Sport Office Work?

Jill was well aware that the facility owner insisted on over-ruling the certified coaches, on what should be taught to students and how, and eventually she fired each and every one by one. It seemed she preferred subordinate staff with less knowledge, professionalism and training as teacher. So then, why was she allowed to maintain membership in the accredited facilities that were expected to have a certified head coach?

Jill had heard Cavalia was seeking a barn manager, but she was sure she was too late to apply. Instead she was considering another more current want ad.

SKILLS AND ABILITIES:
the ability to prioritize, meet deadlines, and manage detail.
organizational and computer skills, excellent oral and written communication skills.
high ethical standards and the ability to manage confidential information.
capable of providing effective leadership and supervision of staff.
knowledge of rules, experience with a discipline recognized by the Federation and current License as Official

Q. If you are not a resident of the greater Lexington area, are you willing to relocate at your own expense?

She liked to imagine living in Lexington. She knew could take the heat in Georgia, Arizona and Texas and love it more than anybody. California and Florida didn't even get warm enough, but Kentucky would have some of the warmth she craved right? 

Then, since Jill was not legally able to work in the United States, she wished the Canadian Sport Office would hire her for such a role instead. She was daydreaming and not getting any applications progressed.  She missed working! 

And then, she was nostalgic about the date that Jim said "I am really impressed with your stride. People are always telling me slow down slow down but we walk in a comfortable rhythm."

Jill had thought he had a charming smile, and was glad to see his eyes without the sunglasses for a change, ha, and she liked holding his sandpaper farm boy/farrier hand through the crowds on the street of the big city.

Meanwhile, she'd told her friend the night before, "He's the boss's brother, I am not even going to hold his hand." ha.

A New Chapter

Jill was proud of the fact that she'd graduated the week before (finally) from simply schooling the school horses to riding a young horse that the head coach/trainer didn't get to that day. A few days later when the boss asked if she could help set up/settle the two top show horses at the giant Palgrave facility for a show, she was excited to and said yes. The boss said "bring your boots and your hat though, because you might want to take one of them for a hack." (whoo hoo)

Even though they had only met the once, she had him on her mind.  Jill knew he had referred to his girlfriend that March.  Were they still seeing each other that fall? Or, the next spring? It was a very long-standing crush. She didn't know how to find out, or how much it actually mattered whether her fantasies were adulterous or just simply ridiculous, ha.  She couldn't help wishing for a quick trip to Arizona for June - who knew what could happen where the land itself was magic?  She had areoplan points but needed to save them for a trip in the sunshine next winter.  She was thinking of booking soon...
*

At her other horse-pace, Jill saw a horrible horse emergency that morning. The calm, trustworthy filly she was to jog later had her head stuck, the halter snagged on the bolt on the outside of the stall door.  Jill walked in the barn and couldn't understand the mare's weird expression and pose, over half door.  What was she doing?  Then Jill saw that the the nylon halter was caught.  Jill could see it needed to slide like a millimeter the right direction and the horse would be free.  

Arizona was frozen there and Jill went over saying "okay whoa girl i am going to help you with this" wondering if she could somehow cut it off the horse, thankful the mare was so still. Jill touched the halter to give it a tiny tug for freedom and the horse FREAKED OUT. Scrambling backwards, or attempting to,  with all her horse power.  A horrible scrambling clatter of hooves on the floor and wall with her head still stuck and the friggin halter would not give.  She was hanging herself and almost ripping her own face apart and it was horrible.  Jill watched saying easy, easy, easy and not knowing what to do... until thank god a buckle broke, and provided the needed slack, and she was freed.

Jill almost cried with relief and Arizona kicked the stall walls about four times really hard after that.  Jill was glad she hadn't been INSIDE there trying to help.   Her heart pounded for a long time after that and the pony was freaked too, you could tell. poor thing.

When the boss-vet came in, he had a look at all the rub marks and self-inflicted burns and scratches but pronounced her well and lucky enough overall.

A Boy of Good Breeding

She was driving his truck and trailer for him while he couldn't and getting paid $10 hr for it.  Plus, he was a good teacher about the backing up stuff as he passenged.   And, they were having a good time together.  The farm boy/farrier said, "A man should want to be with a smart a woman.  After all, if you can't talk after the act then what's the point?" He was wooing her, obviously, but it seemed truthful.


Jill said she was waiting to have sex til it would be special, between two people really in love and ready to share their spirits along with their bodies. "Don't you just want to save it for love?" she asked her friend-only.  He was honest also about only looking for friendship, ha.


