Cowgirl Don't Cry

You don't smell bad

“Syd, Vincent’s here!”

Maria had opened to door for me while I finished getting ready for my outing with Vinny. I knew who was at the door, and wanted to be ready in a quick fashion. I had slept so well the night before I had slept straight through my alarm, not wanting to interrupt the amazing dream I was having. Even at this point of the day I was struggling to recall the dream, but all I could remember was not wanting to wake up. This wasn’t average for me – normally I woke up in a panic over when the next test was, or that I had forgotten to read for the lecture that day, or from a terrible dream that I had no control over.

Ever since my horrible breakup with my ex-fiancé I had been having horrible nightmares. Sometimes the nightmares had to do with a romantic theme, which I could understand stemming from my breakup with Jake, but the others involved horses or people dying, and I had no idea why these had suddenly started popping up every few nights – they were awful. So on a night when I was having a good dream, whatever that dream was about, you better bet that I didn’t want to wake up. But eventually I did drag myself out of bed, realizing that I had to get ready for my day date with Vinny.

I had checked the weather on my phone, and it indicated that it was going to be a reasonably warm day, but nothing scorching like I had been expecting. I was decked out in a thin tank top with a under armour sports bra underneath it. When it was days like this, I generally shed my tank top when I started to ride, because I would sweat straight through it by the time I was done with my third horse. Today was going to be a long day, so I packed my usual two gallons of Gatorade, and multiple waters, but I also stuck in an extra gallon for Vinny. I had a feeling that if this date didn’t send him running for the hills, then he was actually true to his word, and really interested in me.

I grabbed my bag carrying my drinks and my breeches (type of pants that horse back riders wear), and breezed into the living room, giving a quick hug to Maria, and heading out to my truck. Vincent offered to carry my backpack, noticing the embroidery on it and asking about it. The backpack had been a prize that I had won at Nationals 2 years before when I won the Preliminary division on Tie. I blushed as I told him and he whistled in exclamation.

“Sydney that’s impressive! You guys must be really good!” I shrugged in response. To be honest, we were. Tie was an amazing horse, and while he wasn’t the horse that I would take to the Olympics one day, he was the horse that had gotten me recognized by the Iridescent Sport Horses, the sport horse farm that owned both Em and Dragon. If I was honest with myself, both Em and Dragon were horses that could potentially be in my string that I took to the Olympics, but the one I was most hopeful about was Dray. The powerhouse of a two year old was going to be amazing, and I couldn’t wait to see how he progressed.

“I have had a lot of really good opportunities. But it was that win at nationals that got me my other two horses, because ISH was there looking for new riders to sponsor. And they had thought that I would be perfect for Em, who had just turned two at the time, cuz she was quite the handful, and they had seen how,” I pondered the adjective I would use to describe Tie’s personality, “outgoing, Tie was.” He laughed heartily at my description of Tie. To be honest, all of the horses I worked with had a very “outgoing” personality, and by outgoing, I meant that they all were extremely difficult, and needed a specific type of rider to handle them – one of the reasons I had been able to buy Tie, he was amazingly cheap, because no one could handle them.

“And how’d you get the third horse?” I was impressed that he was this interested in what I did. I had tried to not show much interest in his hockey career, because I didn’t want him to think that I was only after him because of that. He had mentioned being worried that girls were only ever after his name, fame and money, and I definitely didn’t want him to have to worry about that with me.

“Dragon? Well after I took Em to her first show and they saw how I handled it, they gave me the pick of the babies, because they’re trying to up their reputation, because they’re relatively new in the eventing world, and the more horses they have competing at a higher level, the better it looks.” He nodded thoughtfully, as if he understood. “I really got lucky, he’s turning into an amazing horse.” It was true. I was honestly so excited to take Dragon to his first show, and I know ISH was getting their hopes up on how he would pan out. They had recently decided that they were going to keep him a stallion, at my suggestion, because I really thought that he was going to do very well, whether with me, or if once I got him competing at a higher level, they replaced me with a known Olympic rider, and that his foals would be worth a lot one day.

“That’s really cool. I’m excited to see you do what you do. I did a little research – so there’s Dressage, like a movements test, right? And then there’s stadium jumping which is where you’re in an arena, and then cross country where the jumps don’t fall down and its over a super long distance? And then in the upper levels you have conditioning test type things too?” Now I was really impressed. I actually turned to look at him as I was driving down the road, causing him to nervously point through the front window. I laughed and looked back to the road, shaking my head.

“Impressive. And yes, that’s about it. It’s really hard to explain. But the main ones are Dressage, Show Jumping and Cross Country – though I live for cross country.” I smiled and thought of the adrenaline rush I got every time I ran a cross country course. Even schooling was the best thing in the world. He would get a little taste of it all today, because I was running each horse through each phase, including the roads and tracks, or conditioning phase, for Tie and Em.

