a/n – A lot of horse stuff in this one. There is a point to it, I promise.

-x-

"Remind me again why you're here?" Darry had just parked at the front of the barn and was staring into the backseat at Two-Bit quizzically. Two-Bit laughed.

"Like I was going to miss Superman riding a pony!" Darry rolled his eyes and we all hopped out of the truck. High Standards was the name of the barn. It had acres of pastures on either side of the road leading up to the barn. A gate stretched across the property, surrounding the barn, the large pond, the two houses on either side of the pond, and the two arenas at opposite ends of the property. We slipped through the gate that led to the barn and closed it behind us.

We stood in the middle of a concrete plaza. The barn was to our right—a large wooden barn with tall ceilings and ten stalls on either side of the aisle. To our left was the wash area: three wash bays and a building next to them that was used as the office. Directly in front of us was the large pond on the property, and a fork in the road laid before the pond: the road to the left led up a hill to the jumping arena. The road to the right led down a hill, past a small house, to the dressage arena. Having no idea where to go, we all turned to look at Soda.

"Knowing her, she's probably all tacked up and waiting for us," he said. He ducked into the barn to check and see if Al was there. Not finding him, Soda turned and gestured for us to follow. "Probably already at the dressage arena warming him up for you." Darry gave him a sort of look.

"Dressage?" I saw a hint of a smile on Soda's face. That always meant that Darry was in for it. "I thought Al was a jumper?" Soda smiled a little bit bigger. We had all ridden horses before. Mom and Dad had loved it. Soda had always been more passionate about it than Darry and me, but we all had fun. We'd only ever ridden western horses, mostly on trails. I don't think Darry had ever gotten much of a thrill out of it. He was an action sort of guy; he enjoyed anything that truly challenged him. Leisurely trail rides weren't really his thing. When Soda had convinced Darry to come ride, he was probably hoping to try something with a little thrill, and in his mind that meant jumping.

We could see Romy working Al in the dressage arena as we walked up. I paid close attention to try to see what Soda had been telling me about riding. I could tell that he was rounded and at the trot—his head was down, so I assumed that meant it was good. Romy sat the trot seemingly effortlessly. At one of the letters, Al began to cross his legs over each other at the trot so that he moved diagonally from one side of the arena to the other. I think Soda called that a half-pass. Darry was watching carefully. I think he was also trying to see what Soda saw.

"So . . ." he began. "Does she just trot him in circles in the arena then?" Maybe not. Soda made a face.

"No, Dare, she does not just trot him in circles," he said with a slight laugh. He walked over to stand next to Darry and started pointing out specific parts of the horse. "See how he's moving? They don't do that on their own—you have to train them and build up their topline muscles so that they are strong enough to hold and carry themselves like that."

"Like what?" Darry asked.

"His head is down," I pointed out, eager to add to the conversation. Soda smiled a little at me.

"I mean, you're not wrong," he said. "But you don't want to concentrate on where their head is at. That's how a lot of bad habits are formed. A lot of people will be so focused on their head that they'll yank their horse's head down with the reins and they'll be working completely on the forehand." Darry gave him a look to show him that he wasn't following. Soda, acting as if his arms were his front legs, tilted forward to show that the balance would be completely on the front legs. "Like this!" he said. He stood up straight again, and pointed at Al's back. "See how his back is lifted?" He pointed then to Al's rear. "Watch his hindquarters. You want to ride from back to front. The power comes from the hind end. Watch." Darry and I looked and tried to see what Soda was seeing.

Al seemed to float at the trot. His back was lifted, and each step seemed to pause in the air for a split second. As I watched closer, I could see that the horse was using his hind end to extend his back legs underneath him and push off. The motion was very fluid and pleasing to watch. Soda began to explain again.

