Lost Confidence - SVI Schooling Show

First place and grand champion

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Story - Darren's P.O.V

    The weather was pleasantly mild as I helped Rush get Neo ready for their class at the now-familiar SVI showgrounds, humming to myself softly as I fastened the stallion's girth and made sure his breastplate was properly in place. It was a lovely change from the nasty winter weather we'd had here in December and certainly pleasant compared to the cruel temperatures I was used to back home at this time of year, but I didn't want to say anything about it out loud just in case I jinxed it.
    "You know your course?" I asked Rush idly, glancing over at him from the corner of my eye as I tugged the white saddle pad into place a bit.
    "Yep," he responded simply as he fastened his starting number around his arm, not looking at me. I hadn't been expecting to be back at the schooling show so soon, and certainly not for a small jumping class, but apparently Rush thought it was a good idea. And I had learned better than to question his decisions, no matter how absurd they seemed. We had arrived a bit too early so I held off on Neo's bridle to save him the stress of getting a bit shoved into his mouth, leaning against the trailer and looking over at the stallion's rider as he straightened out his clothes.
    "Why are we here again? You two aren't really the duo I'd expect to be seeing at a schooling show, you know. This is more my kind of thing," I asked after a few moments of silence. Rush tucked his bold-coloured hair back before putting on his helmet and fastening it, looking at me.
    "Jesse dragged me here," he replied simply. I frowned, surprised; Jesse had convinced him to come here?
    "Why?"
    "Because he thinks it's a waste of talent for me to quit showing," Rush muttered as he checked Neo's braids, which were still neatly in place. Quitting showing? What on Earth was he talking about? I couldn't see why he would suddenly stop competing altogether, since he and Neo had done quite well overall at the different jumping shows they'd entered lately and the stallion was in prime shape. They'd left mostly with second and third place ribbons, apart from one time where they'd been disqualified for falling.

    “What do you mean if you were to quit showing?” I asked but he didn't have the chance to answer before Jesse came over and held out a cup of coffee for me with a smile. I took it, giving him a nod of thanks, and he handed Rush a bottle of water.

    “Looks like a fun course,” he grinned brightly, tipping his cowboy hat back a little as he blew on his coffee, “You'll thank me for bringing you out here later.”

    “Whatever,” Rush huffed. He opened the bottle of water and took a few sips before setting it aside and grabbing Neo's bridle. Neither Jesse nor I tried to stop him as he finished tacking his horse up and soon enough, he was mounting up into the saddle and shortening his reins.

    “I'm going to warm up,” he said simply after he'd tightened his girth, giving us both a nod before walking off. I was still thoroughly confused as to what he'd said about showing and Jesse dragging him here and I turned my questioning gaze onto the man as I took a tentative sip of my steaming coffee. He noticed immediately.

    “You have a question for me, don't you?” he grinned toothily, grabbing some of the papers lying on the ground and tossing a few brushes into the truck before starting off towards the jumping arena.

    “Is Rush thinking about stopping with competitions?”

    “Yep. It's a ridiculous idea, I think he's gone absolutely loony and I'm certainly not letting it happen.”

    “But why? He's a fantastic rider, he's been having a good streak and Neo's in great shape!” I exclaimed, knitting my brows in frustrated confusion. Jesse looked over at me.

    “He's a perfectionist,” he chuckled, “He's been getting good placings at the shows but all he wants is first. He considers everything else as losing.” I puffed, wrinkling my nose a little.

    “Well that's some impossible logic.”

    “Don't tell him that, he'll bite your head off about not being ambitious enough,” Jesse chuckled, “Don't you worry about it though, kid, I'll make sure he doesn't quit even if it means dragging him to these kinds of small shows by his hair.” He grinned brightly, though I certainly questioned how long he could keep that up, knowing Rush. I kept those doubts to myself, however.

    “Just let him do his thing. We're here at a schooling show again cause he needs to regain his confidence, it's gonna' take time.”

