Jinny part 4

After about an hour of doing twenty meter circles, leg yielding, reining back and cantering, Jinny was satisfied with the progress she had made with Pondie in their dressage training and she started to cool her horse down. Suddenly she heard the door slam and her mother’s figure walked out the door. “I’m glad you’re back in the saddle” Jinny walked Pondie over to the gate and her mother stretched out her hand to pat Pondie’s sleek chestnut nose.  “Pond and Luna missed being ridden so I got over myself and” Jinny paused as she thought what to say next. “I decided to ride” her mother nodded and said “Well, now that you’re on holidays you can ride for as long and as much as you want” Jinny smiled “I’m happy that you’re feeling better” Then she walked away.

Once Pondie was cooled down and untacked, she turned him out in the paddock and went back to her house to have her breakfast. Her mother was making everyone breakfast! Eggs sizzled on the frying pan and the water boiled. Jinny licked her lips and her tummy rumbled from hunger, she was ready to devour her food.

Once again, Jinny was back in the stables, this time she was tacking Luna up. Every day, before Storm passed away, she would go down to the stables in the early morning, ride one horse then have her breakfast and before it was lunch, she would have ridden the other two. She would have a little spare time now since she only had two horses but at least she could concentrate on them more.

Once Jinny had ridden Luna, she turned her out in the same paddock as Pondie was in. After she had done that, she went to the tack room and grabbed a bottle of leather soap and a cloth. She had a roster of things she had to do around the horses and stables almost every day and once a month she would have to polish all the tack that her family owned.

Finally she had finished and her arms were sore. She flopped back on the chair she was sitting on not feeling like moving another muscle, but of course, she had to do the rest of her chore. She looked up on the list of things to do.

1-      Clean all the tack

2-      Muck out all the stables

3-      Lunge Bilby

4-      Feed all horses apart from Lilac and Spark.

5-      Put hay bags in the empty stables

6-      Turn out the rest of the horses in the stable overnight (and rug them)

7-      Put all the horses in the upper paddock in the stables

8-      Rug horses in paddocks

Jinny sighed at the list, she usually enjoyed doing her chores but she wasn’t feeling up to it. With the marker next to the list, she crossed out the first chore. “Muck out all the stables” Jinny said out loud. “That’s a lot of stables to muck out Jinny” an unusual voice said. Jinny peered around the corner of the tack room. It was Tim, the farrier. “Hi, Tim, who are you shoeing today?” Jinny asked “Rodger and Storm” Jinny gulped at the sound of Storms name. “Umm. I thought mum cancelled Storm’s appointment, didn’t you hear, Storm got put down” Tim paused to think of the right thing to say “Oh dear, I’m so sorry” “It’s fine” Jinny faintly smiled “Oh, Rodger is in the paddock, do you want me to get him?” “Yeah, that’d be great, I’ll set up in the meantime” Jinny nodded and started to walk-jog her way to Rodger’s paddock.  Great, another job to add to my list, Jinny thought.

By the time she got Rodger in the stable, Tim was already set up, his file, stand, rasp and all his other farrier equipment were waiting for Rodger. Jinny handed Rodger over to Tim and straight away he began. Once Rodger was already in his new shoes, Jinny had finished mucking out the last stall.