Out on their date she got the run down from her able/hot bodied funny flirtasious farrier friend on each of the 11 horses in her care the year she'd worked morning chores for his family.
"Who was the young one when I was there?" Jill was shocked that she couldn't remember herself. There had only been the one filly that year, a sweet little thing she had nuzzled and kissed on the muzzle Monday-Friday for an entire year, teaching her to pick up her feet and cross tie and lead proper, without making her a pet, of course. He instantly remembered the sweet little bay of that season's moniker, and touched her heart just saying the foal's name! Smartie was a 3 yr old now and coming along nicely.
"What about witchi-poo?" He said she'd wrecked a pastern so bad she'd been put down. "Wish I'd been there." Jill joked but also! that mare was m e a n. Any of the animals that intimidated her enough that she didn't enter the stall with the clean, refilled water bucket was a thorn in Jill's side, ha. She liked to consider herself competent as a trainer, let alone groom.
And, recalling on down the barn they went. What a nice evening!
With many a good story about riding in Ireland thrown in there. ha.
It was nice to hold hands on the walk home and she was surprised how much she liked the way his hands felt. It would be nice to hang out more with someone who really liked horsies, and spent so much time around them. She remembered her work days at his family's standardbred farm. Almost every day of the whole summer she would find herself standing in a pile of muck or pushing a tippy wheelbarrow back and forth in the dust and dirt to look around joyously in love with her job. big blue sky. big green fields. the wind in your hair. and all the horses you could ask for...
*
He mistook the fact that she was funny, for the fact that she was happy. Jill's students overheard her explaining why the date the night before was another disappointment somehow, and they were spreading the news between them. The fact that they'd met at yoga had everyone with high hopes.
On the upside, the private yoga classes in the beautiful studio were well worth the time Jill spent earning them. And, she always secretly agreed with people when they suggested out of the blue that she'd be a great yoga teacher, and she always aspired as she sang and scrubbed. Being optimistic felt good.
She liked to get the horse to do weird things with her. Like walk into the tack room so she could get her gloves, or go straight through the arena door without her dismounting or even out the barn through the vet clinic. Of course it was against the rules and she would never do it in front of a student but c'mon, haven't you heard of the ponies smuggled up in condo elevators for birthday parties? Jill was obviously deeply effected by the "Ballad of the Irish Horse" documentary she often borrowed from the library. In that film a guy takes his stallion by boat the mares on the island in the season and a lady rides out of her kitchen and down the stairs of the porch on a pony!
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