"His power is coming from behind, and it's absorbed through his front end. She gets him to do that with her leg. When he is moving his back left leg forward, she'll give a little squeeze with her left leg and vice versa. That gives him a little more impulsion." Still at the trot, Romy rode a 20 meter circle, bending to the left. "Try to watch here." Darry squinted a little, trying to see the leg aides Romy was using. "She's using her inside leg—the left leg in this case—to make Al bend off of it. She's using her right leg to hold him and keep him on the bend." Darry was silent for a moment, trying to take it all in.

"What the hell are the reins for?" Two-Bit interrupted. I looked over at him to see that his brow was furrowed, and his arms crossed. He had a very confused expression on his face.

"They're more to steady him than anything," Soda explained. "So she uses that inside leg to push him into the outside rein. It keeps him on a bend for the whole arena—basically, it acts like the whole arena is one big circle. Even when they are going straight, they have a clear outside and inside rein. The outside rein is constant, steady contact. The inside rein is to supple." Two-Bit was nodding slowly, grunting "mm-hmm" occasionally, clearly not understanding. Darry and I were understanding about every other word. Romy had asked Al for a walk, and after a lap she stopped and waved at us. We all walked into the arena.

"Hey guys," she greeted us, and hopped off her horse. Two-Bit whistled lowly. Romy was dressed in her riding clothes, which meant a nice collared show shirt tucked into a pair of fitted, full-seat tan breeches. The padding of the full-seat was dark brown which matched the color of belt she was wearing. It also highlighted her rear. She either ignored Two-Bit or hadn't heard him. She brought Al over to Darry.

"Okay, just a few things before you get on," she told him. "Firstly, you're going to need to be patient with yourself. I'm going to throw a lot at you today and you are not going to get it right away, and that's okay. Regardless of what anyone has told you, this is hard." Darry smiled and gave Al a pat on the neck. I'm not sure he really believed her. Darry had two big claims to fame, two defining traits that he was most well-known for: his intelligence and his athleticism. He usually picked up sports very quickly. Romy continued, "Next, I'm going to give you a basic run-down of equitation and some general terms." We all listened intently as she (very quickly) ran us through the dos and don'ts of equitation. Equitation is how you sit on the horse, by the way. I figured that out after about a solid minute of her talking.

From what I picked up, you want your stirrups long so there's just a slight bend in your knee. That allows you to use as much of your leg as you can or something like that. You're supposed to control the horse with your leg and seat. Then she went off about all the functions of the outside rein, and honestly I got lost. Then something about using the inside leg to push the horse into the outside rein. I watched Darry as he nodded slowly at her. I think it was making about as much sense to him as it was to me. Which wasn't much, in case you were wondering.

"Finally," she continued. "The arena." She gestured to all the letters written at different parts of the arena. "All King Edward's horses can make bay foals." We all stared blankly at her.

"Pardon?" Darry asked. Romy and Soda exchanged an amused glance.

"That's how you remember the letters," she explained. "A-K-E-H-C-M-B-F. A is on the centerline and it's the closest to you. For tests, you will always enter at A." We all looked to where she was referring. There was an opening in the fence at the front middle of the arena—A—for a horse to enter. "K is the corner to the left of A. E is the middle of the left rail. H is the far corner of the left rail. C is the centerline opposite of A. Then so on and so forth. Oh, and X is the dead center of the arena. The center of the centerline. Make sense?" Before anyone of us could answer, Romy grabbed a mounting block and laid it on the left side of Al. She gestured for Darry to walk over.

"I don't need that," he laughed. "I'm tall. I can just hop up." Romy pointed at the mounting block.

"I don't need you smashing onto my horse. You'll use a mounting block. It's better for his back," she explained. Darry nodded and mounted her horse, using the block. I'd never thought of it before, but I guess it made sense. I thought back to when our family would go on trail rides when we were younger and how some of the horses seemed so ornery about people getting on their backs. I wondered if maybe they were sore from all the people who had slammed down on their backs all day.

