It was nearly four in the afternoon when the girls were brought in for their first trot. Normally this trot was scheduled in the early morning one hour after breakfast. However on day one, the schedule was altered to get them into harness, bridle and boots to break them quickly of their human faults and frailties. After they had completed an hour of marching they'd all know the way of the pony-girl's march. They would all know "The Walk".

All sixteen girls were brought into the Arena for their training. The Arena used an overhead trolley system laid out in overlapping circles. The single crossover point was on the north side of the track. Below the track at ten foot intervals hung special racks to mount the ponies. The vertical bars were heavy. From the twin bars two arms thrust forward. These arms were hinged and geared to a servo motor. Across the front arms a thin plastic wicker crossed. It looked very confusing to the girls.

One by one the girls were brought to the racks and mounted. Waist belts were wrapped around each girl. Then bungee cords were clipped to the belt on each side and were connected so the girl couldn't move more than a few inches in any direction. The system required the girls to maintain a certain amount of balance. They were partially supported by the cords but there was sufficient slack to require a certain level of poise.

Each girl was told to raise her knee to horizontal. As she did so the trainer adjusted the wicker to touch it. The first march would be a high knee lift. Later the wickers would be lowered to the 45 degree angle so the low knee lift could be practiced.

Finally a series of wires were run to her belt and then down to her dildos. One connected to her tail, the other to the dildo mounted between her legs. Reins were run from a small servo motor to each girl's bit. Their attendants combed the pony tails, both of them! Finally, a shorter wire was connected to a fitting on the back of the collar.

Once all the girls were properly fixed to the trolley it was time to give them a little training. Tina was the mistress of ceremonies and Gerry stood by to watch her do her work. From the centrally located console, Tina picked up a mike and started the session.

"Ladies, it's time for you to learn 'The Walk'. In a moment you're all going to begin marching. This will be an ordered march. Your trainer will march beside you and keep you in step. You will be doing a High Step. The High Step works like this. Lift your knee until it touches the wicker in front of you. Wait a moment then drop it. Immediately lift your other knee in the same manner. The count will be, one, hold, two, three, hold, four. Start with your right foot and watch the girl in front of you. Your knee must hit the rod in front of you and you must keep it touching for a half second. I'll explain further in a moment.

"Now, none of you can talk but you can grunt and whinny. If you are in trouble, grunt three times and we'll stop the march. Don't do that unless you're really in trouble. You shouldn't have any problems with turned ankles or other such injuries because the boots should prevent that. The carriage will hold you up if you stumble.

"Now let me explain the wires going into your body parts. The collar has pulse and respiration sensors in it so we'll be able to tell if anyone is having endurance issues. The wires going into your tail control a thumper device. With each step it will thump when you are to start the lift. You'll then feel a click when you are supposed to contact the wicket. Then you'll feel another click when you are supposed to drop your knee. The pause between these two clicks will not be very long, a half second at most. After a very short pause the process will be repeated for the left leg.

"Finally there's the dildo bolted inside your sex. This item is a punisher. If you fail to perform and no amount of incentive can bring you around, this will. It will shock your clit and your vagina with an extremely mild jolt of electricity. Since the tissues are so exposed around your vaginal tunnel, the pain will be significant. It feels like this," she said as Gerry sent the command for a three second burst. Every girl screamed past the bits then collapsed in their bindings. Now they had the fear of punishment to guide them."

"OK, we'll start with a march in place. You'll get three clicks as a warning and to set the pace. The count will go like this: click, click, click, and STEP, HOLD, DOWN,WAIT, STEP, HOLD, DOWN! Don't forget the slight pause between motions for the right leg and the left. The right leg cues will be delivered at a lower pitch than the left.

Tina hit the button to begin the cues. As she delivered the cues audibly through the PA the girls attempted to follow her commands. Tina repeated the commands for a few seconds and watched the girls attempt to stay in step. The pace was kept exceptionally slow. The computer fed the signals to the girls' butt plugs, providing tactile cues for their movements. Each girl felt the thump, click, click, followed by a pause then thump, click, click again. Most were successful in their efforts but some were clumsy. After a few minutes she stopped and examined the log. The successful and unsuccessful knee lifts were recorded on a computer screen. One by one she checked the girls' scores. Each score was determined by figuring out how far out of sync their knee lifts were. The girls were supposed to make and release contact with the wicket exactly when the clicks occurred. A quarter second leeway was provided as a cushion. The scores were actually the cumulative errors in tenths of seconds beyond that cushion. Lower scores, of course, were better.

