Care for some GRUNT work? [Teegan]

[Kayden Tristani]

Ryan was sufficiently tired, but by the end of his lunge lesson, the gelding had been moving through the walk, trot and canter gaits without err. Kayden had had to walk him out for a good five minutes before the colt had stopped breathing heavily. It was sad that such a young, capable horse had been wasting away. The story that had come with the horse was that he had shown promise as a yearling in the racing world and at Keenland a young investor had spent a pretty penny – close to a quarter of a million dollars – on him. The investor’s trainer had also been young, and hadn’t done the correct things and had used force and quickness in breaking the colt, causing the horse to balk at everything, including running. Well the investor had gone broke and had sold Colorado Ryan off for a small amount to a small stable in the middle of nowhere – well they also had gone broke, but instead of selling off, the care of the equines had gone downhill.

Kayden laid a leather worn hand on the geldings shoulder, smiling at the fact that the horse didn’t react. Hopefully Teegan would be an easy learner when it came to helping out, because he really didn’t have time to do everything especially since he had a multitude of new horses coming in since a large amount of the unassigned schooling horses were being sold off. Kayden backed Ryan into a cross tie and clipped him in before stepping to the horses trunk and removing a fungal shampoo, trush buster, liniment and standing wraps. Hopefully Teegan would be quick.

[Teegan Hawthorne]

Teegan quickly finished up with Dev, and patted his neck before slipping out of his stall and looking his door. She swiftly strode down the barn aisle and but her things away- and came back out and started to tie up her hair in a messy loose pony tail ontop of her head to keep it from her eyes as she helped Kayden with some of the chores with the horses, namingly Colorado Ryan that needed to be done. She went to the other barn, the smaller one where she knew that the trainer's horses and the new project horses were being kept. She found Kayden and Ryan at the cross-ties in the center of the aisle awaiting her.

She walked up slowly to be sure not to spoke Ryan- knowing that he was skiddish and still wary of people, from what she'd seen in the ring. She approached the two, looking from Ryan to Kayden before speaking then said; I'm ready for you to put me to work, she said with a small smile. She loved spending time with the horses, even when it included the dirty work- it was creating a bond with the horses that mattered most.

[Kayden Tristani]

Kayden watched as Teegan approached, her hair thrown up into a messy pony tail. He nodded and pointed to the fungal wash before grabbing a hose and beginning to spray the horse down, starting with his legs and working upwards. It didn’t take long for Ryan to be drenched; there wasn’t much meat to soak. Turning to Teegan he smiled and grabbed the fungal wash and two mits, tossing one to her. ”Make sure you bathe up after this before you hang with any other horses.” And with that he took the fungal soap and squirted a line of it from the gelding’s neck to the base of his tail bone. He began in circular motions at his neck, expecting Teegan to start at either the opposite side or at the gelding’s rump.

"So how long have you been around Canterbury?" He really hated working in silence, and since he didn't think to bring his boombox from his dorm, he might as well and attempt to talk - besides something about this Teegan girl interested him.

[Teegan Hawthorne]

As Teegan approached she saw Kayden point to the fungal shampoo and she grabbed it, then handed it over to him. She watched for a moment as the other teen began to hose over Ryan; then tossed her a mit, she easily caught it; then gave a small nod and an Okay, as Kayden instructed she shouldn't interact with the other horses after she washed Ryan with his fungus, until she'd showered herself. She moved around Kayden and started working at the gelding's rump, and used the mit to move in circular motions just as Kayden was doing at the gelding's neck. She continued to rub shampoo around and messaging it over the gelding's coat when Kayden asked how long she'd been at Canterbury.

I've been here about two weeks, she told him- most would think she was crazy for already spending all her time at the stables, instead of doing homework or unpacking- but this is where she loved to be, and horses were her passion. And what about you- you can't be much older than I am, so how'd you land the position of head trainer here at Canterbury? She asked him, she was curious. She knew that he had a gift with the horses- it was very impressive the way he worked with Ryan out in the ring today. And how even thought the horse was nervous and skiddish he seemed to really listen to Kayden.

