Randor took Lyra’s reins while Rolf took Madi’s and both led the fillies over to collect Katryn and Cynda from the hitching posts where they had been tied. When he reached the post where he had tied Katryn, Randor received a surprise. Katryn was standing right where he had left her, however, now her head was turned toward him and she was looking him straight in the eyes. Her reins, though, were no longer tied to the post ring, but were untied and simply hanging from her bit to the ground. It was clear that the filly had untied herself, but had not attempted to run off so Randor just smiled at her and gave her a pair of playful swats on her bare rump with his free hand before picking up her reins from the ground.

“When she stares at me like that, that little devil sure looks like a younger smaller version of Vixin, green eyes and all,” Randor thought to himself.

The elves led the four girls from the stable to one of the paddocks with the soft, sandy earthen surface. In the center of this paddock were several training sleds. Four or five had singletrees for a single girl hitch and two had doubletrees for two girl tandem hitches. Since only he and Rolf were available to exercise the girls this afternoon, Randor told his new trainer that they would be working the girls in pairs today.

Randor had been giving very serious consideration to Lani’s idea of training the two sisters as a team and selling them together. To get a first hand idea of how they might perform in tandem, Randor decided that he would work them today, and have Rolf work the big chestnut and the little strawberry. After he had watched Rolf bridle and harness her, Randor was pretty sure that the big chestnut would behave very well today, and would give the young elf no trouble. The only question would be how the strawberry would react to him.

Randor had noticed that, although she still refused to let Ani bridle her, most of the little strawberry’s resistance seemed aimed at him in particular. He enjoyed the challenge and really would have liked working her himself, today, but he needed to learn a couple of things. Randor wanted to see for himself how the sisters worked together and he also wanted to see if the strawberry would behave for Rolf.

“Rolf, I want you to take your chestnut and the little strawberry today. I want to see if “Little Red” here will give you the same kind of trouble that she always wants to give me,” said Randor.

At that very moment Randor had decided to call Katryn “Little Red” at least for now. He generally preferred not naming any of the girls that he trained because as soon as they were sold, their new owners would want to name them themselves. Randor felt that his girls did better with their new owners and learned their new names faster if they hadn’t become accustomed to being called something else. The pitch, speed and timbre of Elven speech was such to human ears that it often took time for a girl to learn that a particular sound was, in fact, her name and she was going to have to get used to responding when called by it. However, there was something about this filly that made him want to have something to call her other than just “girl”.

Randor took Madi’s reins from Rolf and handed Katryn’s, or Little Red’s to him, and led the sisters to one of the two training sleds while Rolf took Katryn and Cynda to the other. Before the girls had much time to react, they were quickly hitched to the trace chains from the doubletrees that were already connected to the sleds.

The elves had led the girls by their reins gripped very close to the bits of their bridles. This provided a degree of control that collar leads did not due to the pressure that could be put on the girls’ mouths through their bits. The girls were all reflecting on just how closely such bridle leading had controlled them when they found themselves hitched. By then it was a bit late to resist. As soon as each team was hitched to their respective sled, each elf took the long reins back over the girl’s shoulders and tied them off to the sleds. Returning to the front, each elf took a position between his girls and again grasped their reins, one set in each hand, close to their bits and began to lead his team around the paddock pulling the sleds. At this point the sleds had only a few weights on board, so were really quite easily drawn.

For several laps around the paddock the teams were led in this way getting the girls accustomed to pulling in harness.

Next the elves stepped behind the girls and untied the reins from the sleds. Each elf then stood beside his sled but did not step on to it. Instead of leading the girls from the front as they had, both Randor and Rolf shook the reins flipping them against the girls’ bare backs as their command to again begin pulling their sleds. Neither team moved when they first felt the reins slap gently against their backs.

