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The murmur of the crowd gave Hortense an odd sense of comfort as she stood outside the white sand arena next to a large bay tobiano Loshenka stallion. He shook out his coat and stretched out his neck to nudge Hortense in the back. “Hey, quit that. You're gonna wrinkle my coat.” Hortense said to the horse, adjusting and smoothing out her black dressage coat. The loshenka offere...

Hortense stood in the dimly lit tack room. She inhaled slowly and savored the scent of dust, leather, and general horsieness. It had been about a week or two since her unruly Loshenka came home, and he had thrown her on the first day with the Weymouth double bridle that she had been provided by the rescue from the stallion’s previous owner. She cringed, rubbing her sore behind absentmindedly. Hortense had looked in the mirror this morning and still had a great big purple and blue bruise fro...