[Kayden Tristani]

Kayden, surprisingly, was enjoying himself. He kept his arm moving in a circular motion until he finished both sides of the front end of the horse. It was a tiring motion, especially since with the rain rot caked to his coat you had to really put pressure on him. While Teegan finished Kayden grabbed a small packet full of fungal whipes and slowly strarted working on the horses face. It took a while for th young horse to lower his head, but once he did Kayden could visibly see the gelding relaxing. "My trainer got me here, i don't really know how. I've been here about a week." Kayden kept his voice soft as to not disturb the slowly relaxing horse.

[Teegan Hawthorne]

Teegan moved around to the other side of the gelding and continued to move her mit with the fungal shampoo in circular motions over the geldings caked coat. She listened as Kayden told her that his trainer had gotten him here. She smiled at him as she finished off the gelding's rump and walked around him over to near where Kayden was standing, You have a natural talent with the horses, I saw how you worked with Ryan out there, it was pretty amazing. She said to him, a small smile still resting on her lips.Teegan had always loved horses and working with them, but she'd never seen someone have the connection like Kayden did when he worked with Colorado Ryan.

[Kayden Tristani]

Kayden shrugged at her words and finished up with Ryan's face, rubbing it softly with the cloth one last time. "I love the animals." He turned and grabbed the hose and began to work on the sides that had already sat simmering for the required five minutes. "A few more of these and you'll be feeling lots better guy." He turned to Teegan and shrugged again. "You won't do too bad in english if you work hard. Just make sure you practice."

[Teegan Hawthorne]

Teegan took a few steps back to let Kayden reach over and grab the hose so he could clean the fungal shampoo, that had been working on him, so he could rinse him off. Teegan couldn't wait to see this big guy when he was cured of all this rain rot and fungus, she was sure he'd turn out to be a magnificent horse. When Kayden said that she wouldn't do bad in english riding as long as she worked hard and practiced, she sent a smile in his direction and then said, I'm willing to work hard and give 110% all the time, and I'm going to stay committed to learning english. She said to him, Canterbury seemed as if it was bustling with more and more english riders everyday so she was extremely interested in getting up there with them.

[Kayden Tristani]

Kayden chuckled slightly under his breath at Teegan and smiled towards her, holding his arms up in mock surrender. “You don’t have to convince me!” Finally Ryan was soap sud free, and grabbing a sweat scraper Kayden proceeded to remove all the excess water from the gelding’s coat. I patted his shoulder and returned to where I had previously laid the standing wraps. “These are for his tendons, since he’s not been eating or exercising; I wanna be careful and keep his tendons taut. So watch, cuz if you mess these up you can hurt him.” He bent down and took the pillow wraps, wrapping them so that the tendon was pulled to the inside of the horses legs. Once the thick white pad was in place he took the nylon standing wraps and secured the pillow wraps. It wasn’t hard, but he made sure to keep them tight, but not too tight and left just an inch of pillow wrap sticking out from the top and bottom of both ends of the standing wraps. ”You try.”

[Teegan Hawthorne]

Teegan smiled at Kayden again, and waited while he sweat scrapped the gelding down removing all the excess water on his overly slim body. She then watched as Kayden proceded to get the pillow wraps and the navy blue standing wraps. She'd wrapped before, she'd done polo wrapping and had wrapped when she was shipping her horses so she knew fairly well at how to do this. She still watched very closely as Kayden wrapped Ryan's legs though so she would know how to do it and not mess up. As Kayden said 'you try', she nodded and grabbed a pillow and standing wrapped and went and slowly kneeled down along side the gelding's leg on the other side of the one Kayden had already done.

With the pillow wrap first she wrapped it so the gelding's tendons were to the inside, and she wrapped it so it wasn't to loose and wasn't to tight that it would cut off his circulation either. She then held the pillow wrap up as she began to wrap the standing wrap around it, again not to loose or too tight. She was finished and she velcroed the wrap on, and there was still some white fabric of the pillow wrap at the top and the bottom, she stood up and looked at Kayden Like that? making sure that she did it correctly.

