Riding Silent Gone Bad?

My alarm clock made it’s hideous noise. I sleepily slapped my hand on my phone until it turned off. “Hunter. Let’s go.” Hudson said. He has such an annoying voice, oh my god. “Mhmm.” I groaned as I flipped over. I screamed as I felt my skin turn to ice. “What the fuck!?” I screamed, sitting up. “It’s ten am, you said you’d be ready by ten thirty and we both know you can’t get ready in thirty minutes, I’m not going to be late because of you yet again. Get up and get ready.” Hudson said while throwing a pillow at my face. It hit me smack in the eye. 

After I had a quick shower, not that I needed one cuz apparently Hudson had decided to give me one this morning, I changed into some clothes. A nice loose light gray sweatshirt that was about 2 sizes too big, a pair of dark gray riding pants, and I grabbed my cowboy hat.

I scarfed down a bowl of oatmeal. “You eat like a horse.” Hudson said glaring at me. I just nodded my head. Screw you Hudson. I noticed Hudson didn’t eat anything, but he could have eaten something before he so rudely got me up.

We walked out of the house, and into Hudson’s jeep. It's a good jeep, lots of space for horse gear and stuff. I can’t take my motorcycle for obvious reasons. I do love and prefer my motorcycle though.

Today Hudson and I were headed off to the stables. Hudson is just upset because Assassin isn’t doing as well as Silent. “You got all your gear? I don’t feel like turning back because you forgot something.” Hudson growled. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.” I said laughing, “but yeah, I have all my stuff.” “Why do you have to be so annoying?” Hudson asked. “I don’t know, maybe you should meet you.” I said chuckling. “Get out.” Hudson snarled. “What?” I asked. “Get. Out. Of. My. Car.” Hudson said slowly, and very angrily. Definitely woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. “Come on, it was a joke Hudson. You can’t expect me to take my motorcycle to the barn.” We hadn’t even made it out of the driveway. Hudson slammed his fists onto the dash. “God damn it I said get out!” He screamed. Oh god, what devil had I woken up? I opened the door and hopped out. Before I could even shut my car door, Hudson took off. I raised my hands up “What’s wrong with you today?” I said and ran back into the house to grab my keys. 

By the time I finally made it to the barn, Hudson was already there. Dumping all my stuff out of his car. God why? Why do I have to have this selfish guy as my twin brother? “What do you think you’re doing?” I screamed across the Clovevalley Estate parking lot, and stormed over. I saw several heads pick up, and start watching us. “Hudson, stop being an ass and get your shit together.” I said angrily. I swear to god if he had one more lash out, I'd punch him. Hudson just sighed and put his hand to his head. My gaze of anger softened. Hudson was backing down. “I’m sorry.” He sighed and sat down, on the gravel parking lot ground. “Hey, it’s alright.” I whispered and kneeled down next to him, putting my hand on his shoulder. I looked around and saw people still watching. I got up, “What the hell do you guys think you’re looking at?” I screamed. Everyone immediately went and did their own stuff. Barn drama, am I right? I kneeled beside Hudson again, “What’s up? You know you can tell me anything right?” I asked him. He sighed, and a small tear trickled down his cheek. “It’s just Assassin. He’s not getting any better. In fact he’s getting worse.” Hudson said. “I just- I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help him. I don’t want to have to geld him, but I’m not seeing too many other choices.” He said, breaking down. “Hey it’s alright. Why don’t you go and see him, and I’ll figure something out?” I said. Hudson nodded, and got up, wiped his tear and started putting my stuff back into his car. I stood up and dusted the gravel off of me. 

Hudson was the slightly younger twin, and he was more emotional than me. He wasn’t one of those people who could just “rough it out.” He needed his time, and as his slightly older twin brother, it’s my job to give him that time. But he could definitely be a bastard.