Her doctor had said "You don't show immunity for HPV." and Jill didn't know what it was.  She still didn't, after the doctor explained it, but she didn't want to be sold the needle.  Because she wasn't sexually active like that and besides, she didn't really like vaccines!  The doctor actually encouraged her to go out and get physically romantic with someone, she'd said like laughter, it can be good for your health!  Especially given the other medical issues they'd been discussing, ha.  Such a modern outlook!  It really opened Jill's mind to consider the advice...


At the book launch, Jill loved how the authors made funny about the many times they'd been taken to task for the very autobiographical nature of their fiction.


*


It was pretty clear he wasn't speaking to her, when he shouted for his brother-only, who was not in the barn, while Jill was. "Joe, Joe! Come and see this flock of birds!" he was enthused by something as they flew overhead.

Jill watched the brand new baby filly twitching in the straw and itched for a camera. Why had her $100 Walmart special had to die so young?

The two month old colt looked GIANT all of a sudden, because it was a Monday and she'd had a day off.  He'd become a bit dog-like, with too much leg, in his little tiny halter... he was so gangly in the paddock. He now got to go out twice a day with his momma.

Jill remembered doing the brood mare's stall in her barn, when her ready-for-the-prom-now filly had been about that size...

If only the next mare to foal would also be right on time. Maybe one of these days Jill would actually get to see a baby be born!
*
Jill thought the most romantic words ever in song were about coffee, and a kiss on the forehead. "Honey its so early. Maybe we shouldn't speak yet."

Kiss Me I'm Irish!

Top of the morning, he'd texted.  Happy St. Paddy's!  After she replied he wanted to know where and when, ha.

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!

Mutual Recogniton Party

"I remember you from the olden days," Jill said to the heavy-set man around the heavy horses at the Fall Fair. "When you used to trailer Stone and me around to the horse shows in your stock trailer."

She'd gone to the Fall Fair with her bachelor friends and had no idea who she would run into.  His honrse-handler stern to friendly face, softened in recognition of her, amid the parked horse trailers on the final day of fall fair.

"That was the olden days" he chuckled, shifting his additional weight with a clearly bad now hip.

 "I was just telling some folks the other day the story of "Jill and The Thoroughbred," he said, ha, to her delight.  "Some standardbred folks was suggesting we needed a ramp for them to get their horses to follow them on the step up of the very same rig that big, spooky bay horse would follow you up in a heartbeat, back when you were eventing him and we'd trailer you."

Then he sorta turned to flashthe logo of his Ontario Sire Stakes jacket.  He was a trainer and owner now, but with some interesting philosophies about horse welfare, and horse sports in general.  She thought it was cool.

Jill was filling him in on her radio show.  "So you know your horses," he said, when she admitted her new crush out loud, on the young Suffolk Punch from the organic farm straw building teamster she'd just interviewed, ha.
*
She had noticed him once in between times.  And so, she just started telling him how she'd admired a particular team and teamster once, Her first time at the fall fair in fact.  Because his horses were so incredibly unique in the proceedings in the way they'd waited for his verbal command after he'd hitched the weight to them himself, and then in a seperate moment TOLD them to pull. And only after being impressed by that, Jill recognized him and had announced to her friends "Hey, I know that guy?"

"You recognized that? You saw that?" he was pleased, hearing her recollections. "Then you saw me compete. When I did so, I won everything, ha. All the time. They'll tell that ya that, here, if you ask around. But I was doing it safer then than they do now and I doing right by the horses the whole time too. None of these guys could beat my team, then, and they couldn't now.  And they still want to go."

Jill knew what he meant about the power of a horse that w a n t s   to please you!

Flirt Flash

"I can ride the spookers and the bolters and the rearers and the quitters" Jill said confidently, "but the buckers, well they just have to think about it and I'm flying through the air."

"You're brave" the harness racer'd said, scaring her in fact, because if he thought that she must be missing something. But, she wan not missing the fact he was bringing her an ice cap as a super surprise on such a hot day.

"You can see through those pants when the sun's behind you" he said, teasing and changing the subject. She was actually wearing cream coloured linen pants to muck out the stall that day.  They were hand-me-downs from movie star cousins that she knew she'd never wear outside of the barn, but they were so cool, and felt so comfortable and it was so hot...
"I switched from polka dot underwear to a solid colour this morning in case that happened" Jill retorted, acting less mortified than she actually was...now she tried changing the subject,
"The last time I rode Farah she jumped a big rock in our path like it was a real obstacle.  Isn't that cute? Doesn't that sound like a pony that WANTS to go cross?"
*
Later the same day, Jill was in the barn alone, tackling yet another disgusting corner of the standardbred breeding farm buildings. Cobwebs covered the tack on the hooks on the wall, and as she discovered more tack in the dusty piles on the floor, she just added the bits to the hanging mess, concentrating on "sorting" for the time being. Just to cobweb and sweep with things up of the floor and flat surfaces would be a huge improvement.  She laughed out loud to find a bar of saddle soap on a shelf she was clearing, and Jim peeked around the corner of the doorway, surprising her with his presence, and his quizzical expression...  "As if we need THIS around here" she showed him the unopened box. 