Romy showed Darry how she wanted him to hold his reins, adjusted his stirrups, and then told him again about equitation, this time by grabbing his leg and showing him where it needed to be on the horse. She then took the mounting block out of the arena and then told us all to stand at X. X wasn't labeled, but luckily that was the easiest of all of them. It was just the center of the arena. She came back and stood next to us and then told Darry to ask for a walk by squeezing a little with both legs. Al immediately responded, but his walk looked different than before. He carried his head higher and was looking around at all of his surroundings. His steps were shorter, but quicker, so he appeared to be moving a lot faster than he had been before. Darry looked a little flustered at it, but he responded by pulling back on the reins. Al responded by throwing his head up a little and shortening his steps. Romy walked out a few steps towards him.

"Alright," she said, "so what you're doing is very common: the horse is going too fast and your impulse is to pull back on the reins." Darry looked over at her, still leaning back slightly so that he could pull back on the reins and keep Al from walking too quickly or breaking into the trot. "I want you to break that mindset. What happened when you pulled back on the reins?"

"He shortened his steps," Darry answered.

"Yeah, but what else?"

"He threw up his head."

"Did he get slower?"

"Not much." Romy nodded.

"He's throwing up his head to avoid the bit. When you yank on his mouth, it creates a lot of pressure, and he teaches him to avoid the bit. We want to be able to slow his movements without yanking on him because we want the horse to be on the bit all the time." She paused for a second to study Darry's position. "So, what we're going to do, is you're going to shorten your reins. If you have to lean back to establish contact with his mouth, your reins are too long. You don't want to be pulling on his mouth, but you want him to be able to feel you. You're moving counterclockwise, so your outside rein is your right rein." Darry looked down at his hands. "Your right hand should have consistent contact with Al's mouth. Once again, not yanking on him, but you want him to feel you there." Darry made the corrections, shortening his reins so that there was a bend in his elbows and his hands were about a half foot above Al's withers, but Al was still moving hollowed out with his head up in the air. He looked back at Romy.

"You need to have elastic elbows," Romy continued. "So, when he walks, his head moves. You want to be able to move your arms with his motion in order to maintain the same amount of contact." Darry looked down and concentrated on his hands, moving them forward drastically with each step. Romy giggled a little.

"Not that much," she laughed. Darry stopped his arm thrusting. "Feel how he moves and move with him." His hands began to steadily move forward a few inches with every step, following Al's head to maintain the contact. "Good!" Al was still hollowed out, but he wasn't resisting the bit as much. "Now we have the important part: your legs.

"You're going to use your legs and seat to push him into the bit and to slow his movements. I want you to look down at his shoulders without turning into the hunchback of Notre Dame. When his right shoulder moves forward, your right hip should move forward and you should give a little squeeze with that leg. Same thing goes with his left shoulder. It'll be a bit hard right now since he's tracking pretty quickly." Darry gave her a funny look. "It's going to feel a little funny," she added. Darry gave her another funny look. He then tried to move his hips with Al's motion, then stopped, blushed a little, and started laughing.

"C'mon, Darry!" Romy called out, laughing a little. She moved her hips dramatically as she walked towards him. "Get sassy with it!" Two-Bit whistled loud enough for her to hear this time. She threw her head back and laughed. "No, but in all seriousness, this is going to help you. He'll feel you moving with him, and then you can slow your movements down, and he will slow down to match you. I promise it's relevant." Darry half-smiled sheepishly, but did what she told him to do, ignoring Soda and Two-Bit's laughter and "lady hips" jokes. "Good, now try to slow the movements with your hips—see? Did you feel that? He's responding." Al was beginning to slow his steps down instead of just shortening them.

"Now I want you to push him into the bit using your legs. Imagine your hands always in front of the saddle, pushing him into the bit, not restraining him. Really use your leg muscles—we all know you've got them—to push him into the bit. You'll feel him lift his back and reach for contact with you." Darry was concentrating hard, trying to figure out how to do what Romy was instructing. Al was still waving his head around in the air with his back hollowed out. He would occasionally begin to come into contact, but then immediately come out of it. Seeing that Darry was becoming increasingly frustrated, Romy began talking again.