After three minutes of marching, most girls had error scores in the nineties, which corresponded to 90 tenths or nine full seconds of errors. Some did fairly well with scores down in the upper thirties. Two girls were having a hard time. Their scores were well into the two hundreds. She'd have to keep an eye on them.

"Let's begin. You'll march for ten minutes in the first session," she announced. "Then we'll give you a break. Let's begin."

Linda:

I guess the degradation of having to take a man's cock in my mouth wasn't enough debasement for them. Now I'm a pony. I'm an animal, a beast of burden!

After the short marching practice I felt pretty comfortable with the march. At least it would take my mind off of that bastard who raped my mouth. God! I hated that taste. Elaine told me she wouldn't give me any water because they insisted I carry that taste in my mouth as long as possible. It was disgusting!

Jennifer had been mounted to the rack directly in front of me. I watched her foot movement so I'd stay in sync with her pace. The pace was actually set by the device in my butt. I was guided by the thump, click, click that I felt. The pace was very slow, almost solemn. The pace was so slow that it was a struggle to keep my balance even with the support of the rubber cords at my hips. These ridiculous heels didn't help either.

I pitied Jennifer. Hell, I pitied myself! First we were raped in the mouth then we're reduced to being trained like circus animals. I asked myself why I agreed to this. I knew the answer. Those gold bars just kept calling my name. I wasn't going to blame anyone but myself. Why couldn't I just be happy with my current job? It wasn't that bad. I had a real good shot at promotion to sales manager. But now I was marching; because I couldn't say no to that damn pile of gold!

"Pay attention," Elaine said, shaking me out of my doldrums. "Lift, hold, down," she ordered in time with the feelings emanating from my insert. As I lifted my knee she guided it to the wicket by placing her riding crop under my knee. "Point your toe when you lift your leg," she ordered. I did as asked.

All I could do was march and stare at Jennifer's swaying tail. I felt so sorry for her!

Gerry:

I never failed to enjoy the sight of ponies marching in unison. I always seemed to find something unique to savor with each new batch of girls. These girls were a mixed lot. There were tall ones, short ones, some with strong hips, and some who were quite frail. The only problem I had with any of them was that three girls had short hair. I wondered where they came from.

"Tina, where did ponies 4, 13, and 15 come from? We don't usually take short hair girls," I asked.

"They're from Beta. You were out of the country when the announcement came in. The Maxi-folia came in. The development team said it's ready for full scale use."

"Really? They must have had a pretty significant breakthrough!"

"You should congratulate Jason."

"Well, what do we need and how good is it?"

"The stuff will grow a full head of hair on a bald closely cropped scalp in four days. They need dna from six plugs of the hair you wish to grow and six from the girl who will receive it. The dna is broken down so there's no need to match blood type or anything like that. You give the team six plugs from each and they extract the dna. They treat the dna to make the genes that determine hair color dominant. Then they insert them into a special growth medium which has some living follicles from the girl that needs a new head of hair. After a week, they extract the dna from that mixture and mix it with a penetrating skin cream. The dna takes over and infiltrates the follicles on the girl's head. We can even treat their pubic hair!"

"Wow!"

"The neat thing is that because the material used has adult stem cells in the mix, the hair grows at ten times the rate it normally would. It will grow three inches a day for two weeks before the effect wears off. That's forty inches of hair at least!"

"Hey, could we grow tails?"

"Not yet. The current process requires living hair follicle cells to function. It won't work on bare skin, male pattern baldness, etc. If we get that working then you've got another billion dollar industry! You'd be the hero of every bald man in the country!"

"Yea, well, it's not something I'm concerned with at the moment. Hey," I said pointing to the girls," isn't it about time to rest them?"

Tina looked at the clock. There's thirty seconds left. Joanne, are any flagging yet?"

Joanne Cummings was Tina's technical assistant and was carefully monitoring heart rates and performance statistics of the girls. "Number two is up to 125. Her accuracy is 92. I'm keeping an eye on her. Number seven is down to 75 and her heart rate is 155. I'm concerned. I have a few others that are obviously in distress. I think we should stop," she said as she turned away from the console for a moment.

"Go ahead and kill it. I don't want to wear them out on the first march. Let's go to the half step next. Give them ten minutes and have the attendants water them."

The girls had now made three circuits around the double loop. They were all tired and their legs hurt horribly. Three girls couldn't even touch the wickets in front of them. But they needed one last instruction.

"Ladies, we'll stop in a moment. When the conveyor stops, take three extra steps. Lift your right, then your left, then your right, then stop. Remember, right, left, right, stop."

"Let's use the break to sort them out," I suggested.

"Good idea. Let me get my sheet. OK, Number one is tiny and frail. She's five feet two with brunette hair. Weight 105. Dressage?"

