Russ thought for a while, but I didn’t expect for him to give an answer right away. He wasn’t the type to talk out of his ass, like he’d say. I snickered internally.
“We have to ask your parents, but I don’t see why not. But you’ll have to be a bit older, so it might be years yet. Besides, I need Lucille for work and she can’t do that if she’s pregnant or has a baby, right?”
I mused over his words for a while, then asked, “Maybe when she’s older, too?”
“I think that’s a deal.” He stopped Lucille and Paddy stopped next to her.
They were both quarter horses, but she was a bit taller, and I was a kid and Russ was a grown man. He leaned down to hold out his hand and we shook on it.
Nothing would happen unless my parents said it was okay, of course. But I liked that Russ didn’t look at me like I was a little kid.
We’d continued the ride, and after a few moments, we’d gotten to my favorite part: the questions he’d ask me.
“Now, what would you do first if you were riding just like this, and your horse started to limp?”
I’d gotten my foal when I was thirteen. We’d bred Lucille to a Friesian stallion I’d seen at a show and fallen in love with. I didn’t want a Friesian, but I could see the kind of horse I might end up with if combined with Lucille.
And there I was, eleven years later, working with Humphrey in the outdoor arena.
I enjoyed the indoor one, but Mal was there working with desensitizing Ezio who we’d discovered didn’t do great with umbrellas for some weird reason.
Because I liked my personal horse to be versatile, Humphrey knew all sorts of stuff, just like Mal’s Jaina did. Gemma had set up some obstacles for jumping for one of the young horses she was training, so I decided to see if my boy still remembered how to do that.
I’d started with some light dressage work that made him have to really think about it, and it’d gone pretty damn well. But as soon as he realized we were about to jump, he collected himself and his ears shot forward. It was as close to a horsey “yessss!” as I’d ever seen.
Chuckling, I held him back a little. “Let’s calm down, H.”
He huffed but started to concentrate again. Still, when we took the first low cross rail as if it was the highest possible wall, I laughed despite myself.
“Okay, that’s not good. Let’s try it again.”
Ten minutes later, he was doing much better, and Bodhi had appeared by the fence.
“Want to help out?” I asked as I guided Humphrey to a walk so he could stretch himself a little.
“Sure, what do you need?”
“Can you turn those ground poles into cavaletti for me? And fix that vertical?” I pointed at said items on different parts of the arena.
Bohdi ducked the top rung to slip into the arena through the fence and went to fix everything for us.
I took my ball cap off and ran my fingers through my hair before putting it back on. I tended to have it the right way around whenever I was in the sun and then turned it backwards while training in the indoor arena where the sun wasn’t an issue.
“How high?” he asked about the vertical.
I eyed at the cross rail and then rode closer. “Yeah, that’s good,” I said when Bohdi suggested a few heights.
Once the cavaletti—poles that were held higher off the ground with some blocks so the horse would have to lift its legs a bit more than for just the poles—were in place, I began to train Humphrey for real.
The best thing about my boy was that he loved to work on different things. From anything ranch related like rounding up cows to jumping to playing around in our agility course to even dressage, he was good for everything. Trail rides were his favorites still, and I made a mental note to make time for that. But jumping came second and since we had the opportunity, why not indulge?
We weren’t going for height, which was sensible given that I didn’t even have a saddle on him and jumping bareback took a bit more concentration from me, too.
Bohdi stayed with us, changing things where needed, and we had fun together, the three of us.
Once I sensed that Humphrey was getting tired, I slowed him to a walk and gave him his reins, patting his back.
“You did good.” I patted his neck with both hands, then rang my fingers through some of his thick black mane where it’d tangled a little.