I headed to Silent’s stall. He wasn’t as bad as his brother, but he was still bad. Once I got into the barn, I went into the tack room. I looked around, it seemed someone organized this mess. That was nice of them. I found Silent’s food, and made him a bucket. A vet helped me formulate the recipe to what Silent needs. I grabbed some peppermints and stuffed them into my pocket. Just in case. 

I brought Silent his morning bucket of grain, and carefully gave it to him, trying not to get my hand bitten off in the process. Silent snapped at me. “I see Hudson wasn’t the only one who woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Knock it off.” I said harshly. Silent stopped snapping but stood where he was. Horses am I right? I put down his grain and he rushed towards it, basically inhaling it. “Alright then.” I sighed and looked around his stall. The stall itself was fairly clean except for a small dump in the corner. I checked the run, which he had access to all night. It was spotless. Awesome. I went out and grabbed a muck bucket, and a pitchfork. I cleaned up Silent’s massive dump and put the supplies back. Though we had grooms at Clovervalley, we had to pay extra in our boarding lease to get the all inclusive service, which included stalls being mucked. Me and Hudson decided against it, because we already pay so much to repair what the boys break. It's just too much to add the all inclusive service as well. 

Finally, Silent was done eating. My plan for him is either eventing or dressage, I’m not too sure which at the moment, but he isn’t very good under saddle yet, which is to be expected since he’s 4 years old. So, I use western tack on him to give me more security, since he likes to play bowling with me and for him, since he can just start to move and understand how to move under saddle. 

I ran back to Hudson’s car, and grabbed my grooming supplies that I forgot, and then raced back to Silent. I groomed him in the stall since I’m reluctant to put him on cross ties because of bad past experiences of him breaking out of them. 

He was a bit of a pain to groom, he had gotten some stain on his white back legs that I had to groom out, and his tail was a literal disaster. I don’t know how he gets so dirty at night, but he does. He had some mud on his left side, probably from playing in the run. Silent’s short mane also had a lot of mud in it, which was unfortunate. He once did have long hair, but I decided to cut it for practicality, but I'm hoping to grow it out soon. He looks so weird with a short mane, it's not even funny. I can’t even put it up into a nice long braid anymore. 

Silent behaved himself for the most part during our grooming session. He really enjoys being groomed, I feel like he thinks he’s the king while he’s being groomed is kinda funny. He’ll lean into the brush, and if you brush a certain part on his shoulder he’ll stop and raise his back hoof, kinda like a dog.

I finished the grooming session with picking his hooves. They weren’t super dirty, but I did find a small stone in one. I looked back out into his run. I didn’t see anywhere he could have picked up a stone from. That’s odd. I picked his hooves last night right before I left, and no one took him out of his stall after that. This was odd indeed, I’d have to talk to Hudson about this once we were heading home.

I went back into the tack room and found my western gear. Sure, it wasn’t a lot but it was enough. A nosebandless bridle, a simple western saddle, and a nice thick turquoise saddle pad that matched Silent’s glitter like spots that are found on his face, hind legs, and shoulder blade. I had to get a color consultant out to have them match the color perfectly.

By the time I got back to Silent’s stall I noticed that he had broken out. Yet again. I set the tack down next to the door, and looked around for him. He was nowhere to be found. God damn it. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket, and called up Clover Blair. It rang a few times, and thank god on the last ring she picked up. “Hunter? Something wrong?” Clover asked. “You could say that, yeah.” I responded while walking out of the barn to see if I could spot Silent. “What’s wrong? What did Silent do?” Clover asked anxiously. “Well it's not really what he did this time. It's where he is. He managed to break out of his stall when I was grabbing his tack, and now I have no idea where he is.” I responded fairly calmly considering what was happening. This wasn’t the first time this happened, but it's always best to call Clover to see if she can contact the grooms to help me find him. “Ah, alright. I’ll let the grooms know. You should look for him though.” She said. “Was planning on it.” I replied and hung up the phone. I sighed and looked around. I couldn’t see anything amiss, no signs of a massive 18 hand high stallion anywhere.

