Heart of a Horse - Part 1

by Lexi
(Illinois)

11 year old Shelby Johnson made her way through the crowd of kids in the hall of Mellowbrook elementary making way for the main doors. After a lot of shoving she finally got there and made her way out of the school. She scanned the busy parking lot for her mom and finally spotted her.

"Mom!" She ran to her mom's pick-up truck and swung her backpack onto the floor of the passenger side and jumped in. She had worn jeans and a t-shirt that day.

"Hurry up! We have to get to the stables!" Shelby shrieked to her mom.

"OK! Hold your horses!" Her mom laughed. As soon as she was buckled her mom backed out of the parking lot and started driving to Meadowlane stables, where Shelby had been riding for three years now. She didn't have a horse of her own, but had been horse crazy since she was little.

She loved Meadowlane and went there every day to ride her favorite horse, Smore. He was a paint horse gelding and was perfect in every way except he could be lazy sometimes. Shelby hadn't been able to ride for almost 9 months cause she had broken her leg on a bad fall. She had gotten her cast off a few weeks ago and was ready to ride.

"Are we there yet?" shelby asked impatiently.

"Yup!" Her mom said as she pulled up to Meadowlane. She at once saw her instructor and owner of Meadowlane, Ashley.

Shelby jumped out of the as soon as her mom parked and ran up to her.

"Ashley!" Shelby screamed. Ashley hugged her and stood back.

"I haven't seen you in awhile. How've you been?" Ashley asked her.

"Pretty good. How's Smore doing?" Shelby asked.

"He's good." Just as she did that one of the worker's came running past chasing after a beautiful jet black mare with white socks and a star.

"Who's that?" Shelby asked watching the horse.

"That would be Spirit. She's new. She's 4 years of hate." Ashey shook her head.

"My cousin got her from her friend and dumped her here. She's a purebred thoroughbred But no one can tame her." Ashley turned her head back to Shelby.

"She used to be a great horse but her old owner was abusive and she got sent from one home to another over her years. And she finally ended up here. Now you stay away from her." Ashley said.

"OK .I'll go get Smore tacked up. She glanced at Spirit and ran to the barn. She walked over to Smore's stall and saw him eating hay in the front of the stall.

"Hey boy." She called sweetly. Smore continued eating hay and finally looked up at her. She went to get a blue halter and lead rope from the tack room and came back. She opened the stall and gently slipped the halter over his head and buckled it. She clipped the lead rope onto the halter ring and led him into the hall of the big barn.

She walked him up to the crossties and unclipped the lead rope and quickly clipped on the crossties onto the halter. She had a curry comb in her hand and started to groom Smore’s brown and white coat.When she was satisfied, she picked up the hoof pick and one by one, started picking Smore’s hooves.

She finished and ran to the tack room,her pale blonde hair flying. She quickly put it into a ponytail and grabbed a blue saddle pad and a brown western saddle. She rode English too, but today was going western.

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This is my first story I hope you like it! Please comment for part 2!