Welcome to Hickstead, home to both Seven Oak Stables, and Blue Acre - two rival stables. Both offer opportunities for their clients to reach the highest level of excellence. Each stable differs from the other, so choose wisely and never forget, loyalty is everything... Meanwhile as the stables battle it out, there's trouble brewing at the university. Be careful, if you don't pick a side you may get caught in the cross-fire...
This is an chilled out rpg with a super friendly and relaxed atmosphere! Remember to sign up with your characters full name in all caps and don't forget to do your claims! Thank you and Welcome, we've been established since 10th March 2009 but unfortunately have had to close guest view of our boards due to multiple sites ripping off our hard work, such a shame! Come chat to us in Discord before joining if you like!.
"nice to hear he was being useful, it makes a change." Othello grinned and shrugged, not sure that anything he could say would help or harm the situation, so he opted for silence.
"That's fine, you don't have to know exactly what it is you want, that will come in time, but that's a great starting block. We'll just work on getting you solid in the saddle and confident." He gave a small nod. "I've done a few baby shows - as mum likes to call them - where I walked, and trotted around a judge standing in the middle of the arena. I just want to do more than basic walking and trotting. Grams was my instructor, so she was probably a little biased." Okay, she was a lot biased, as he knew he didn't have the best seat.
He kept his hands light on the reins, keeping that contact, but not pulling on the gelding's mouth. "you're looking great up there, already a good position." He gave a small smile, at least that was positive. "Try to relax your knees a little and soften your elbows, your lower leg position is looking strong already, we just try not to grip with knees as it can send the horse on a little quicker than we're asking. Softening the elbows helps with our connection through the reins." He frowned as he tried to follow all of her instructions, pleased that he had signed up for private lessons. He sat back in the saddle a little, opening his hips, which released the grip his knees had, but then he had to push his heels down again. He gave up trying to do everything at once and closed his hands on the reins, rubbing Harry's neck when the gelding halted and he turned the horse to face Lily. "How does one soften their elbows?" He asked with a self-conscious laugh and shrugged.
"Nope, right on time!" Othello mimed wiping his forehead - or as close as he could get with a helmet on - at that news. "This must be the famous Harry?" He grinned and nodded, letting Harry stretch forward as the gelding stretched his nose toward the man and sighed when he worked out no treats were on offer.
He tightened the girth before pulling his stirrups down and swinging into the saddle, closing is eyes for a moment as the ground seemed to vanish from beneath them from moving quickly, and he blew out a breath as he opened them again and patted Harry's neck before slipping his right foot into the stirrup and sorted out his reins. "Alrighty, so... dressage! I understand you're just starting out, so how far have you got so far? Feeling comfortable in trot and canter yet or just getting used to the movements?" He shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. "I've done basic showing, walk, trot, canter on command around the judge." He shrugged again. "Even though my mum as an aneurysm every time I talk about wanting to do it, I want to give enventing a try, and I from watching it on the telly, I know that dressage is a bit more than just walking, trotting and cantering around an arena, and I want to know how to turn my riding into what they can do." He shrugged a third time, knowing that he was babbling but hoping that Leo would get the gist of what he was saying.
"Bless you." Othello said as Harry sneezed while being groomed. The boy felt a little nervous while he finished grooming the liver chestnut and then tacked him up, wondering if he was as ready for this as he thought he was. At least this was a lesson his mum knew about, and he'd had a video call with her last night talking about stuff - her nagging him for not eating enough, because she could see he'd lost weight, her telling him to be careful around horses, blah, blah, blah.
"Let's do this." He gave a grin as he zipped his jacket up and led the horse out to the arena, while he pulled his riding gloves on. His grin deepened when he saw the man who was going to be his instructor. "Not late, am I?" Maybe he'd be lost in his own world for a little longer than he should have been?
"nice to meet you Othello, I hear you met my brother the other week, I hope he didn't annoy you too much." Othello's grin widened. "He was really cool! Helped me find my way around the place." And then wondered if he was being too informal... oh well, to late for that. And Leo had been a great help for when he'd first arrived and wasn't exactly feeling the best. "Lovely to meet you too, Harry," He loosened his hold on the reins, letting the liver chestnut stretch out and say hello to their instructor.
