The clouds that had been hovering over us all day had finally arrived, big fat drops falling across my horse's neck heralded their arrival. He clamped his ears down tight to his head in response, shaking his head side to side in obvious disgust. The gray horse paid the downfall no mind, he simply grunted as he worked his back deeper and deeper into the sand. From his left side to his right, he rolled completely over. Pulling his front legs back under himself with another loud grunt, he hiked himself up out of the sand and gave his body a monumental shake. He stood with a hind foot cocked now, licking his lips and putting on a show of perfect relaxation for the world to see.

The rain was really coming down now, and my mount's disgust was growing by the second.

"That horse ride double?"

"Only if you hurry up!"

Without hesitation he swung up behind me, water dripping from the front of his straw hat made it's way down the back of my neck, drawing a shiver and giving me goosebumps. We made quite a sight, riding double on my good horse and ponying a horse a piece on each side! I knew we wouldn't all fit through the narrow gate by the chutes, so I took a detour to the bigger out gate. Our 3 horses squeezed together and made their way through the double gate as the rain really started to fall. It had been steady before, but now it was an all out onslaught.

He rode all the way to my trailer with me, and helped me strip both horses of their saddles. We jumped all three horses in the trailer, then ran to the truck. It was raining hard enough that I couldn't see the arena right across the road in front of us, so I knew we weren't going anywhere anytime soon. A quick call to my dad revealed he had decided to ride out the storm in the concession stand, so we were content to simply sit and watch it rain.

We talked for what seemed like hours, it was effortless. He told me about his summer plans, a bid for rookie of the year and his dreams of the year end finals. It wasn't anything I hadn't heard before, but coming from him it could tell he'd do it, there was a genuine feel to his words. He sat in the passenger seat with a fat CD case between us on the console, flipping lazily through the 100s of brightly colored discs. We had the same taste in music it appeared, well, with a few exceptions that he openly laughed at. I hadn't been watching the clock, and was shocked to see that we'd been held captive by the downpour for over an hour. It's intensity had kept up, it was raining as hard now as it had when we ran for cover after loading the horses.