I saw a speckle of glimmer. Oh god no. Please tell me that the horse cantering off property wasn’t Silent. But it was. And he was going fast, he was past the mare barn and approaching the fences that surrounded the property. I’d need to get to him fast. I rushed back inside the barn, and looked at the horses here. Tilly would be best, but she was being kept in the mare barn. I scanned the horse’s stall tags. One caught my eye. “La Disparition Du Monde” From my small background in French, I understood it as “The World’s Demise.” Not a bad name for a horse, but hopefully he was a good horse. I grabbed him and hopped on him bareback. Hopefully I wouldn’t fall off, I didn’t have a helmet. 

La Disparition Du Monde galloped out of the barn when I got on him. At least he’d catch up to Silent in no time. I hung close to his beautiful mane as he raced across the property. He actually listened to my cues pretty well! I fumbled for my phone, I’d need to update Clover. Just as I pulled my phone out of my pocket, La Disparition Du Monde put on more speed. I quickly forgot about my phone and clutched to his mane. I looked up ahead, and saw Silent jumping the fence. Boy that stallion can jump. The fences have to be at least one and a half meters high. Hopefully La Disparition Du Monde would be able to make it over. 

We had to be at least thirty meters and closing to Silent. The fences were five meters away, and La Disparition Du Monde slowed a tad, most likely to fix the spacing to the fence. Two meters and closing to the fence, La Disparition Du Monde threw his head up and added more speed. Why? I don’t know. I’ve never jumped this horse before. One meter from the jump, and La Disparition Du Monde’s head was still lifted high. Even if he did make it perfectly over the fence, I’d still have to worry about me making it over and staying on his back. La Disparition Du Monde took off, his hind legs propelling himself over the jump. Halfway over the jump, and I made the worst mistake… Looking down. The wire fence was barely a few centimeters away from La Disparition Du Monde’s hooves. Somehow La Disparition Du Monde didn’t hit the fence and glided straight over it. 

The landing was not as pleasant. La Disparition Du Monde landed on the ground hard, nearly throwing me off. I was clinging to his mane, and trying to pull myself closer to his withers. The moment I felt safe again and looked up, dirt flew into my face, eyes, and nose. I coughed, and ducked my head again. I’d have to look up to see where Silent was. That was when I remembered, I was still holding my phone in my hand. I pulled up my phone to my face and dialed Clover. She picked up on the first ring. “Hunter, none of the grooms can find Silent. Also, none of them have seen you. Where are you?” She asked, it sounded like she was pacing in a room. “Well I have no flying fuck of an idea of where I am right now. Silent galloped off property so I grabbed a random ass horse and am trying to catch up to him.” I cursed and looked up. Silent was twenty meters ahead of us, and closing. He was still going pretty fast but La Disparition Du Monde seemed like an endurance horse. 

“What do you mean you grabbed a random horse? Are you crazy? Who did you grab?” Clover screamed. “Whoa, relax Clover I’m safe and the horse is safe. I grabbed La Disparition Du Monde and we are actually catching up to Silent. He’s not too far ahead of us.” I said, and urged La Disparition Du Monde to go faster. If we wanted to catch Silent before he found the woods on this side of the property we’d need to be much faster. We were probably a hundred meters away from the woods, Silent being approximately eighty meters away. La Disparition Du Monde put on more speed and we were closing faster now. Silent was only fifteen meters away in a matter of a minute. 

“Hello? Hunter? Can you hear me?” I put the phone up against my ear again, I completely forgot I was on the line with Clover. “Yeah I can hear you.” I said, while looking at Silent. “Pull off. I’ll have the grooms get Silent.” She said, “Nope, if I pull off now we’ll lose him to the forest. We are approximately 70 meters and closing to the forest, Silent is now around ten to twelve meters ahead of us.” I said panting. God this was a work out. “Fine. I’ll have grooms meet you out there though.” She said and hung up. I guess that's karma.

