King Of All She Surveys

His stallion's excitement for competitions was starting to wane and he didn't want to push his boy too far. Mr Asimov loved his current Losh, but he thought it was about time for him to retire. A friend of his in the business had recently mentioned a new mare up for sale, and although he wasn't thinking about buying a new horse, he decided he probably should. His wife had many horses, although she tended to focus her energy on Athena, but Mr Asimov only tended to have one or two main horses at a time, fuelling all his time and love into one to make sure they had the best chance possible with him. 

He was torn as he drove up to his friend's stables, he didn't want to retire his current XC horse but it was only fair. He'd worked so very hard and more than long enough, he deserved a calm retirement. When his jeep crunched the gravel up the drive, he saw his friend's border collie jump out from the bushes. The excitable little creature barked loudly at his arrival, summoning his master who just waved Mr Asimov over, chomping at the bit to show him the mare he'd been going on about.

When they arrived to the field, he saw her for the first time. The mare swiveled, turning to face then and trotted up, tail held high and ears perked in evident interest. Her conformation was good, he could tell just by watching how smoothly she moved and it didn't seem like she'd be hard to catch with how interested she was at the presence of people. She had a similar coat colour to his wife's main mare except this girl had a dusting of white across almost all of her body except where the roaning didn't cover. He could see her in his mind, jumping rivers and snorting happily as she galloped through an XC course. He needed to check her over more before he felt comfortable buying her but he had a feeling deep in his bones that she'd be coming home with him today.

"How much experience does she have?" Mr Asimov asked, although he still focused on the horse, barely glancing at his friend. She was snuffling over the fence, begging for attention.

"She's been backed and has cleared some jumps in training. She shows a lot of promise but she's awkward in how she much prefers to be ridden out of the arena," Backstrom replied. Mr Asimov didn't particularly care about her in the arena, he'd do some training with her there but he preferred to be out on the trail as well so they were similar in that regard. He asked Backstrom more questions with them going back and forth for a while as they watched the mare skedaddle around her pasture.

Eventually, they decided to catch her and tack her up so Mr Asimov could feel how she was under saddle. She was easy to catch and headcollar and she walked well on the leadrope, if a little distracted by everything she was passing. On the cross-ties she was very calm, almost falling asleep as she was being tacked up. The tack she had was just basic, english tack but it would be good enough for a first ride and attempt at jumping.

She was amazing, riding her felt like floating and she flew over the jumps in the arena but she very quickly got fed up of being stuck in there. They'd have to work on that but Mr Asimov was confident she was the perfect choice. He rode her over to Backstrom and dismounted, throwing her reins back ove her head to lead her out of the arena.

"I'll take her," Mr Asimov said, petting the velveteen nose of his new charge. Backstrom lit up in a smile, talking incessantly about how he needed to go fetch her import papers, vet write-ups and how he was so happy about the sale. Mr Asimov just smiled and shook his head, leaning against his new mare as she rubbed her head against him, begging for scratches.