held his foot in one hand and dug the hoof pick through the dirt and sawdust, being careful of the frog of course, until it was totally clean. I repeated this with all four hooves before he was clean enough to tack up.

I placed his aqua saddle pad on his back, then his wither pad on top of it before placing his saddle on top.

I pulled his girth up to the second hole before going around to the other side and tightening it to the third hole.

Finally, I decided to skip the polos today and I led him back to his stall to put his bridle on.

He put up a fight with the bit, but after a while I got the bridle on his head and led him out to the arena.

There was no one riding and the ring was empty, but there was a few 3'3" to 3'6" jumps set up.

I walked one or two laps around the ring before squeezing Apollo in to a trot at A.

After a couple trotting laps around I pushed him into a canter, then after one lap I aimed him towards the first jump, which looked about 3'3".

His ears perked and I did a half-halt to keep him from getting too excited. When we approached the jump he lifted his front legs up and heaved himself forward, myself getting into my two-point as he jumped, and leaning back as he landed.

Then, I aimed him toward the next jump which was about the same height and kept my inside leg on him to keep him from running out. He placed his feet awkwardly as we came up a short distance before jumping, leaving me to awkwardly lean forward and fall onto his neck.

As he landed I nearly fell off, but quickly regained my balance as I steered him toward the third jump, which was 3'6".

He started to pick up his canter, so I half-halted him. "Easy, boy." I cooed as we approached the jump.

He slowed slightly at my wish before picking his legs up over the jump and taking a great leap over it. This time, I landed comfortably into the saddle and not on his neck.

We did this for some time before I decided he had a good workout, then swung off and led him out to the aisle.

I slipped off his bridle, getting a good grip on his muzzle with my arm around his head so he couldn't throw his head out of my grasp and replaced it with his halter, clipping him to the crossties after slipping the reins over his head.

After untacking without difficulty, I put his stuff in the tack room and got his leather lead out of my grooming bag.

After giving him a quick brush-down (especially on his legs) to make sure his dapple-coat shone in the light, I clipped his lead shank onto his halter and went outside to graze.

I was zoning out, just staring off into space and leaning on Apollo with my arms crossed on top of his back when I noticed I was staring at a paddock, in which a light dapple gray- almost white with a gray mane was being fished out of.

The horse looked fancy, having a nice clean coat and a blue plaid blanket. The person guiding him looked familiar. Apollo led out a whinny, causing me to jump and turn.

I swear, if he could he would be smirking. He just looked around, as if waiting for an answer to his call then went back to grazing.

"Uh, Charlotte?"

I turned to the voice.

Stood there was a girl with dark skin and dark curly hair, wearing a blue and white fleece half-zip shirt and tan breeches.

"Oh, Regina?" I asked, grinning.

She smiled. "Yes! Hi, how are you?" she shook my hand.

"I'm well, how are you?" I asked her, patting Apollo's neck.

"Very good! I take it this is Apollo?"

I nodded, proudly stroking my horse. "Yes, and that's Firebolt?" I asked.

She smiled, nodding. "Yep, say hi, boy." Firebolt reached his neck out to sniff Apollo, and Apollo sniffed back.

"Are you riding?" I asked.

"Yes." Regina beamed.

"Have fun! I'd come with you but I just got finished and I don't wanna overwork him..." I explained, gesturing to my gelding.

She shook her head. "No, that's totally fine, we weren't going to do much anyway, just getting cozy with the new barn." she smiled.

"Okay, I'll meet you back in the dorm?" I asked, as I started to walk inside, but turned to keep looking at her.

She nodded. "Definitely."

****************************************************************************

Later that night, it was about 6 o'clock and our last free night before classes started the next day.

I had learned that we were both doing equine science, and we had the same math and history classes.

"Oh," Regina said suddenly. "Have you seen Patrick Armstrong?"

I squinted and shook my head, throwing a couple pieces of popcorn into my mouth. We were watching a movie- Flicka: Country Pride. "Who's that?"

Regina sighed happily, looking away into the distance. "Only the hottest guy in our grade!"

I tilted my head. "On a scale of Billy Moseby," I gestured to the TV, "To the Philippaerts brothers how hot?"

"Briggs and a half!"

I squealed. "Wow, so- hot."

She nodded. "Indeed!"

I heard a knock on our door and saw our Dorm Advisor, Meg, stick her head in. "Time to go to bed, girls!"

We said in sync, "Okay!" then turned the TV off and got into our beds, saying good night to each other before drifting off into sleep.