All I Want For Christmas

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Copyright: All Rights Reserved.

© 2021 Gianna P.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and history are either made up or used fictionally. This is my original work.
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𝚆𝙴𝙻𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙴 𝚃𝙾: 𝔸𝕃𝕃 𝕀 𝕎𝔸ℕ𝕋 𝔽𝕆ℝ ℂℍℝ𝕀𝕊𝕋𝕄𝔸𝕊

Every time I was asked what I wanted for Christmas or my birthday, the answer was something that I didn't even have to think twice about, a horse. For the last twelve years, twice a year I would ask for a horse, and every year, when I didn't get a horse, I was a little and a little more disappointed, but I did my best to hide it well. This year was slightly different, instead of asking for a horse this year, I was being more specific.

During the past ten months, I had a two-day lease from a stubborn appaloosa that I had fallen in love with. He was an eight-year-old ex-barrel racer, named Confetti King, but his stable name was Capri meaning headstrong. March seventeenth was the very first time I rode him, and the way he acted, my parents and the trainer, that was assessing if I was skilled enough to lease him, where certain I would back away. My older brother on the other hand, although he wasn't interested in horses, knew I couldn't and wouldn't back away from a challenge. The first time I rode, Capri, was like a bullet. The owner was standing outside the arena biting her nails nervously, wondering why in the name of god I was smiling like a fool, as I sat atop a horse that wouldn't slow down for anything. Once the lease was signed, the owner went over a few things, telling me that he couldn't do much dressage, and hated to jump. At those words, my parents were silently asking me if I wanted to pull out because they knew I loved jumping.

The next few months, I taught Capri how to jump properly, to the point where he actually liked it. I tried different tactics than getting on the horse, going over a few poles, then raising the poles. I started on the ground, with a pole, and some carrots, if he wanted a carrot then he would willingly follow me running over the pole. Slowly I started introducing him to courses of poles, and after two months, I introduced him to his first jump without the rider.

Meanwhile, when I was riding him I taught him gradually to slow down. He learned, not everything had to be a race, he also learned that every time he was asked to canter it would be against his nature not to throw a couple of bucks in. Over the first five months, his sheet, which showed his lessons and leases, had grown bigger and bigger, to the point where he was working every day, except for Sundays. The trainer and owner had talked to me a few times and mentioned how seven-year-olds were riding him, and that angered me to no extent, they didn't understand that he wasn't a lesson horse, he shouldn't be trusted with any student, it wasn't in his blood to become a lesson horse.

Summer ended and winter crept up quickly. I remember the first week after a fourteen-inch rain. The place was a mess, the horses' turnouts were unnaturally muddy, but they were outside anyway. The hay had gotten soaked, and the new delivery when distributed out to the horses, was placed in the mud. Apparently, there was a leak in the tack room and everything had gotten soaked. I always told myself that the trashiest barn can look good if there isn't any rain, but once it rains everything that is trying to stay hidden is out in the open. The next thing I noticed was that most of the fences were broken at some places, leaving sharp chunks of metal sticking out. I arrived the next week to find all of the bits replaced with Pelham Bits, all of them set to the most severe level. Which was stupid because none of the horses, even needed bits like that, but my mother brought up a good point after she saw the snaffle bits lying in the bathroom like ornaments, maybe Capri was still crazy in lessons. It was a bit weird that I wasn't informed, along with the rest of the leaders, when all of the bits were changed, because we had always been notified, even after the smallest things happened to Capri, like the time he got a slight scratch. I was going to take no part in this harsh bit scandal, so instead, I started borrowing a bitless bridle that a lesson horse used. Three weeks later, the newest layer of dirt in the arena had hazardous rocks. By now it was the seventeenth of December, when I came early in the morning, and realized another thing, Capri and the black yearling next to him didn't get breakfast when it clearly stated on their name tags that they each got a flake of grass, and half a flake of alfalfa. I soon came to the realization that he needed to get out of there.

My parents used to use it as an excuse, that we didn't have enough land to house a horse, but two years ago we moved to a two million dollar house on five acres, plus it had a barn with five stalls. Over the last two years, I had been fixing up the barn and turnouts, and slowly with my birthday or Christmas money that I received buying things like automatic waters, or wheelbarrows. At this point, the only thing I didn't have was a blanket, saddle, bridle, and horse.

On December twenty-second, my dreams of owning Capri were crushed when a goodbye party was announced to wish well to its new owner. It came out of nowhere, and I was crushed. I was gifted at hiding my emotions, and I was happy for him, and truly hoped that his new owner treated him better than he was treated at this stable. I never got to meet his owner, because a company trailer pulled up, and loaded him into the trailer. I asked the driver where he was headed, and he said New York, and considering I lived in California, there was a good chance I would never see him again.

The next few days my parents acted a little weird, but I was too sad to think twice.

Christmas morning arrived, and after a huge breakfast, my brother quickly shoved a package the size of a piece of paper, into my hands. I ripped open the paper, opened the box quickly, ignoring my mother's warnings about being careful with scissors. Inside there was in fact a piece of paper. Curiously I flipped over the paper to find it was a registration paper. I scanned the information, my eyes trained on the words under owner saying:

Teiran Davis

"Well are you going to keep staring at that piece of paper, or are you going to go see Mr. Confetti King?" My brother asked impatiently.

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Merry Christmas!

~G