[Kayden Tristani]

Kayden watched carefully, bending down on the opposite side of the horse, so that he could stop her if she was wrapping incorrectly. He smiled though as she turned to ask him if she did the wrapping correctly. “Perfect! Now for thrush buster, it’s simple. Just pick out his hooves and poor this liberally in and hold it up for a few minutes until the bottom is died purple. I recommend trying to keep it off your hand or else,” he raised his hand and showed the dark purple stain on the palm of his left hand. He smiled and stood back, leaning against the wall.

[Teegan Hawthorne]

Teegan stood back for just a moment, as she listened to Kayden explain the next step to taking care of Ryan. Next was the thrush buster, he explained that the process was fairly simple. You picked out his feet as normal and then poured a generous amount into his foot, and waited until it was dry, and it was died purple. Okay. She said to him, then giggled gently as Kayden warned her about getting in on her skin, as he held his palm up to show her the purple stain that it'd left. She walked over to the hay bale and picked up the hoof pick, and set the bottle of thrush buster in front of her, she ran her hand gently down Ryan's leg, and softly pushed against his shoulder asking him to pick up his foot. She picked his foot and cleaned it off all the sand and bits of shavings and dirt in there. She set his foot down and stuck the hoof pick in her back pocket. She picked up his foot again, and generously applied the thrush buster. Teegan then set down the bottle and held up his foot until all of it was dry and the bottom was purple, she kept hold of it and then asked Kayden, Just like that?

[Kayden Tristani]

Kayden smiled and reached forward to ruffle Teegans hair. "Perfect. But look, i gotta go, can you walk him around for about five minutes when your done to make sure he's dry - let him graze and all? then put him up?" If she couldn't, he could do it no problem, but he really wanted to go check on Cruz and see how the schools only stallion was holding up. They had a horse trials in georgia coming up, and although Kayden had wanted to run another preliminary, his trainer had, without asking Kayden, signed him up in the Intermediate division.

[Teegan Hawthorne]

After setting Ryan's foot down, Teegan laughed lightly as he ruffled her hair, then rolled her eyes in a teasing manner. Ughhh, I suppose I can. She was totally kidding, she would absolutely do it- she was the one who volunteered in the first place to help out with Ryan. I'm kidding, of course I'll do it. She smiled in his direction and pulled the hoofpick from her back pocket and set it back on the haybale. She walked over to Ryan's side and patted his neck. Well I guess I'll see ya later then, Teegan said to him. She was sure that he was a busy guy, being that he was running all the lessons and she knew that he had two horses of his own, so she completely understood that he needed to go.

After Kayden had left, she towel dried down Ryan's legs, and then unhooked him from the wash rack and clipped a lead rope under his chin onto his halter, Come on boy, let's go take you on a little walk, she said to him. Yes, she was talking to the horses- but it was something she always did when no one else was around. She walked Ryan out of the wash rack and down the long barn aisle out into the sunny afteroon. She walked him all the path that led to the area, it took a good few minutes to get down there, and she slowly walked him off the patch into a sweet grassy area, and loosened up the slack on the lead rope and let him put his head down to graze.

She stood there with him for a few moments, the afternoon sun was starting to quickly dry off the excess water on Ryan's coat. She patted his neck letting him graze just a little while longer. Then tightened up the slack, to let him know it was time to go back in- he obliged; he still seemed a little nervous of people. But she patted his neck and talked to him softly letting him know things were okay, and that she wasn't going to do anything bad to him. She made sure he was completely dry before leading him back to his stall, she walked softly into the stall with him as she gently unclipped his halter and lead rope. She walked out of his stall and peered at him gently through the pairs and a smile pulled at the corners of her lips. She couldn't wait to see what this guy would look like once his fungus and everything was gone. She hung the halter on his door and then took the lead rope and went to collect his things, like the thrush buster, fungal shampoo, etc. She brought everything back to the tack room, and put it all away with the rest of Ryan's things. Then she strolled out of the tack room and walked back down the barn aisle.

[Kayden Tristani]

[[end]] :]