"Alright, so you want to get cracking with eventing, is that right?" He nodded, though guilt gnawed at him a little. "Is there anything in particular you've been struggling with so far, or want to improve on? Anything you have in mind that you really want to achieve or get out of this?" He pulled a face as he thought of his answer. "It can be something really small, or what you might think is small, but any target and achievement is huge." He fiddled with the buckle on the reins. "I just want to show mum that I can actually do stuff on horses, not just walk around the arena." He shrugged with a sigh. "I'm not really sure what I want to do, but I've always watched eventing on the telly and wondered what it would be like to actually get out there and give it a go." He shrugged again, knowing that he was making a huge hash out of this.
"When you're ready if you want to get on board and start getting warm, so we can get down to the hard work once you've both gotten moving and relaxed." He smiled and nodded, as least this was something he could do! He pulled down the stirrups, tightened the girth up as much as he could and lifted the reins over the horse's head before swinging into the saddle. He rubbed Harry's neck as the gelding stood like a statue as the boy found his stirrups and then squeezed the horse forward, guiding Harry to the outside of the arena as they began their warm up, though his mind was going through his position in the saddle, going through everything his Grams had taught him about straight lines, shoulders and heels.
Othello had signed up for the lessons before he had told his parents what he was doing, but they had been pretty okay with it, as he had told them that he was only doing low level lessons, so it wasn't like he was going to be going over Olympic sized fences.
The day had started pretty good, he brought Harry in from the pasture, gave him a thorough groom and tacked him up, making sure that his gear was clean and that he too was looking tidy. It was as he was leading his horse to the arena that he wondered if he should have signed up for a group lesson, but at least with just him and the instructor, it wouldn't be too embarrassing if he was sick in the middle of the lesson.
He paused at the entrance of the arena, giving the one person who knew about his medical issues, a nervous smile. "Hi, I'm Othello and this is Harry." The Suffolk Punch had some fancy show name, but Othello could never remember what it was, and with the lightning shaped star on the liver chestnut's forehead, Harry suited him.
Othello nodded, he missed his parents enough while he was here, he could imagine that he'd miss any siblings as much too. "I was born and raised in Exeter." He replied with a grin. "I... got in trouble at school there, and my parents have close friends here, I've called them aunt and uncle forever, and this seemed a good move." At least was kind of the truth.
He moved Harry's mane from one side of his neck to the other as he worked out how to answer her question, without mentioning the extent of his illness. "I had an accident while climbing a couple of years ago, which lead to a few complications, and because of that mum's a little more freakish than she was before." She gave a boyish grin and shrugged. "She's lucky that I found a new interest during the summer I spent with my grandparents... and not just horses either." That was the summer he had decided he wanted to be a vet.
He reined his horse in when Harry wanted to follow the squirrel, using his seat and legs to keep the gelding where he wanted him, and nodded as he listened. "I'm sure I could talk to the Whites about a dressage coach." He said with a shrug. He swallowed hard at the thought of trotting, but knew that Harry would enjoy the faster pace. "Sure!" He said with a bright grin that he didn't feel - fake it 'till you make it. "Trotting sounds like fun! He sat up a little straighter and waited until the woman cued her horse to start trotting before he asked Harry to do the same, knowing that his horse had a long stride in the trot.
Othello grinned as it seemed that his earthquake suggestion was the one they were going to go with, even if there hadn't been one, and he nodded to her sorting idea and began to help place things into the appropriate box. Part of him wished he paid more attention to who owned what around here, or made a decent attempt to make friends around the barn, and then he might have some idea of if the items they were sorting out were barn owned or personally owned. "We could also say nothing and hope that everyone else will think that this is another one of Leo's pranks." He quite liked the man, and had been here enough to know all the barn gossip.
