Just for coaching - CLOSED

[Ty]

Colt sat happy on Renji, staring out at the vast Cross-Country course. He was riding by himself, but hoped for a trainer to notice him and hopefully coach him a bit. Renji could use some more Preliminary coaching.
Alright boy, lets roll. Colt laughed and nudged Renji into a brisk trot. circling around the starting box, he squeezed and let the bay stallion into a fast paced canter. Staring at the first fence, he sat up straight, it was a Training level ditch to a log. Colt had decided that he would only practice Training, which he had competed under, until some sort of trainer could watch him.
Renji flicked his ears forward and jumped the ditch, and in two long strides, hit the log. Crud. That should have been a perfect three.

[femalefred]

"Stop it, dog," Ella murmured softly. Her new puppy, while very well behaved for a three month old dog, was attempting to run a circle around her legs and was quite effectively preventing forward movement. The young woman had been intending to take the greyhound for a walk out on the cross country course, but by the looks of things there was a horse and rider out there that she didn't recognise, who'd taken a pair of long, slightly awkward strides from the first ditch to a following log.

"Hey there! You want any help with that?" she called out, having waved and made sure that both boy and horse were aware of her and Thin Dog's presence (she really had to come up with a better name than that soon) before she spoke. "I'm Ella, I'm one of the trainers here and I've not got a whole bunch else to do right now if you want a little help."

[Ty]

That'd be wonderful...Colt called out, then paused, not knowing her name. Im Colt, this is Renji. Were having issues with striding today.. He said, trotting up to the woman, and her dog, rolling his eyes at the young puppy's antics.

[femalefred]

"Don't mind the puppy, she's usually ok," Ella said with a slightly grimace tinged smile as she stepped outside the leash again. She was sincerely looking forward to the day that the puppy learnt 'sit' and 'stay'. They hadn't even had their first obedience class yet.

"I noticed," she replied with a light laugh. "From just a glance at what you were doing there, it looks like you've given him his head too much. Try collecting the canter up a bit before you get to the ditch and you might be able to sort it out just from that. If not, it might be an issue with take off and landing from the ditch, but I didn't get a particularly clear look at it from where I was before. Want to try again? I'll try to give you a bit more help, seeing as I should actually be able to see what's going on from here!"

[Ty]

Okay. Colt nodded and turned Renji around. He trotted around the box again, asked for the canter, and got it right away. Colt sat back, and collected Renji, moving his outside leg back for a little more impulsion. He waited and counted the strides. One, two, three. One, two, three. The ditch came up and Renji leapt over it easily, before taking, once again, two strides instead of three.
Colt grumbled, turned back towards Ella and shrugged.

[femalefred]

Ella kept a close watch on the pair this time, counting the strides under her breath as the pair headed to the ditch, and watched as the stallion took two long, but not huge, strides to the log. It looked a little as though the problem might be with the ditch. The pair were jumping it very big, when all it needed was a little pop. Where Renji was landing was a bit far in - not so far that he needed to take a stride out, but far enough in to the log that he might think he needed to.

"You're jumping the ditch a little big, and I think that's throwing him off when you land. Makes him think he's got less space than he has," she said, walking over to the pair, the puppy following and snuffling excitedly at the stallion's hooves for a second. "Hey dog, keep back," the young woman murmured, quickly picking the white greyhound up, trying to keep her away from the potentially very harmful hooves of the stallion.

"The collected canter was nice and I think that helped a little but it's a matter of reassuring him that the ditch isn't as big as he thinks it is. How are the two of you usually over ditches? It might be an idea just to try him over a few without anything following on and then trying again if he's not happy about them in general."

[Ty]

Colt nodded and replied. Were normally fine over ditches, but he thinks they are banks sometimes. Colt nodded, and looked around for a ditch by itself, towards his right, there was one, but it was Prelim. He shrugged and cantered Renji again. In the collected canter, Ren was perfect over it, and when Colt tried again, this time at a Cross-Country paced canter, he stepped in it, losing his eyesite of the ditch, and flung himself over the ditch. The footing on the other side was damp from the storm and he slipped forward, giving Colt just enough time to flip off and into the log next to it.
Colt lay there, with enough view to see that Renji had gotten up, and wild eyed, galloped straight for Ella. Renji flung his head up and down, before sliding to a stop next to Ella. He was lucky the grass wasn't slippery there.