La Disparition Du Monde was slowing down more than I liked. I tried to encourage him to pick up the pace, but he couldn’t. “God damn it!” I screamed so frustrated. Why did the horse I have to pick not be able to keep up with Silent?

Just as I was giving up, La Disparition Du Monde picked up speed. He raced to Silent with a crazy amount of speed. How? I have no idea. Why? I don’t know, but I’m thankful. Silent somehow has an insane amount of stamina and was still running. There was now a twenty meter gap between us, and thirty meters to the forest. Silent had ten meters to the forest. I heard screaming behind me, and turned my head. I saw a golf cart racing towards us, with people waving. “Come on boy, put on some more speed.” I said while tapping him with my foot. He jolted forward, going even faster now. This was one fast horse. The distance between us and Silent was closing. There were ten meters between us and Silent, and twenty meters to the forest. La Disparition Du Monde kept his speed, and in no time we were less than five meters from Silent. Four. Three. Two. One. Half. No distance. We were flying beside Silent, perfectly parallel. Silent neighed. 

The distance between us and the forest was only 5 meters. We’d need to act fast. Realizing I had forgotten a halter, I urged La Disparition Du Monde to move in front of Silent. He did, we were now closer to the forest. One meter away to be exact. I pulled La Disparition Du Monde’s mane, and asked him to turn, into Silent. Silent to be fair was three meters away. La Disparition Du Monde turned, and blocked Silent from entering the forest. La Disparition Du Monde came to a sharp stop, nearly throwing me over his head. Silent stopped. “Ho, easy boy. Don’t make this hard.” I said, Silent bowed his head.

The golf cart was still forty meters away, looking back at the fenceline, it was roughly five hundred meters away. “Silent come on, don’t make this hard.” I said, as La Disparition Du Monde neighed. Silent responded by pawing his hoof. Oh god, I knew where this was going. “No, Silent, don't you dare!” I screamed. It seemed that I caught his attention, he was focused on me now. There we go, that kind of worked. Silent began to back away. I couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not, but the golf cart was ten meters away. 

Once the gold cart was close enough, a few people jumped out and surrounded Silent. They quickly haltered him. “What the fuck you thinking?” Hudson asked, I saw Hudson, he was the person driving the golf cart. “I wasn’t.” I said, and hopped off of La Disparition Du Monde. He was such a good horse. Another guy came over and threw a halter on him. “You know what, no. Anthony let Hunter walk Silent back. You get in the golf cart.” Hudson said while glaring at me. I dropped my head. He was my horse after all. 

It was a long walk back, because not only did we have to walk the five hundred meters back to the fenceline, but we also had to walk around the fence line to an opening. Thankfully there was one large opening not far because of the cross country course, but it was still a pain.

Once I finally got Silent back into his stall, I noticed La Disparition Du Monde also in his stall. I made sure to lock Silent in, so that we would not have a repeat of this morning. I walked over to La Disparition Du Monde, he seemed calm but that was when I noticed a little red label on his stall door, kinda like the one Silent has. “Monte, very aggressive towards people and animals alike. Will not tolerate people, treats, and bullshit.” Whoa. He is aggressive? I looked at the stallion. He didn’t seem aggressive to me. I also noticed a small green tag. “For sale, by owners. Asking price is 2,500” His owners were selling him? I didn’t particularly know his owners, but I’m sure a groom could point me in their direction. I focused my attention on the stallion himself. He looked at me. He had that look. The same one Silent had when Hudson and I first picked him and Assassin up. Not necessarily of fear, just a kind of “help me” look. I sighed, could I really take another project? I’m struggling with Silent as it is. 

Speaking of the beast, I walked back over to him. He kept an eye on me the entire time. I don’t know why, maybe he was a little jealous?