In the short time that they had been in the elves’ village, the girls had seen only a few teams of draft girls drawing vehicles, so were not familiar with how the driver’s commands were given to the girls in harness. On the afternoon of their arrival in the village they had watched the single male drawing the buggy and the four males drawing the heavy wagon. However that time the girls’ attention had certainly not been on the technicalities of driving. As such, they really did not understand that the command to begin pulling had been given to them.

Near the back of each sled, in addition to a box to hold the sand bag weights, was a tubular socket holding a long slender single bladed buggy whip. Each whip had sufficient tail to snap loudly when cracked or raise a really stinging welt if applied to naked skin with any force. Both elves reached over and pulled the whips from their sockets, but before using them, shook the reins one more time. This caused Cynda to look back over her shoulder, and as soon as she saw the whip, she took off almost pulling Katryn from her feet. In a few steps Katryn was keeping up with the much longer strides of Cynda, but looking back saw that Rolf was literally running beside his sled in order to keep up. Seeing the elf running to keep up, Katryn decided to see if she could pull the sled fast enough to make the elf either fall down or drop the reins so she began to speed up. Cynda had not looked back but, thinking that she still might be struck with the whip, sped up as well.

Due to his much shorter legs, Rolf was unable to keep up with his fast stepping team without breaking into a run so, instead of allowing himself be dragged along beside the sled, Rolf simply leapt on to the deck of the sled. His weight increased the load that the girls had to pull somewhat, but not enough to slow them appreciably as he was not standing near the front pushing the runners into the dirt. Rolf still wanted the load light as he first wanted to make sure that the girls would respond correctly to the reins.

The girls felt the additional load on their harnesses and looking back over their shoulders saw Rolf now riding on the sled. Although Cynda maintained her pace, Katryn, seeing that her plan had failed, immediately began slowing down. As soon as he saw the slack in her traces, Rolf gave Katryn two sharp stripes with the buggy whip. Katryn “yelped” with pain and surprise each time she was struck, and immediately changed her mind about slowing down.

“Ow! That sure hurt a lot more than those riding whips they used to keep us moving when we were on that trail coming here,” Katryn whispered to Cynda. “I don’t need any more of that. I think I’ll do what he wants for now.” Cynda just shuddered at the thought and kept pulling.

As their training progressed that day, all four girls figured out that the trace chains and doubletree were a dead giveaway to the elf behind should any of them not do her share of the pulling. If either member of a team slacked at all in her effort, the tree would immediately begin to slant backwards on the side of the slacking girl, earning her a stripe from the driver’s whip, and a shouted command to keep up.

Both teams learned the rein commands for turning very quickly as, being mouth reined as they obviously were, things were really quite simple. When the girl’s heads were pulled to the left by their bits it meant for them to turn left and vice versa. Slowing and stopping were also learned quickly although somewhat later in the session, as the teams were made to pull their sleds at a quick pace for almost an hour before being stopped for water.

Stopping both sleds at the watering trough nearest the pile of sandbag weights for the sleds, both Randor and Rolf first watered the girls using dippers with short spouts, as the girls had not yet learned how to drink directly from a trough while bridled. All four girls gulped water rapidly as they had all begun to sweat profusely about half way through the exercise session. After they finished drinking all the water they wanted, each girl was cooled and refreshed when a full dipper of water was poured over her head by her driver. The girls shook the water from their eyes and stood obediently awaiting their driver’s commands.

Before starting them again, the elves added several additional weights to their sleds increasing the girl’s loads to begin working their legs and backs. To start them this time a quick pair of slaps with the reins against the girl’s wet backs was all that was required to get them moving. The whips remained, for now, in their sockets near the back of the sleds. Cynda, looking back over her shoulder noticed that Rolf was no longer holding his whip, and resolved to try to keep it this way. Cynda had a low tolerance for pain and was clearly intimidated by a whip.

This time there was no hesitation from either team as they both started forward pulling at the traces; however, they all immediately felt the added load they now had to draw. The effort required to move the sled had substantially increased. Instead of being able to jog along standing upright and pulling the sleds with the lower band of their harnesses that went across their lower abdomen at their hips, the girls now had to lean into their harnesses and take some of the load into their shoulders and backs.