He nodded, it was easy enough to adapt to new places, and the hospital here was really no different from any other, they all had that same antiseptic clean smell, but he wasn't about to speak that comparison out loud. "The town here is small enough that everyone seems to know everyone else, but I don't feel afraid that the lady in the grocer is going to tell my aunt that I was hanging out with the bad-kids by the basketball court." He grinned and shrugged. "Also, being a new kid, also means that teachers have to take me as I am, rather than someone who has taught another family member and thinks they already know who I am." Being an only child, he was lucky that he'd never had to worry about that, but he'd had classmates who were being taught by someone who had taught their parent, and the child was treated as though they were their parent.
He chuckled. "I shall be that angel on your shoulder, reminding you that your horse only needs a light rug." He lifted his hands to straighten his imaginary halo with a grin. He laughed as he thought about his Horse. "Harry is more Suffolk Punch than he is Arabian, so other than his slightly dished nose, he's like any other cold blooded horse." He felt that the liver chestnut was very intelligent, as he tended to pick things up pretty quickly, but he also knew that he was biased. "The only time I see his hyper side, is when he's out in the pasture." He returned her grin as she accepted his offer for a trail ride and nodded. "That's actually probably a good idea. Learning the trails before you go out there on your horse." He never had to worry when he was riding Harry, but he knew that some horses didn't like new places and it would make a horse more comfortable if their rider already knew where they were going, and if his horse wasn't so laid-back, about everything, he'd have wanted to ride a horse who knew the trails the first time he headed out.
Othello bowed and grinned, tidying up was an easy enough job, and it was a gentle job. His brows rose at the question, as he wasn't too sure about the answer. "Uh..? I'm sure that if we put like with like, tidy should be tidy enough?" He offered with a shrug. He did his best to keep his stuff in his locker or the trunk outside his horse's stall. "Or, we could pretend that a really big quake just happened and this stuff fell down on top of us?" He chuckled at his idea.
He pulled a face when thinking of the town he had grown up in. Compared to Hickstead, Exeter would be closer in description to London, just with a little less smog and not so many ravens. My grandparents have a really nice farm on the outskirts of the town though. Their village-thing, is a lot like here." He liked it better here, he was creating a new life for himself, and it didn't seem like everyone here knew everything about him.
He winced in empathy about being separated from her horse. "Hopefully the time passes quickly." He had no idea about how different the winter temperatures would be compared to where she had come from. "Even if it's really cold outside, it's always warm in here, and if he still feels the cold, put a stable sheet over him and he'll acclimatise quickly enough." Olympic horses often went to the event a few months before the Games started so that they would be used to the summer temperatures, altitude and whatever before they needed to compete, so he was sure that a horse getting used to the cold would be the same. "I own a dark liver chestnut, Suffolk Punch, Arabian gelding." He said, his face warming with a soft smile as he thought of his horse. He walked over and started helping to gather things together and then sorting them out into where he was sure they would belong, making sure to keep anything that had too much of a scent at arm's length. The tack room could be so much fun to be in at times. "We could ride out together sometime when your horse gets out of quarantine of you would like? Harry's a schoolmaster, so even if your horse is wigging out, he'll remain rock steady."
Othello shrugged at the only child question. "Sometimes I think it would be fun to have siblings, but then now that I live away from home, I'd have more people to miss." He shrugged again, not quite sure. He also wondered if his parents had sent him away because his mum was pregnant and she didn't want him around the new baby, in case he got the baby sick - because leukaemia was so contagious - but he knew he was being an idiot, so pushed those thoughts away.
He laughed at horse riding not being the safest sport. "I think my dad finds riding much safer than me climbing up rock walls, and not the indoor kind, though he's a shrink. Mum's just... smothering?" He shrugged, instantly feeling guilty, as he knew why his mother was like she was. "I think she's coming to realise that I wouldn't do anything that would put me in anymore danger than I'm in when I cross the road." He laughed and shrugged as he patted Harry on the neck.
He shrugged, as he didn't think he wanted to go through the whole thing of creating earbuds for horses. He grinned, he knew that he had a weird taste of music. "No Ma'am, I haven't tried to work out a dressage test to music yet. I'd need to so a little more research on the whole dressage to music thing first, and maybe try and copy a test, with classical music, before I think about inventing my own." Sure, he was creative, but he was also still learning about horses, and he wasn't ready to start being too creative on the horse front, as he didn't want to do something that might end up hurting Harry.