I went to tack Silent up, grabbing his beautiful saddle pad, and carefully laying it over his back. The saddle pad’s color is so light, that any amount of dirt will probably stain it. I carefully swung the saddle over Silent’s back, and he stayed surprisingly calm. I made sure the girth was tight enough, and all the straps were in their proper places. I then finally grabbed his bridle and carefully put the bit in his mouth. He didn’t take it too well, and tried to pull away from me. “Easy boy, come on, let me get the bridle on.” I said, and managed to carefully force the bit into his mouth. I then tightened the straps and made sure everything was secure. 

I led Silent out of his stall, and we walked out to the outdoor arena. I carefully hopped on and started schooling him. He was still very green, and he’s only four so that's kind of to be expected. 

We started by warming up. We walked a few laps around the arena, and he did very well. He didn’t pull me too much, normally he prefers to move really fast around the arena, which is part of the reason why I think he’ll be the perfect show jumper or cross country horse. We were probably riding around for tenish minutes, so I asked Silent for a trot. He picked up the pace into a trot very quickly. We’d need to work on smooth transitions for dressage. He did well trotting around the arena. I was quite surprised he wasn’t too tired from his little gallop to freedom this morning, but he kept going pretty well. A little too fast for me in fact, I had to hold him quite a lot and when I did, he tried to pull me. 

We ended the warmup by cantering around the arena a few times. Silent did good other than the fact that he tried to literally drag my ass into the dirt. It was actually kind of comical the way he was trying to force me to go faster. I kept my hands strong and forced him to stay collected. I slowed him down to a halt, and patted him while I panted. I realized I forgot to bring water with me. That was a mistake I would be paying for.

I saw Hudson watching me from the fence line. “Hudson! Do you have water?” I tried to scream, and urged Silent to go over to him. Silent trotted over. “I do indeed have water but it’s mine.” Hudson said, glancing at a very sweaty Silent, and a very sweaty me. He handed me the water. “This one is yours, I knew you’d forget something.” He said and nodded. “I’ll hold the water for you while you’re riding.” Hudson said, grabbing the water from me after I’d had a drink. 

I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, and tapped Silent. He responded immediately and started trotting. I recollected my reins and started trying to school him. Even though I was in a western saddle, I thought we could work on the basics of dressage. 

We worked on staying in the trot, and just different maneuvers in the trot. We worked on lengthening our trot, as well as shortening our trot, and a little fancy trotting. Mainly though, I wanted Silent to be able to stay in the trot. Normally if I give some leg while in the trot, he’ll go on and start cantering. That will get points deduced in a test, which is not what we want. 

Silent didn’t particularly enjoy staying in the trot. He wanted to canter, but everytime he did I made him do circles. Silent also hates circles, so I think it's cause and effect. Besides, he needs to be able to do circles in a test.

Once I finally decided Silent had enough of trotting, we worked on a collected canter. It was a lot easier said than done, Silent wasn’t willing to relax and have a nice collected canter, instead he tried to pull and go fast around the arena. There was a reason I didn’t enter him into an eventing competition yet. 

As I was trying to keep a calm and collected canter, Silent took off, and went back to some of his less than liked old habits. He ran around the arena, bucking, throwing his head, and trying to get me off his back. Thank god I had a western saddle on. I just grabbed the horn and tried to keep a hold of the reins. It would be impossible to get Silent to stop, so there was no point in trying. Most of the time, I’m fine until I try to get him to stop, that’s when I start flying. Anyway, I was staying on Silent pretty good, until he spotted one of the jumps in the center of the arena. That had his attention now. 

Silent canter towards the jump, I was preparing myself to go over. Last second, he refused and sent me flying over the jump. God damn it.