For the next four hours both teams pulled their sleds as their drivers kept them moving at a good steady pace. As the day wore on, both elves found it necessary to begin cracking their whips over the girl’s heads to keep them up to speed. About every hour the girls were stopped at one of the several watering troughs spaced around the paddock fence, and allowed to again drink their fill and given a refreshing dousing.

Following each stop for water, additional weight was added to both sleds in equal amounts increasing the load that the girls were being made to pull. By late afternoon both drivers found it occasionally necessary to actually apply their whips to bare backs or bottoms to keep the two teams from slowing down. Rolf had only used his whip very lightly on Cynda and with slightly increasing vigor on Katryn who he found to be a bit less responsive to the whip. The girls were learning that shaken reins or a whip cracked over their heads along with the Elven verbal command of “He-Yah” was a promise of what would quickly follow if their responses were deemed inadequate by their drivers.

As the girls were beginning the last hour of their training for today, Prindor and Lani rode up on the two browns that they had been riding to watch the progress of the new girls. For several minutes the two elves simply sat their mounts outside the fence and watched the two teams straining to pull the now heavier sleds. Randor reined in Madi and Lyra directly across the fence from where Prindor and Lani sat mounted. When Rolf’s sled reached the same spot, he too reined his team to a halt for a brief rest.

Randor complimented Lani on her powers of observation by telling her that Latkin had agreed with her suggestion of training and selling the sisters as a matched team, and that he too was certainly thinking along similar lines.

“Why don’t you two go ahead and put the browns away and meet us at stable one in about an hour. As tired as these four are going to be, they are going to need really good baths and rubdowns before we put them away, and Rolf and I could certainly use the help,” he said to the mounted pair who nodded their agreement.

“By the way, how are those two doing?” Randor asked Prindor and Lani who were two of his top young trainers. “They both look pretty worn but, Lani; it looks like your’s has really been through it, today. What happened?”

“She earned it. She was a bad girl, but she is behaving now,” Lani answered. “We no more than got them out on the track when mine suddenly went wild and tried everything she could think of or do to throw me.”

“You should have seen Lani,” Prindor said as he smiled at his companion with admiration. “She rode her like she was glued to the saddle. That filly bucked, jumped, spun and did everything but roll on the ground to try to get Lani off her back, but couldn’t. Lani just rode the fight right out of her.”

“Then,” he went on, “After giving her a short rest to recover, Lani really put the spurs and whip to her and just about ran her legs off. I really believe she will think twice before trying to throw Lani again. She really let her know who was in the saddle and who was wearing it.”

“Good job, Lani,” said Randor. Then he asked. “How has she behaved since then?”

“Oh, she’s been as docile as can be,” Lani replied. “It’s almost like she is trying to be extra good to say she’s sorry for what she did.”

“Good, that’s what I was hoping for,” said Randor. “Now, when you get her back to the stable clean her up extra well and make sure that you treat her to a really good rubdown and some treats with her dinner. She needs to be reassured that you still care for her, and will be her friend as long as she behaves.”

“What about yours,” he asked Prindor whose mount was not a young filly like the one on which Lani was mounted, but a large mare, apparently in her thirties.

“Mares like her are usually harder to tame than fillies so I’ve been keeping an eye on that one ever since I bought her. The Trader I got her from told me that the elders of her village sold her because in seven years as a breeder, she had only been pregnant once and had become disruptive to the other breeders,” he continued. “How is she doing?”

“It’s just like you say, mares can be more difficult than fillies,” Prindor answered. “She’s certainly responding well to her diet and physical training. She is getting strong and very fast. However, for some reason she decided that today was a good day to be rebellious. Instead of trying to buck me off like Lani’s filly did, she tried to keep me from mounting her instead. She was fine at first. I had mounted her in the stable and we had a good ride for almost an hour. Then, after I dismounted and watered her, she decided to not let me remount.