Othello continued to chuckle as he regained his composure, afterall, he had to keep his heart rate down, and cracking up laughing would only lead to him throwing up, and he didn't feel the need to add to the chaos already in front of him.
He grinned and applauded when it seemed that she had found what she was looking for, even if it did look like a Mack Truck had been through the tack room in the process! "Would you like some assistance?" He asked with a smile as he straightened up. His smile deepened as she introduced herself. "I'm Othello. Moved here about a year ago, from Exeter." He dreamed of travelling, but he had a feeling that the only travelling he'd ever do was when he visited other realms and countries when he was lost in a book. "Is you horse settling in well?" Sure, he could have asked if she was settling in well, not that he even knew if she had her own horse, but horses was an easy topic, and seemed less intrusive.
Othello's brows shot up, his mouth opening and closing - probably making him look like a fish - as he tried to work out what he'd said that had put the woman on the defensive. "No, Ma'am!" He replied with a shake of his head. "What I was trying to say was that my witty comebacks and grandiose ideas come from the books I've read, not because I have a high level of intelligence." Probably being homeschool for a year and a bit didn't help either. "No brothers or sisters, and not a lot of close friends of either gender, so probably not surprising I don't have a vast range of book genres." Being an only child sucked, but at least it meant that he wasn't taking the attention away from siblings while his parents were always at the hospital with him.
He shrugged again, not sure he wanted to rock the boat too much when it came to horses. The last thing he wanted was for his riding privileges to be completely removed. "I'll have a talk to the Whites and see if they can point me in the right direction. And yeah, the bubble wrap has always been a little tight." He grinned. "Mum almost has an Apoplexy when Gram started me riding."
He pressed his lips together in thought as he pretended to give her question serious consideration. "I don't know if they do, but it would be a pretty cool project to patent, and it couldn't be that hard to sew some into a set of bonnets." Okay, maybe the idea wasn't that stupid, now that he'd voiced it, and he wondered if they did exist - they'd be great for horses that could do with soothing music playing at all times. "I quite like hip-hop." He rubbed Harry's neck, the gelding quite liked hip-hop too. "Not the modern... uh, stuff that objectifies women, but the ones from the 90's. Like Vanilla Ice." He shrugged, not sure where he was going with this, so decided he'd probably said too much.
Othello sighed as he rested his forehead against his horse's. Things had just seemed to have gone from bad to worse since he'd arrived in Hickstead, and to at a thunderhead to the storm cloud already hovering over his dismal existance, his doctor has now said that he was to refrain from physical activity - anything that would get his heartrate up - which included handwalking Harry. "I'm not even supposed to groom you!" He muttered.
He stepped back as the Suffolk Punch's head flew up at the loud noise. "Easy, boy." He soothed. "I'm going to go check that out." He could have ignored it, but he also couldn't have it on his conscience if someone had broken their neck.
Walking to the door of the feed and tack room, his brows shot up at what he encountered. "You alright down there?" He asked, trying his best to hold back a smile. "Did you find what you were looking for?" A laugh escaped, and he pressed his lips together to hold back the guffaw that wanted to escape He did his best to look sympathetic, albeit slightly amused.
Othello grinned and laughed. "Book smart, but not that intelligent." He said with a shrug. "I like the classic adventure fiction. Science fiction tends to need a little more brain power than I have at times." He shrugged again, knowing that he'd just insulted himself and not caring.
He laughed as Harry snorted, seemingly in reply to the woman's comment about the attitudes of chestnut horses. "Not so much the permission. More the convincing them that... Um, yeah, I guess it would be getting their permission." His mum was freaked out that he wouldn't be able to mentally handle the physical sport, and he knew that she was having imaged of him falling off his horse in the middle of the cross country phase, but he was stronger than that, and he felt that he could do it.
He took up his gelding's reins, as the horse took interest in the departing insect, though did nothing more than blow out his breath before lowering his head. The boy listened as the woman spoke about dressage. He grinned. "I like listening to music while riding too, but then Harry here gets jealous that I'm listening to music and he isn't, and I still need to find headphones in his size." Music helped him forget about the world for a while, and when out on horseback, it helped even more.