easy breezy

Eli liked rides like this, where he got to ride a horse that didn’t decide that everything it passed was a big scary monster and obviously out to eat it, or were so stubborn and headstrong that it took a huge amount of effort to do anything with. Destiny was a fairly quiet, laid back horse for a racehorse and he enjoyed riding her, she definitely gave him the least of his troubles out of all of the horses he rode for Close Racing.

Once he had been given a leg up into the mare’s saddle, balancing precariously in the tiny saddle, thanking his lucky stars yet again that she was a quiet horse, or he’d have to watch himself a little better but there wasn’t much of a chance of her crab hopping or something and almost throwing him out of the saddle, unlike some of the other horses that he might have been riding today. Gathering up the reins, the feel of them oh so familiar in his hands, he reached up and clicked his helmet strap into place, carefully setting his goggles up without shaking the reins too much and confusing the poor mare, before nudging her out onto the track at a walk, and then a brisk trot once they had hit the turf track.

“C’mon sweetheart, let’s get cracking.”

Destiny seemed eager to get out, pulling a little at the bit a couple of times before settling down fairly quickly at a light touch from her rider, settling into an even pace as they kept going at a trot for a few lengths, before Eli finally let her open up into a canter, keeping her going at that pace until he was fairly sure that she was warmed up sufficiently… her movements underneath him felt fluid and he couldn’t feel anything wrong in her stride, so after a moment he pushed her forward into a gallop, the mare opening up willingly beneath him, hooves tearing up the soft track and throwing up dirt and turf behind them. Just a breeze, Ash had said today, seeing as though the mare had only raced recently and this was for conditioning, and not wanting her to have too much pent up energy before her next race. He kept the pace moderate, not wanting to push her on too fast and use up too much energy, but luckily the mare didn’t seem too interested in trying to get away from him, settling into the pace nicely and keeping it up for the few furlongs he had been instructed to breeze her at, slowing her down when the distance was up back to a canter, then down to a trot for her cool down. There was only a light sheen of sweat on the mare, it had obviously not taken too much out of her, which was good, meaning that she was definitely in shape and ready for her next race. But of course, with racing, it all just came down to luck in the end, since all of the other horses involved were in the same condition and it just came down to what happened on the day.

“Well, we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?” he mused to himself, reaching down to pet the bay mare on the neck as he brought her back in to the mounting yard.