"He's a difficult horse to learn on," she told him. "He doesn't give you anything. He makes you work for it—hard." She paused to let out a chuckle. "He's also very responsive, which is ultimately a good thing because eventually you'll be able to move each different leg with a different movement of your body. But, it's hard when you're learning because he doesn't just respond to the correct aids; he responds to the wrong ones as well. You're doing great, but you need to be patient with yourself. He can feel your frustration, and he's feeding off of it." Darry was concentrating harder and seemed to get increasingly annoyed. He shortened his reins a little more and seemed to pull on the reins a little. Al lowered his head, but he didn't seem to be moving with Darry. Romy sighed a little.

"Breathe, Dare," she said. "Forget everything you're supposed to be doing right now and just take a couple really deep breaths." He began to relax a bit. "Maybe this will help you a little—I want to tell you about something called a free walk. It's a movement used in a dressage test where you lengthen your reins and your horse will stretch down to follow the bit. It's a relaxed gait, and the judge looks to see if your horse is stretching, lengthening his strides, and being completely relaxed." Darry was nodding slowly. "But, you can only do it if you have a good connection. I want you to lengthen your reins right now, add leg, and push him into the bit to ask for his free walk."

Darry lengthened the reins and added more leg to Al's sides. Instead of reaching down to follow the bit, Al sped up his walk and stuck his head back into the air. The reins remained drooping instead of being a straight line from his mouth to Darry's hand. Darry gave Romy an exasperated look. She didn't appear to be at all surprised by Al's reaction.

"Can you tell me what happened?" she asked.

"He didn't listen." Romy shook her head.

"No, he listened. But you didn't have a connection. This is what happens when your force your horse's head down instead of pushing him into contact. If your head is being held down and the pressure is suddenly released, where is your head going to go? Down? No." Darry was processing what Romy was saying, nodding slowly. "His head is going to go up, right? He's going to be relieved when the pressure is gone and think 'oh thank God I can do what I want now'. But a horse on the bit with an established connection is going to reach down to keep the contact with you. This is why it's so important to do this right. It isn't about how he looks—it's about how effectively he can do these movements. And, yes, he can best do these movements when his head isn't flying up in the air, but that's because his back is lifted and he is pushing off of his hind end, not because you drag his face down." Darry nodded and released his death grip on Al's face. He fell back into establishing his elastic contact, and then pressed his legs into his sides. Al responded by lifting his back reaching more underneath him with his hind legs. Darry smiled and looked over at Romy, who was already smiling back at him.

"You feel that?" He nodded. "Good man. Try lengthening your reins again, take a deep breath to relax yourself, and add more leg as you do." Darry did, and Al stretched his head downwards to follow the bit. Darry beamed. "There you go," Romy said approvingly. "He's your teammate. You can't force him to do anything. You have be where you're supposed to be to set him up the best you can, and it's his job to take it from there."

"Can we go faster?" Romy smiled at him.

"Maybe next time," she laughed. "I didn't bring my lunge line out, and I'm not sure you know how to post yet."

"Post?"

"Okay so you definitely don't know how to post yet. Look down at his shoulders. Do not slouch!" Darry straightened his back, but glanced down at Al's shoulders. "When his outside shoulder moves forward, you are going to get up off of his back. Don't just stand up in your stirrups; you want to keep the contact with your legs. You're going to grip him with your lower legs and lift yourself up off his back. Then sit down when his inside shoulder moves forward. Try it at the walk." Darry did. His lower leg wobbled back and forth and he tipped forward a little as he looked down to make sure that he was on the right diagonal. He kept it up for about a minute and then Romy told him he could sit back down. Darry then walked Al back into the middle of the circle by us.

"I think we're good for today," Romy said.

"You sure? We can go longer," Darry told her. Romy placed her hands on her hips and smirked.

"Darry, what day is it?" she asked him. We all gave her a funny look.

"Saturday."

"What day is it?" His expression became a little more confused.

"It's Saturday."

