Chapter 3
Once I got back Jarod told me that I was going to ride Black Hat, one of Emma’s roadster under saddle ponies. I brought him out of his stall and found all of his tack and grooming stuff. When I brought out his stuff they were jeweled brushes and I thought to myself She is ridiculous ! Jeweled brushes? Really? Come on now it’s a barn not a beauty paegent! As I was brushing Blackie- Blackie is his barn name- Emma came around the corner and ran over and snatched the brush straight out of my hands and asked “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” I just politely replied, “I am going to work your horse for you.”
She replied veryangrily, “Why is that? Who said you could do that, Jarod is the only one allowed to work my ponies except myself.” I shot right back at her, “Well my boyfriend Jarod asked me to work him instead because he needs a lot of work from when you screwed him up at the last show with that stupid stunt of trying to race the horse next to you!” She gave me the middle finger and tossed the brush back at me and yelled over her shoulder, “I would have won if he didn’t trip!” I just laughed to myself because as she walked away she tripped and fell over right at that moment Jarod came up behind we and started laughing at her and she whirled around. We both tried to stop laughing but we couldn’t. After she walked away I went back to brushing Blackie and Jarod grabbed a brush to help and when he picked them up he gave them a look of disgust and said, “This is a barn not a beauty paegent.” We brushed in silence for a while before Jarod asked what sounded good for dinner this evening, I had completely forgotten that we had a date tonight, my first date ever and it was with Jarod! I said anythig sounds good maybe some Red Robin that sounded good to me and he said ok and there was a new comedy we could go see after words. I said ok but I would need to go home and wash all this horse off me before I went out into public he laughed and said “Ok does 7 work for dinner then there’s a 7:45 showing of the movie sound good?” I said sure I will meet you at the Red Robin at 7.
Once I was done getting Blackie ready I brought him in the arena and Emma happened to be in there riding one of her other undersaddle ponies she gave me one of the meanest looks I have ever seen and kept on going. Once I was in the center of the ring I grabbed the mounting block and brought it up next to him and got on and walked forward a few steps and had him stand to practice and so I could adjust my stirrups. Once I had fixed my stirrups I had him stand a little bit longer then I asked him to back up and he reared up, he has always had a problem with backing since he stepped on his tail at the horse show and fell over because he spooked himself. I stopped asking and then repeated asking him to back he then reared up one more time and I could hear Emma laughing. “You are never going to get him to back don’t even bother!” I replied, “Well we aren’t leaving until he backs at least one step nicely.” I asked him just to take one step and he finally did it. Not only did he step one step, his stepped back 4 steps. I was so proud of him. I then asked him to step forward and walk on which he did very well. Unlike when I started with Lala he already knew to set his head with someone asking from our hands not an over check so I had him set his head which he did beautifully. I had him drop his head because it is very uncomferable to walk around with your head high up in the air for a very long time so I gave him a while to put his head down for a while then I asked him to pick up his jog. After jogging for a while I had him walk and stand and then back again which he did very nicely. I then had him pick up his road gait, so I could then start posting and then I asked him to set his head which he can do very nicely he really brings that head up even more then Lala can. I had him step up into his speed and now this horse can really get some speed going! I was simply amazed by the pure speed he got I have watched his classes and knew he was fast, but not this fast. I brought him back down to a walk and pulled into the center and had him park out and back up one more time then we were done. He was super sweaty so I pulled his saddle off and put it up on the rail as I hand walked him out. Blackie was confused by this because Emma never hand walked him she just put a cooler on and tied him up in his stall to cool down. After walking him out for 10 minutes I walked him back to his stall and tied him up in there and brushed him down. After I brushed him down I left him tied and went to go find Jarod to see if he wanted me to still ride Heartland Blizzard- Blizz is the barn name- for him. I had just turned down the aisle to go look for him when I saw him talking to Emma, for some reason this didn’t make me jealous like I thought it should have. Point in my favor. When I got down there I could tell the conversation wasn’t a good one and I shouldn’t stay long. When I got down there I asked Jarod if he still wanted me to get on Blizz for him he said sure go ahead. I got down to the area where Blizz was and pulled him out and gave him a quick brushing I had to get going it was almost 5 and I still had to get ready for my date! I threw the saddle and bridle on and walked out to the outdoor arena for a nice change of scenery because after being inside all day its nice to get out and the weather is perfect outside right now 65 degrees fahrenheit and partly cloudy with a 5% chance of rain, my favorite. When I got out there was a small group of deer in the far side of the arena, it’s a good thing I remembered to grab the blinkers. I then brought him to the center and put his blinkers on and got on and walked off towards the deer.
When we arrived at the deer, they all took off running but Blizz stood there like a champ didn’t budge an inch, I don’t know what Jarod was talking about when he said he spooks easily. Then we wandered around the arena, walking some patterns and having some fun. Once we had walked a figure eight at least 20 times, I asked Blizz to pick up his trot, not too fast though I didn’t want him to hurt himself when we did a pattern. The first time we did the pattern he got a lttle confused with the changing of the diagonal but by the 3rd time around he was doing very well, I was proud of him. Next we did some serpentines and other basic equitation patterns. Jarod came out to see how we were doing and I showed him how well Blizz was picking up patterns, Jarod had a look of complete look of surprise. He said that Blizz was one of the most uncoordenated horses he has ever seen, always tripping over himself in the field and in the cart and pretty much anywhere else he put himself. I called my mom on the way back up to the barn and told her to head out to come and get me in 10 minutes, but she knows 10 minutes really means 20 minutes.
My mom pulled in right as I was walking out the door, she is so good with timing its almost scary. I got in the car and I looked at the clock and thought to myself Shit its 6pm already! I’m going to have to hurry! I told my mom to step on it because I’ve got a date in an hour and I need to shower and dry my hair as well as get ready! We were home in 6 minutes flat: a new record. I ran up to my room as fast as I humanly could and then some, I stripped out of my clothes and got in the shower and in 15 minutes I was out. 15 minutes is new for me. Now here comes the hard part: deciding what I wanted to wear. Do I want to wear a skirt or jeans and a nice blouse? Decisions, decisions. I finally decided that a skirt and a solid shirt would do and I threw that on I looked at the clock 6:30. I have 15 minutes left, time for some make-up. I pulled out my huge ass make up trunk filled with tons of make up of all sorts and not to mention about 100 bobbie pins and lots of hair nets, this make up trunk doubled as my horse show make up as well or as we like to call the Horse Show Hooker make up case. With just enough time to put on my shoes we were out the door.