I looked at the girl as she was given a drink. "If we use the powered assist units we can have her pull a small sulky. But I think she's best for dressage. That's unless we can get her mated with one or two others."

"We have two other girls of that size in positions six and fifteen. But one is a blonde and one is raven haired. You want to try the new hair thing on them?"

"That might not be a bad idea. Let's set that up."

"Done."

"What about number two? Tall blonde just like number eight. She'd be a great match for the three girls that reenlisted last month. They've been looking for a replacement for that one that got killed in the accident in Pa."

"I actually thought number 8 was the better choice but now that I look at them Number 2's a better match. Joanne, can you contact central and pull up Quad 1222? Let's take a good look."

After printing out two high resolution copies they walked over to each girl and compared them to the photos. Comparisons were made of their profiles, their facial features and their legs. They said not one word to either pony-girl. They just stared at each one before returning to the centrally located console.

"Well?" I asked Tina.

"It's a tossup," she offered. "I can't really choose one over the other. Number two is a little taller but not enough to make a significant difference. Her facial features are a little more southern European but number 8's legs are a better match. I just don't know."

"What was the offered price for the replacement?"

"1.9 million," Tina said.

"Well, I did offer it to number 8 first. I'll give her a choice. She can go to the Circle P or stay in my stable with her friend."

"You're going to offer her tender money?" Tina asked.

"I know it's only $5,000 compared to the $100,000 she'd get if she went to Virginia, but if she really wants to march next to her friend, I don't have a problem owning her. She's a great addition to my stable. And besides, as a single she's well built for cart or saddle."

"We don't normally offer ponies a choice," Tina reminded me.

"I like to break the rules once in a while. Keeps everyone on their toes," I quipped.

At least ten minutes passed before Tina told Joanne to start them up again. "Why don't you give them their instructions and get them started. I want to finish the sorting process," she said.

Joanne took the mike from Tina and scanned the girls. They were all waiting. She checked the heart rates on the monitor. All were down into the eighties which indicated they were rested enough to go to the next phase. "Ponies, listen up!" she said.

Joanne made an adjustment on the console and the wickets lowered to a preset position that would require the girls to lift their thighs only half the distance of the "High knee lift." The pace would be naturally faster because the step would be shorter and quicker.

"OK ponies, the knee lift will be half the height as before. The pause before lowering your knee will be only a tenth of a second. That's hardly any pause at all. Your feet are only going to rise six inches off the floor. But the faster pace will tend to make you sway. If you start swaying, your trainer will steady you. We'll start with the conveyor off as before. On the cue, click, click, click, lift, pause, drop."

After a few seconds of marching in place, Joanne started the overhead conveyer. The girls started marching again. They all seemed to take to this march much easier than the full knee lift. That was a common behavior. High knee lifts were hard on the girls. The lower lift was easier to master and easier to sync. Whether they appreciated that fact I wasn't sure.

With the girls now marching we got back to our classification exercise. We decided that the three short haired girls would get long blonde hair. That would allow us to put them into the new saddled dressage class. Number nine would make a magnificent saddled mare with her long red hair. I wanted her. Two others were going to the team building camp and the remainder would be saddle ponies with the exception of the three small ones. All that was left was disposing of the decision with pony number eight.

"Isn't there any way to saddle the three small ones?" I asked.

"Not really," Tina replied, "unless you can come up with a crew of kinky midgets." Joanne obviously was listening because she broke out laughing hysterically. The laughter was contagious and we all had a good chuckle.

But I actually had an answer to Tina's response. "As a matter of fact," I began.

"No! You can't be serious," she stated in disbelief.

"There's a group in San Francisco called the Little Leather Gang who practice the arts."

"You're not serious, are you?" Joanne interjected.

I thought for a moment. "No, probably not a good idea. But it's something to keep in the back of our minds. Still, I'd like to do something more than dressage with them. I think the power assisted carts would be good, especially if we can get a fourth."

"I think we should put number one and fifteen together and send number six to the dressage camp. She doesn't match well. Her legs are heavier than the others. You know, if you wanted to try out saddling her and bringing in one or two of your small friends I'd be game."

"Hmmm, yeah, let's do it that way."

With that decision all I had to do for the rest of the hour was enjoy the show. Tina and Joanne put the ponies through their paces. Every ten or fifteen minutes, depending on how long the girls could stand marching, they were given a rest period until their heart rate dropped. Then they were marched again. Tina didn't do another high knee lift because of the girls' lack of conditioning. There were many marches ahead.

When the day was done the total error scores were tallied. "Who's the winner," I asked.

"Number nine," Joanne replied.

I was elated. It was the redhead.