“Cross country is really dangerous though, right?” I nodded, keeping my eyes on the road. No point in lying. People died, got their backs broken, you name it, from being careless while running cross country.

“But that’s why we practice.”

- - -

I had decided to take Vinny to a small café close to where I kept my horses. It was called Crazy Horse Café, an ode to all of the horse farms nearby. He laughed and made a joke about the name as we pulled up and I grinned and giggled with him. I really appreciated the easy banter that we had developed. I liked spending time with him, and I liked that he was interested in what I did. As much as I hated to admit it to myself, I was almost becoming hopeful that he was who he was telling me he was.

Lunch was a turn of events. Around these neck of the woods, no one knew anything about hockey, but they did know horses. It was only about five minutes after we had sat down that a young girl, no more than 16 walked up to our table with a huge grin on her face.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt – but could I get your autograph!” Vinny smiled and reached for the pen, but she gave him a weird look and turned th page around, it was a full, double page add for Iridescent Sport Horses, and on the left page it showed me and Em clearing a massive brush jump, and on the other showed me and Tie jumping down a bank into water. Vinny said a soft wow under his breath as he caught sight of what I did, and I shrugged and scribbled my signature on both pages.

“No problem.” I noticed her sweatshirt as she stood there, a United States Eventing Association sweatshirt. “You event?” She nodded, blushing slightly and I shrugged and looked her in the eye. “Do you have a horse?”

“Yes ma’am. 12 year old thoroughbred gelding, and I’m showing him preliminary at Ocala next month. I ride over at Stonebrook, but I just moved here from North Caroline.” I smiled at her and nodded, before jotting down my email address on another page of the magazine.

“Well, if you need a trainer, or anything like that, there’s my email, I wouldn’t mind helping out.” The little girl seemed slightly star struck and awed. I would have been the same way – but that’s the only way you make it in the world of eventing. You either have a ton of money and can afford the best, pre-trained horses, or you get a mentor and they help you get noticed. I had been helped by one of the top trainers in southern Alabama when I was younger, and I definitely wouldn’t mind helping out a young girl.

“Thank you so much! I’ll definitely email you soon!” I smiled at the girl as she waved at both of us and practically skipped back to the table she shared with an older woman, who I assumed was her mother. It almost made me excited to think of having someone to take under my wing, and help out. I definitely had been afforded the opportunities of a lifetime, and I would always want to help others get the same types of opportunities for themselves.

“That was nice of you.” Vincent smiled at me across the table and placed his hand over mine where it rested, squeezing it softly. I smiled up at him. He had no idea that I had such a soft spot for helping young riders – I didn’t know much about hockey, but I had a feeling it was way different from the way horse back riding went. The rest of our lunch went off without a hitch, and we were on our way to the stables before too long.

- - -

“So this is Tie, the next one down is Em, and the one after is Dray.” I pointed to the three different horses as I stood at Tie’s head, rubbing his favorite spot behind his ear affectionately. The jet-black gelding whickered a greeting and eyed Vinny as the young man held out his hand for the horse to sniff. Tie squealed slightly and bobbed his head, causing Vinny to take a step back, and widen his brown eyes. I watched as Tie looked at Vinny closer, stretching out his neck and wiggling his upper lip in the unknown mans direction. “He’s harmless, I promise.” Vinny stepped forward again and placed his hand against the horses face, scratching him softly.

We moved on to the next horse, and he awed as he saw Em. She was a pretty gray horse, and Vinny was much more confident with her. We were fawning over Em, when we heard a crack as Dray kicked at his door. Vinny looked over at the loud noise with wide eyes, laughing as Dray stuck his head over the half door and whinnied angrily at us. I hurried over to the baby horse and wrapped my arms around his massive head.

“Woah, he’s big.” Vinny arrived right after me, looking into the horses stall at his massive size. He easily had 4 inches on Tie, and even more than that on Em. Big was an understatement. I had decided to ride Dray first, and end with Tie. It made the most sense in my mind.

Vinny stayed out of my way as I readied the skittering horse. He constantly asked questions, showing just how interested he was in what I did. I handed him a jug of Gatorade before I got onto Dray, and had him follow us out to the covered arena, where we had no jumps. We went through all of our normal works, and it was only ten or twenty minutes before I stopped for a drink and handed Vinny my tank top, leaving me in just a neon orange sports bra.

Vinny raised his eyebrows at me, and gave me a grin. I nodded at him to follow me out to the jumping arena, where I took Dray over a few small jumps, whooping as the horse put his head between his knees and took off bucking after one of the larger jumps.

“I think he’s done for the day.” I laughed, swinging out of the saddle and loosening the girth, walking with him back up to the barn. Vinny had a million and one questions about what we had been doing and why. I answered them to the best of my ability as I untacked the sweaty bay colt, hosed him off and placed him in a small, enclosed field where he could run around while I rode the other horses.