“Oh, just what did she do then?’ Randor asked. “Did she try to kick you?”

“No, nothing like that,” Prindor replied. “She just wouldn’t let me get back up on her.”

“She wouldn’t kneel for you?” Randor asked with concern in his voice.

Randor prided himself on how well the girls trained at his facility accommodated their riders. Like neck reining, he considered proper kneeling for mounting to be another mark of a well trained saddle girl. Before he considered one of his girls ready for sale, she must quickly drop to her left knee and lean forward for mounting whenever given the command to do so. Like most commands given by elves to their mounts, the kneeling command was non-verbal, consisting of light taps of the rider’s foot or riding whip given to the back of her knee or the lower calf of the girl’s left leg.

Elves mounted and dismounted from the girl’s left side. This practice was so universal that a rider attempting to mount from her right side was often very upsetting to a girl, and older mares often would simply not allow it.

“She had knelt just fine for me at the stable even though I’ve only been riding her for about three weeks,” said Prindor. “Mares are smart and this one picked up kneeling with only one lesson about a week ago, and had been doing fine up until today. She was doing so well in fact that I dismounted to let her have her drink rather than staying in the saddle. That turned out to have been my mistake, as I should have sensed that she had become agitated from watching Lani’s filly carry on like she did. When I tried to get her to kneel so that I could remount she just wouldn’t do it. Every time I tapped her leg she would just turn and face me.”

After it became obvious that I was not getting anywhere with getting her to kneel, I decided to just mount her while standing, but she had a trick for that too. As tall as she is, I had to try to get my left foot in the stirrup to swing aboard and every time I tried, she would just turn away from me” he continued.

“What about Lani, couldn’t she give you some help to hold her and keep her from turning?” Randor asked.

“Lani was pretty well occupied with her filly at this point. That’s when she was running the daylights out of her for bucking like she had,” Prindor replied. “Also, the mare needed to learn that I was her rider and her rider was going to control her no matter what she did.”

“That’s good,” Randor replied. “And quite obviously you succeeded, so how did you get back up on her?”

“As I said, every time I tried to get my get foot into the stirrup she turned just enough so that I couldn’t. Sometimes she would turn to the left and sometimes to the right, so I let her play this game for almost five minutes. After a bit I realized how to tell which way she was going to turn by watching her hips. She would move her left hip just slightly in the opposite direction from which she planned to turn, so the next time she was going to turn to the right I was ready. As she turned, I dropped the stirrup, took the reins in my teeth and sliding quickly behind her I grabbed the cantle of her saddle and just vaulted on to her back. Before she fully realized what had happened, I took the reins out of my mouth, and jerked them back good and hard. This took her completely by surprise, and before she could respond, I had my feet in the stirrups,” Prindor explained.

“From the looks of her that was not all,” said Randor. “I assume you then got a rough ride like Lani did. Is that right?”

“Not really. She bucked a bit just to let me know that she could but, having seen what the filly got for her trouble, I think she decided to save her strength for the run she knew she was going to get,” Prindor said. “Again, I think that mares are usually smarter than fillies when it comes to figuring things like that out. I still gave her a good long hard run to make sure she understood who was in control. I ran her just about as hard as she could go for at least fifteen minutes, then at about three quarters for the rest of an hour. By the way, I want you to know that this mare is really getting fast.”

“After the next water stop, both of us stayed in the saddle that time by the way, we took them back out for a ten lap race, and my mare beat her filly by at least fifty yards,” Prindor said with a grin toward Lani.

“Don’t forget my filly had spent a lot of her energy bucking, I had run her a good bit longer than you had your precious mare. This girl is fast and what’s more, she knows it. She likes to race, and likes to win,” Lani said while patting the girl on her shoulder.

Turning to Prindor, Lani asked, “What do you say we race them for real one day next week when both are fresh?”

“That sounds like a challenge to me? Next week would be fine. They both need some time to fully recover from today’s antics. Shall we race for the usual stakes?” He asked as he smiled knowingly at Lani.