He looked at me as he spoke, raising his eyebrows slightly, and we started to make our way around the jumping arena to find a good spot by the fence. We said nothing more as we did, eventually sitting down in the grass at the east side of the arena so we could sip our coffee peacefully and wait for the jumping to start.

    “I'll tell you a little something about Rush but you gotta' promise not to utter a word of it on to him,” Jesse finally started. I turned my head to look at him, my wandering attention immediately captured again, and arched up an eyebrow while sipping my coffee, which was disappointingly watery.

    “Ollie had a rather... tough childhood, so to put it. Had the typical strict upbringing in a devout Christian family, the kind of stuff you think of when you imagine a farm out in the middle of nowhere in rural Canada. His parents always expected more than the best from him, particularly his father, and he was very unforgiving when that's not what he got. It probably taught Ollie that even his best wasn't good enough,” Jesse started, picking his words carefully. I could tell he didn't want to give away too much, since Rush probably trusted him to keep these things to himself, and listened closely, trying not to jumping to conclusions from all the implied statements I was hearing in my head. We spent only a little bit more time on the subject, soon drifting away onto a different topic to pass the time until the jumping class eventually started. I'd brought along my camera to get some pictures because the weather was so nice, though I was particularly hoping to get a few nice shots of Rush. Jesse's explanation did help me to understand him a bit better but there was still so much mystery about him and his entire life; so much that I didn't know. I was so uninvolved. I wondered how much Joachim knew about it all but thinking about him and Rush seemed to ruin even the nice weather for me so I quickly shoved those thoughts from my head and focused on taking some good photos. Rush was one of the first contestants in the arena and I witnessed his round mostly through the lens of my camera, although I eventually put it down so I could see his last few jumps, smiling despite myself. Watching him ride was always a pleasure; it seemed to be the only time he really enjoyed himself, sometimes even smiled and laughed, believe it or not, and when he was happy it automatically made me feel happier, too. I know, cheesy. I was just an employee at his stables, nothing more, but still...

    Eventually I sat down in the grass again and idly started looking through the pictures I'd taken, zooming in on some of them. Most of them looked pretty good, perhaps good enough to get framed for the Sterlingwood collection in case Rush did leave with a ribbon and perhaps a trophy like he had last time, but as I went through them something dawned on me. Something in the pictures. In a number of them Rush's sleeves had hiked up a little from his wrists and I could see thin red lines running across his arms despite the distance some of them had been taken at. At first I tried to convince myself it was something with the camera but soon enough that idea was crossed off as impossible and I sat there, trying to make a decision as to what to do. Heaven knows what would happen if anyone else saw these, or how Rush would react if I asked him about it. So, eventually, I selected all the pictures I'd made and deleted them; as nice as they were, they weren't worth it. But erasing them didn't erase what I'd seen in them and I now sat with the weighing issue as to what to do about it. Maybe I could do nothing and pretend I was oblivious. Or maybe I could carefully ask him about it. Maybe I could ask Jesse for help.

    “Got some nice photos?” the man suddenly asked and I jumped, looking up at him when I remembered that he was standing right beside me and may have been watching me.

    “Uh, no,” I responded, shaking my head before adding, “No, they were all blurry. I'll try again next time."

Word count: 1,547

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Show: SVI Schooling Show - February
Class: Showjumping
Horse: SEA He's The One
Rider: Oliver Chancey Trace

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Artist's Note: Poor perfectionist Rush didn't do 'well enough' in the HARPG-ShowCircuit classes he entered with Neo so here he is at SVI again
I had a lot of hate-love moments with this drawing (although if you know me well enough, you'll know it was mostly hate); it was very flat for a while so I started to touch up the backgrounds and once that happened, I couldn't keep my paws off of it :') Still not entirely sure how I feel about it but if I add more details now, it'll probably become a big ol' chaos.

The previous time being at SVI in December that Darren was talking about is this entry

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Tools used: Medibang and Intuos pen and touch
Time: 5 hours?
References
Show Jumping Stock 6 by Chumpi-Champi (skeleton traced)
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia…
Google images for jumping arena inspiration
YouTube tutorials on how to paint distant figures