[femalefred]

Ella nodded and watched as they headed over to the larger prelim level ditch. At a collected canter, the bay seemed quite happy with the ditch and popped neatly over. It was a good sized jump, not taking any extra air as with the smaller ditch and she nodded with a smile.

"That was good," she called out. The pair didn't wait for any more comments as Colt circled the stallion round and let him take his head a little more, letting the canter out into a less even, longer strided gait, and that was where things went a little wrong. It looked like an unpleasant fall, but the first priority was going to be keeping control of the loose horse.

"Woah, calm down boy," the young woman murmured under her breath as the horse charged towards her, stepping back and flinching as he skidded to a stop beside her. "Ok boy, that's a good horse," she said to the bay, quickly taking a hold of his reins and patting him gently on the neck. Stallion now under control, she turned towards Colt and began walking the horse towards him, trying to mange the difficult feat of holding her puppy in one arm and the reins with her spare hand. "Are you ok? That looked like a pretty nasty fall. If you hurt your back don't get up and I'll call an ambulance."

[Ty]

Colt lay there for a moment, witht he wind knocked out of him. He gasped for air, before regiaing himself. Ella walked over to him and asked him a question, he couldn't tell what it was, but it sounded something like this: Okk yar ou? hat look like a pretty gnat-- The rest Colt couldn't hear because he closed his eyes and fainted.

[femalefred]

Oh crap. Ella had no idea how well behaved this horse was, seeing as she'd never handled it before, and now his rider had fainted. This was not good.
Looking carefully at the stallion, she turned see what the closest fence that she could possibly tie him to was, and luckily the log Colt had now passed out against had the red and white side markers used in competition set up on it for some reason. As quickly as possible she lifted the reins over Renji's head and hitched him to the white marker, put the dog on the floor and knelt next to the boy.

"Colt, can you hear me?" she asked, in a clear, firm voice, placing a hand on his shoulder and shaking gently. Thin Dog took that as a sign to stick her nose in his face, licking happily at the boy's cheek. "Knock it off.. actually that might work," Ella said with a grim smile, glancing down to Colt again, hoping that he'd wake up sooner rather than later.

[Ty]

What the..? Colt blinked a few times, and Ella's dog was sitting on him, licking his face as fast as his little tongue could. He looked at Ella again. 'Ello Colt said jokingly, as he began to sit up, a peircing pain went through his left shoulder. Ahhh.. he picked up his right arm and rubbed his left shoulder.

[femalefred]

"That's enough then, Dog," Ella said with a relieved smile. It looked like an ambulance wasn't going to be needed after all, and she sat back from the boy to give him a little more space, reaching over to pick the dog up and holding her close to her side.

She was about to stand up and offer Colt a hand when he winced and started rubbing his shoulder. "Oh dear.. does that feel broken?"

[Ty]

No, just... he paused ..Sore he lied, through gritted teeth. He couldn't get injured. Not right before show season. He got up and shook out his legs before walking over to Renji, patting the stallion on his neck and untying him with his 'good' arm. He began to lead Renji back to the barn, before stopping at Ella. Thanks for coaching me! He said with a smile through gritted teeth.

[femalefred]

Ella frowned a little. If he wasn't getting right back on, she was willing to bet that the shoulder was hurting a lot more than he was willing to let on. "You should probably have it checked out anyway," she said, standing up and stepping back as Colt stood up and moved over to untie his horse.
She smiled, laughing a little nervously at his thanks. "Not a problem.. look, I can give you a lift to the hospital if you want. It'll only get worse if you don't do anything about it."

[Ty]

No really, its fine... I just need to ice it.. Colt gave her a sheepish smile. His hands shook a little before he steadied them and headed back to the barn. Renji walked calmly beside him snorted. Perhaps I should get it checked out... Tommorow.. just.. want to sleep he thought. Before long he was infront of the barn.