“Of course, what else,” she replied with an equally salacious smile.

Lani and Prindor’s relationship went way beyond being work colleagues and their competitions were frequent and always popular with the rest of Randor’s staff as well as many other elves from the village. Their stakes, though private between them, always were a win-win situation, but that never lessened the intensity of their competition. The mare and filly were certainly going to be put to the test when they were raced by the two young elves a few days from now. Randor always took full advantage of such challenges as virtually all elves, including many potential customers of his, loved to watch girl racing.

“It sure is good for business that you two enjoy competing with each other so much,” Randor said, chuckling at the two young elves. “Folks really enjoy watching the two of you. It sounds like we better get started setting up another event and put the word out on the street. Rolf, pay close attention to everything we do. It’s never too early to start learning the promotion side of this business. Races like this will draw a lot of potential customers and get them excited about bidding on them when these browns go up for sale in a few months.”

Turning back to Prindor and Lani, Randor said, “However you need to get those two back to their stable and get them cleaned up. They both look pretty bedraggled. What would a prospective customer think if he saw them looking like they do, now?” he chuckled.

“Besides,” Randor went on. “That pair are going to need a good rest after what they have been through, today. They’re behaving now, so don’t forget to pet them real good and give them some treats when you put them away. They need reassurance that you both still care for them even though they misbehaved. There’s still a good supply of fresh berries in the root cellar and some dried fruit. Stop by there and pick some up on the way to the stable. You two did a good job, today. Just keep up the good work.”

“However,” he continued. “Don’t think that these two won’t try something similar again in the next few weeks. They’re into their fourth month of training, and I think that girls really start to grasp just how strong they have become somewhere around then. It’s also around this time that they really seem to decide that they don’t necessarily like the idea of being ridden by someone. You’ve just got to make them accept the fact that they will be ridden by someone for the rest of their lives and that they really have no choice whatever in the matter. Once girls learn to accept that, they seem to become much more relaxed, and probably a lot happier for all I know”

Prindor and Lani nodded to their boss and, turning their mounts spurred them into motion heading for the stable and nearby root cellar at a brisk walk. Once the mare and filly realized where they were going, both actually tried to break into a run even though they were obviously quite tired. The elves, though, reined them back to a walk as they had cooled them down after their earlier hard riding, and didn’t want them sweating up again.

Turning back to their teams, Randor and Rolf again both slapped reins against bare backs, and started their chargers straining to get the sleds moving again. Both elves were careful to keep their own weights at the center of the sleds to equalize the loads placed on the two teams of girls.

As the two teams started around the paddock side by side Katryn noticed that the sled pulled by Madi and Lyra was moving faster and beginning to pull ahead. Tired as she was, when Katryn saw this, she just couldn’t keep herself from increasing her speed as well. Cynda did not share Katryn’s competitive nature and held back. At that point, Katryn muttered to Cynda, “Get that big rear of yours moving. We can catch and pass them up if you’ll just keep up with me.”

Not wanting to have Rolf see Katryn outworking her, Cynda replied, “Well, let’s get going then, Shorty,” as she lunged into her harness.

Rolf heard Katryn and Cynda talking to each other, but also felt the sled begin to increase in speed. He was amazed at this increased effort by the girls as it was late in what had to have been a very hard day for them, and suddenly they were actually pulling harder and trying to increase their speed. Normally, elves discouraged girls from using speech to communicate with each other especially when they were being worked or ridden. Elves were really aware that girls regularly spoke with each other when no elves were present such as in their stalls at night. However, as elves considered girls to be only animals, they generally chose to conveniently ignore this fact.