I landed with a thud in the sandy arena. “Ugh.” I groaned as I sat up. “God damn you Silent.” I said as I stood up. I dusted myself off, and watched as his dumbass galloped around the arena. “Hunter, you good?” Hudson asked, coming into the arena. “Yeah.” I said, irritated. “Silent come on!” I screamed. The only sign that he heard me, was the fact that he bucked when I said his name. I just sighed. “You want me to grab him?” Hudson offered. “Nah, it's fine. He just needs to run it out.” I said, watching Silent gallop around the arena bucking. “Are you done being a bucking bronco?” I screamed. Silent threw his head up, and started making circles around me and Hudson. “Are you done?” I asked. Silent’s only response was a neigh. Guess not.

Silent finally calmed down, and let me grab him. That horse. I jumped back on, and we worked for a while on slower gaits as my back was killing me from the fall. We did some trotting, but honestly it was mostly walking. “You feeling alright?” Hudson asked from the arena wall. “Yeah I’m fine.” I replied, and kept working with Silent. We did some collected walking, and some sitting trotting. 

Everything was going fine, when all of the sudden a bird perched on the arena wall, spooking Silent. He swerved to the side, throwing me off balance. I tried to cling to him, but I was out of the saddle and more on his neck. He walked backwards in a tiny circle, clearly not enjoying my position on his neck. I dropped my feet, and landed on the ground, still holding his neck with my hands. “That was fun, yes?” I asked. At least he didn’t try to throw me this time. You know what they say, progress over perfection. 

I really wasn’t in the mood to get on again, so I walked him out and led him back to the stables. “Hunter, are you good?” Hudson asked, meeting me as I was exiting the arena. “Yeah.” I lied. My back was absolutely killing me, but it wasn’t broken so nothing I could do about it. 

Once I got Silent back into the stall, I untacked him. I grabbed the bridle, saddle, and saddle pad and headed off to the tack room. “Hey Hudson, could you stay with Silent to make sure he doesn’t break out again?” I asked, “Mhm” Hudson replied, so I went off to the tack room. I carefully put the bridle and saddle where they belong, and put the saddle pad with some of my stuff that I keep in the tack room. I only really keep my tack and horse feed plus treats inside the tack room, all my other gear is in Hudson’s jeep.

Once I was done putting away my supplies, I grabbed a bucket and filled it with Silent’s grain mixture. When I finally finished that, I walked back to Silent’s stall and offered the grain. He jumped to it, and gobbled it down. That was when I noticed Hudson just sitting in the corner of Silent’s stall watching. “Hudson, you alright?” I asked. Hudson looked at me, “Yeah I’m fine.” He said. I could tell he wasn’t but I didn’t want to push it.

I grabbed a brush and decided to groom Silent out while he was eating. He doesn’t mind too much if you do something while he eats, it's mostly if you need to move him while he eats. He doesn’t like that too much. 

While I was grooming, I noticed Hudson still in the corner of the stall. I have no idea what’s up with him. It seemed like Silent was done eating, because he started pawing his hoof and sniffing my pocket. I had totally forgotten, I had peppermints. I reached into my pocket and grabbed one. Before I had a chance to even pull it fully out of my pocket, Silent snatched it from my hand and started chomping. Weird guy. He sure loves his peppermints. 

“Hey Hudson, do you wanna give him a peppermint or two?” I asked. Hudson shook his head. “But he’ll love you forever.” I enticed. Hudson got up. “Fine.” He scoffed. I really have no idea what is up with him today. I turned away from Silent, and pulled out a few peppermints. Silent was still trying to get to them, but I was able to hand two of them to Hudson. Hudson carefully offered the peppermints to the stallion. Silent accepted the offerings and quickly. Hudson laughed. He actually laughed as Silent licked his hand clean. 

I made sure to take the buckets out of Silent’s stall, and put them in the tack room. I of course had Hudson keep watch, to make sure Silent didn’t try to escape again. Once I got back, I made sure to lock Silent’s stall doors, ensuring that he couldn’t get out. Me and Hudson walked back to the jeep. “Long day huh?” Hudson asked. “Yup.” I agreed.