OPEN:: Mud and Glory

[Dakota James]

Falling of was a part of every rider's life whether they liked it or not. Nearly every rider had come off of a horse at some point in their life, and nearly everyone of them had felt some pain from doing so. Some fell off more than others, some rarely did, but a select few did it on purpose nearly every time they got into the saddle. Dakota James was one of those few. Why had she chosen to go down the path of a stunt rider? Even she wasn't sure of the answer to that, but it probably had something to do with how much she detested her father and loved to do anything that would displease him... as well as anyone else who said it couldn't be done. Most people wouldn't put a slightly built girl like herself to be the sort to throw herself off a horse for the sake of an actor who couldn't risk the potential injury from doing so, but there was something about it that she loved.

No one really knew the art of falling off until they really started drilling themselves. Many people got good at falling off and knew how to try to land without serious injury... but very few people knew how to deliberately fall off without making it look like they just jumped off. That was what Kody was best at. She put herself through a lot of pain and misery to get that down over the years. She had learned the hard way how to find the perfect balance between jumping off and totally bailing, she had learned the hard way how to override the human instinct to catch herself with her arms, she had learned the hard way how to hit the ground in such a way that it would look convincing, yet she wouldn't bring intense bodily harm upon herself. There was nothing about forcing yourself to come off a horse that was easy.

On this particular date in time, she had chosen to work on the every challenging sliding to a stop in front of a jump and sending the rider over it without the horse. This was so often avoided in equestrian films because very few people knew how to train their horse to do it without ruining them to the point of stopping at every jump, and how to actually do the flying over the horse's head without it looking impossibly cheesy and landing on a big foam pad then doing another shoot where the "rider" jumps down off of a platform onto the ground for the landing part. Kody had to admit, she had gotten herself hurt more times doing this than every other method of falling. It was a far more un predictable way than the others.

For that reason she had chosen to work with Mayhem who was by far the superior stunt horse of her three. The chestnut gelding was pretty well the perfect horse, quiet, but energized, and always went out of his way to avoid stepping on her. He was so trainable too, he would do nearly anything that she asked him to do without putting up a fight about it. He knew just about all there was to know about every discipline. He wasn't all that great at anything western, but he was good enough that in all the cheesy horse movies he was used in it looked close enough to believable. She knew western people would probably scoff at him, especially his sliding stops, but that didn't matter to her, he got the job done and he did it to the best of his ability and that was all that mattered.

She had been working with the horse a good 30 minutes. It was cold and a bit sleety, and the ground was muddy and the footing sloppy at best, but these were the kind of conditions that they had to work in most often. Granted, it was usually "fake" weather that was created for the set, but still the same general thing. So far, out of three "falls" she had failed to do everything exactly right and was beginning to get frustrated. Having enough of the mud that was now caked to her clothes and the wet that had soaked through to her skin, she decided to try once more and be done with this for the day. She picked up a strong gallop and headed the horse towards a jump which was really only about 2'3" in height and Mayhem could probably have stepped over it, but that wasn't what mattered. Just before the jump she gave the slightest pull on the reins and took her leg off, signaling Mayhem to stop, and he slammed on the breaks, tucking his haunches under him, ducking his head, and sliding through the mud and sending Kody toppling over his shoulder once more.

As Kody pushed herself out of the saddle, the toe of her boot caught slightly on the stirrup, twisting her position slightly and causing her to get less distance and land more on her shoulder than she would hve liked. She winced only a little when she hit the ground, mud sloshing up all over her. Annoyed with her fourth imperfect execution of her psudo-untimely dismount the flaming red head just stayed where she was on the ground, scowling up at the sky. Mayhem stood quietly on the other side of the fence, saddle slightly crooked from Kody's toe catching the stirrup, and the reins looped over one ear comically. It definitely looked like a real fall had just happened, that was for certain.