"Darry, what day is it?"

"May 25th?"

"What day is it?"

"Saturday the 25th of May."

"What day is it?"

"Is it Friday? Or Sunday? Am I crazy?" He looked at Soda for help who just kept smiling at him. Soda then looked at Romy and she winked.

"See, I asked you a question and you answered it correctly. And then I kept asking you, and the more I asked you, the more you changed your answers slightly. Then, finally, you completely changed your answer, even though you were right before. It's the same thing with horses," Romy explained. "If you keep asking them the same question after they've already done what you've asked, eventually they're going to change their response. Once you've accomplished what you've set out to do, I find it's best to stop for the day, and then continue the next day. Al did what you wanted him to do, and now he gets rewarded with a break. It's also an incentive to do what you ask correctly the first time." She petted Al's neck and told him what a good boy he was as Darry dismounted.

"Makes sense," he said, giving Al a few pats on the shoulder. "Thanks for the lesson, big guy." I smiled a little at that. It was weird to see Darry talking to animals. He had such a hard, logical exterior. It was almost sweet to see him talking to an animal that clearly could not understand him. It reminded me of when we were little and we had our family dog. Darry loved that dog more than I've seen him love anything—besides Soda, Mom and Dad, and me. I think the last time I caught Darry crying was when we had to put him down. He didn't know I could see him or else he would have hid it better, but I remember seeing tears running down his face.

We all followed Romy back to the barn and watched as she un-tacked and washed Al off, explaining to us what she was doing as she did it. She sure could talk a lot. Darry and I paid close attention to her ramblings while Soda and Two-Bit had a sword fight with two hoof picks. After she had finished washing and scraping the sweat off of Al, she led him into the barn and put him up in his stall. She then reached down and opened the brown tack trunk that was next to Al's stall door, and grabbed a jar of peanut butter out of it. Soda and Two-Bit stopped momentarily to look at her.

"Uh . . . peanut butter, Romy?" She just smiled as she scooped some peanut butter onto her fingers and offered it to her horse. Al licked it up happily.

"It's his favorite," she said. "Plus it makes him drink more water so I'm cool with it." Two-Bit shrugged and launched himself at Soda with his hoof pick. Soda dodged him at the last second and jabbed him in the side with his pick. Darry silently took the jar of peanut butter and scooped some onto his fingers. He looked at Romy.

"May I?" he asked. She gestured for him to continue, and he reached out to allow Al to lick the peanut butter off of his fingers. "There you go, little man." Al finished licking off the peanut butter and moved on to nibbling on the sleeve of Darry's shirt.

"This is going to sound weird," Romy said slowly, "but blow some air into his nose. When horses introduce themselves to each other, they'll blow air into each other's noses so that they get each other's scent. It's kind of like a handshake." Darry tilted his head so he could blow air into Al's nose. Al stiffened slightly and looked quizzically at Darry. His nostrils flared for a moment as he breathed in his scent. Then, he blew air back out of his nose at Darry and flicked his ears forward. "Scratch his neck again," Romy suggested. "That's how they'll groom each other." Darry scratched Al's neck again, and Al responded by swinging his head over Darry and nibbling his shoulder. Darry laughed.

"What do you think?" Romy asked after a moment. Darry was still grinning.

"I think I like him." Soda had stopped his fight again and came over to stand next to Darry.

"What about riding?" he asked hesitantly.

"Harder than I expected," he said, draping an arm around Soda's shoulders and messing up his hair. "Not just walking in circles." Soda beamed proudly. I think that he was excited to have something else to talk about with Darry that he would be able to understand, besides paying bills and, well, me. I shoved my hands into my pockets, and tried to push the thought out of my head. I hated how much they both had to sacrifice for me. Darry and Soda had always been close, but after Mom and Dad died, most of their conversations had to revolve around my well-being. It put a toll on their relationship; nothing too detrimental, but it wasn't the same. I could tell Soda was relieved and excited to be able to share this part of his life with his big brother.