They also had a quick conversation about the whiskey bottle she'd found back there, and flirted in their way as she continued her dirty work and he harnessed his (devil) pony. When the boss came in the barn Jim said, "Jill's been drinking in the barn again" and Jill shrieked and turned to see the boss's face as she told Jim to SHUT UP.

The boss laughed and then said to Jill, "EW, your face is dirty."


Jill shrugged and brought the inside of her t-shirt up to her face to wipe it. As she smeared it around her gritty grimy skin, she felt wet around her nose. Ick, was this a snotty, messy nose? EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW. Gross. She was grossed out and it was her own mess. Not to mention, it was mortifiying. And, in front of Jim of all people?  In a way she wanted to die of shame but on the other hand, she tried to think "well, what's wrong with a dose of real life in a romance anyway?" Ug.

Free Fun

Was Jim joking when he said he didn't like to waste the water, or pollute the environment with the extra shampoo and so only washed his hair once a week?

"we have no preference here" said the large animal vet, to Jill, about the radio. She was thrilled to acknowledge she could put it on whatever station she'd enjoy! And, the small animal vet stocked the fridge with the pop/beverage of her preference... while the other (farrier) brother did his best to make her laugh and lift the heavy things. And, they were a family of SUCH gifted whistlers, Jill didn't even have the words!
*
Farah and I disturbed SOOOOOOOOO many dragonflies today, with our trot round the big feild in two point. my legs hurt today so it MUST have been good for us!

The day after my pony spooked at a butterfly, two huge ugly turkey vultures swooped down from a dead tree we were walking past and she didn’t even flinch (despite the fact that her rider even had a scared vibe)! 

Our last trip out around the fields, we trotted. And, we had to pass a dump truck dumping to get out there! The most exciting part of our ride though, was the section of brush where a huge clatter started happening in the woods and it sounded like a crazy horse eating mammoth on the move towards us, or a scary sasquatch or something…farah spooked and bolted a little and I lost a stirrup and was a tiny bit unseated, though I didn’t fall off, and then what popped out of the forest in front of us (and looking MORE scared of us than we were of him) was a tiny red fox. He then trotted up the path the way we were headed, so we followed him quite a ways, hearts in our throat and all.


The last time Jill had spoken with Jim she remembered him wishing he was still cooking her dinner and complaining that he had no one to give flowers to since she left.

That morning while she sang Farah around the fields new to both of them, with their unexpected trillium, butterflies, tree breezes, rock piles, neighbouring junk and leaping squirrels, all spooking the tiny roan, she remembered singing to Ellie. And she also missed the hacks out with Jim to check on the burn pile.

She used to tell those powerful giants back then that the big pit was a horse coffin and they better be nice to her!

Observations

Jill didn't even notice that the standardbred stable mascot was a stallion. Was he well behaved or what?! She was glad that her boss had already said she was worth her weight in gold, had hinted about needing riding lessons and showed her the young filly she would learn/teach to jog (the term for running round the practice track with a sulky and yer shades).

And, it had not gone un-noticed how CUTE all(both) the farriers on the property were...
*
When the had their first date
"well, you are the first woman i have ever seen just get in my truck like that" Jim said
"what was i supposed to do?" Jill asked, not getting what he meant, and settling herself after stepping so high up into the cab, and slamming the door between them. Jim walked around to the driver's side smiling, "its so high. its so messy" he was imitating a woman's voice, and then said that most girls at least ask for help.
*
could it be that one of the men in that recent riding class was 76?
*
Jim was surprised and amused to see Jill smack the Sandman, with a backhand the colt did not see coming, as tried to get a little nippy over the stall door. The guests to the barn that day had laughed to see the brood mare drink the bucket right from the chore girl's not-yet-20-years in the making-arms, with the foal snooping around over momma's neck. With her hands full, Jill had nothing to push the nosy filly's face back with, so had used repeated pecks on the accidental pet's muzzle.
*
"you are sure lucky you found this place"
"seems so to me"
"these are good people here"
"seems so to me"
*