As tired as they both were was, Cynda and Katryn were not about to let Madi and Lyra beat them at pulling their sled so both leaned further forward and put their strong backs into the effort. Due to the different lengths of the two girl’s strides, though, Katryn was forced to step at a faster pace than her teammate to keep their efforts balanced and the doubletree straight behind them. With the increased effort of both girls, they quickly began gaining on the sled being drawn by Madi and Lyra. When Randor suddenly noticed what was happening he decided to try driving the sisters to race against the other team. He slapped the reins against the two sweaty backs while he shouted “He-Yah” to the sisters.

Startled by the slap of reins on their naked backs, both sisters looked to their left and saw the sled drawn by Cynda and Katryn pulling even with them. At first the sisters were dismayed when they realized that the shout and rein slap on their backs was telling them to pick up their pace. They were both tired and looking forward to their next water stop or, better yet, the end of the day.

“What do these little creatures want now?” Madi asked her sister. “Can’t they see how tired we are?”

“We can’t be any more tired than Cynda and Katryn, and I’m not about to let them show us up. Just look how mismatched they are in size,” Lyra answered. “We’re well matched size wise and if we can’t keep up with them, this elf is likely to whip the daylights out of us. I don’t want to feel that whip again, it hurts. Put your back into it, and don’t give up.”

Although Randor had overheard Madi and Lyra talking, he decided not to punish them at this time. Later in their training, both sisters would learn that speaking would generally earn them a stinging welt from a whip or crop. Instead he again slapped the reins against their backs and shouted “He-Yah”, which the sisters could not fail to grasp as a command to speed up. The sisters did just that, and for the next few laps around the large paddock, each team strained to out do the other.

Finally, after about five turns around the paddock, Katryn’s competitiveness and Cynda’s strength began to show and they began to slowly pull ahead of Madi and Lyra. Randor reached for his whip to see if he could encourage the sisters to regain the lead, but then changed his mind. Instead of whipping the sisters, he simply cracked it over their heads several times and again shouted an elven “He-Yah”. Lyra and Madi gave it their all, and caught back up with the other sled, holding even for two complete laps around the paddock.

Watching with pride the all out effort of both pairs of girls, Randor decided that the best finish for this first day of heavy training would be a tie, so he shouted to Rolf, “Let’s slow them down and cool them off, now. Let’s let them all think that they were about to win if the race had just gone on a little longer. That way they’ll try even harder the next time we race them.”

This was, after all, the girl’s first day of heavy training and they had all performed extremely well. Both elves started to pull back lightly on the reins but at first, both teams seemed reluctant to slow down. Each pair had seemingly forgotten how tired they were and had become focused on trying to win the race. He now knew for certain that all four of his new catches would prove to be exceptional. He had already decided that Little Red was, indeed a prize, but was now sure of the others as well.

Randor and Rolf both pulled back harder on the reins and slowed their teams to a walk while at the same time stepping way back on their sleds to lighten the load on the girls.

“Let’s just walk them for a few laps then let them have all the water they want, he called. “They’re all soaking with sweat and need to replace that moisture even before we take them back to the stable. They’ll need even more water later, and here’s a little tip. When ever you are working or riding girls hard like we did today, watch them. If they don’t relieve themselves as often as you water them, you aren’t watering them enough.”

Rolf nodded his appreciation for the training tip.

The girl’s first day of strength training was coming to an end. They were all taken back to their stable, their harnesses and bridles removed and put aside for the handlers to clean. The girls were then washed thoroughly and given long rubdowns prior to being put into their stalls to eat and rest. All were given treats of handfuls of berries and other sweet dried fruit, stroked gently and repeatedly and told how pretty they were and how well they had done. As usual, the girls could not understand a word of what the elves were saying, but they did grasp that they were being spoken to kindly and the sounds were becoming soothing to them.

After the elves left the stable, the girls talked for a while about what had happened to them that day. Although quite tired, all four commented to each other on just how good they actually felt and how they had recovered in such a remarkably short time from their exhausting exercise. They, of course, did not yet understand that these feelings of pleasure and relaxation following exercise were now permanent and were only going to intensify over time. They didn’t talk long, however, as all were soon asleep on the sweet smelling straw.