Team Practice - OPEN

[Thoroughbred]

ooc: the coach is obviously not always right, that's just his character to argue a lot ;D

The coach, being strongwilled, did not enjoy his students arguing with him. "Well you still need your horse to be balanced from the start as well. Like I said, not all shows will allow you to waste time and start circling around from the starting line. I am the coach for a reason, do not talk back to me. Especially because you are on varsity," the coach said stiffly, basically implying that he could bump Morgan down to junior varsity - which would obviously be an unfair and biased move, but the coach didn't care.

Summer felt extremely tired after repeating the slightly strenuous course for a second time. The only thing that made it strenuous was the fact that Thunder was being incredibly strongwilled and high strung today, so it took extra effort to keep him calm and collected. It's actually starting to get irritating. Maybe he's picking up on everyone's stress or something, she thought. The first thing I'm going to do after practice is collapse on my bed.

[Cara-Jean Kitchi]

At the coach's words, Cara dropped her head, completely humiliated. She had been working Shay on circles before she said they would go next, and should have stopped the circles before the course, she knew she should have, but she liked finishing one exercise before going on to another. This, however, she left unsaid as it wasn't in her nature to talk back to anyone - and the mere thought of talking back to an adult terrified her.

As she now worked on the mare's transitions, she watched as Summer and Thunder. She rode him well, even if he had other ideas about how they were going to take the course and at what speed. Her eyebrows listed slightly at the coach's words. She knew that the horse would be pretty beat after the course, but she admired the fact that Summer repeated the course.

She looked up as the male student spoke up his opinions on circling, but still kept her mouth closed and just watched as the pair took the course.

She glanced toward Summer again and decided that she would offer her roomie some tips on trying to get Thunder a little more levelheaded and open to listening to his rider. He didn't have the face of an indifferent and difficult horse, so there had to be something else behind his attitude.

[Thoroughbred]

"Cara, please stay over here with your teammates. You cannot have your mind on your horse and watching your teammates at the same time," the coach said flatly. He turned towards everyone else. "Until the end of practice, because we don't have much time left, we are going to have a jump off. Just jump over the first jump of the course," he instructed. The first jump of the course was out of the way of the others; it would be more convenient to jump over.
"Considering you've all proved to me that you can make it over the first jump without knocking it down, I'm going to raise it. We will go no higher than four and a half feet, he said, walking over to the jump and raising it a notch. The fence was now 3'9. "Who would like to go first?"