I did a similar workout on Em, the jumps were a little bit bigger, and at the end of the workout I left the area where Vinny could follow me and went for a 10 minute gallop, coming back covered in sweat, and Em with her flanks heaving, but dancing happily beneath me. My workout on Tie was the one that I intended to show off with a bit.

I started off with a similar workout on the flat, practicing the dressage test that I was going to be performing at my next horse show. I could tell by the look on Vinny’s face that he was madly impressed. It was one of the more difficult tests in USEA sanctioned events. After that we headed out to the stadium arena, and I asked one of the younger girls that was running around to place the jumps up to four foot, leaving two smaller jumps to warm up over, which I did while they moved the jumps to a larger size. Vinny was ever the gentleman and helped the girl up the jumps, yelling out that I had to be joking and that there was no way that my horse could jump over those.

I just grinned, laughing as the young girl that he was now standing with explained to him that Tie and I were ‘the best’, and that we could jump even higher than those jumps. Warming up was easy, and Tie was getting down to business, very focused on the task ahead. I turned to horse towards the bigger jumps, and he leapt over those, and just went around at an easy pace, never really making much of an effort. At the end he threw in a small buck saying, this is nothing. I grinned when I noticed that Vinny was standing next to a triple bar part of the wooden fence, totally unaware that most of us considered that a fence – a big fence, almost five foot, but a fence at that. I picked up an easy canter, urging the big horse into a hand gallop. As I headed towards the fence, Vinny kept his eyes glued to me, assuming I was going to turn and take the fence that was close to where he stood, but inside the arena. But I never did, and he skittered backwards, falling on his butt as Tie leapt over the huge fence, grunting as he stretched out beneath me over the wide spread of the jump. After landing, I pulled the horse to a walk and gestured to the younger girl, asking her to take him for a ten minute gallop and then untack and cool him out. She nodded excitedly, and was on Tie and galloping away from me in a matter of thirty seconds.

Vinny was still on his butt as I walked over to where I had just jumped out of the arena, laughing at the expression on his face. He honestly looked so confused, stunned, scared and impressed all at once. I offered him my hand to help him up, which he took, but instead of helping me up, pulled me down into the dirt with him.

I shrieked as I fell on my butt next to him, his hand still gripping mine. His eyes had gone from a mix of emotions to simply mischievous. I laughed and took my free hand and touched it to his face. He leaned forward like he was going to kiss me, his free hand wrapping around my waist.

“Oh no. You do not want to kiss me. You don’t even want to know how bad I smell right now.” I giggled and rotated away from him, taking my hands away from him and standing up. “I’d offer you my hand, but I think you’d just pull me down again.” He laughed and pushed himself up, wiping his hands on his athletic shorts.

“That stuff you do is really cool, Sydney. I’d definitely like to see you compete sometime.” We walked back up towards the barn, where Tie was already back in his stall drying off and relaxing from his workout. I went to get Tie, and Vinny made himself useful and got Em from her paddock that she was in. I was impressed that just in one day he was comfortable enough to bring Em in all by himself.

“For sure, I’ll let you know when they are. And thanks for your help today.” We had been at the stables for just under four hours, and I was absolutely exhausted. I had a feeling he was going to try and extend our date, but all I wanted at this point in time was a long shower, and to finish up the rest of my homework that I hadn’t gotten done earlier this weekend.

The drive home we chatted about everything from the horses that Vinny had just met to my schoolwork, but we still avoided his career, and he never brought it up. I had a feeling that it wasn’t something he really liked to talk about – but boy was I becoming curious. I had done some research on who he was, and I was quickly realizing what a big deal he was to the city of Tampa Bay.

“I know you have school, but do you have a night where we could watch a movie or something low key?” We had been driving in comfortable silence for a few minutes when Vinny spoke up. I was impressed. He passed the test of coming out and being around the horses for a day. I was really impressed.

“Probably Wednesday night, because I take that day off from the barn.” I was excited at the idea of seeing him again, but I really needed to get some studying in the next couple of nights. I was starting to realize that balancing such hard schoolwork, high level competitive riding, and a man, may not be as easy as I thought it would be. “Its hard with school, and riding to find time for anything, I’m sorry.”

“No worries! Wednesday sounds good. I’m sure I’ll talk to you before then.” He leaned across the console and tucked a fallen piece of hair behind my ear. My breath hitched in my throat as his fingers sent an electric shock through me. His lips met mine softly, and he whispered in my ear, his French accent so heavy, so sexy, that I almost threw myself across the console at him. “And you don’t smell bad at all.”
♠ ♠ ♠
I know this is kind of confusing for you non horse people.
Eventually im gunna add pictures of the horses to the main page so you guys know what they look like.
Also, check out my story featuring Isaac MacLeod,
i love him, you will too.
God Gave Me You
lemme know what you think!
Happy New Years! stay safe tonight!
Comments are appreciated!
<3