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chaos-interwoven · 1 day ago

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PLEASE tell me about the riding au pls pls pls

shfksjfkskdksk it makes me soooo happy that someone else is intrigued by this idea because when i say it won't leave me alone, i really mean it. sorry for not immediately responding lol. believe me, i wanted to but i had to practice discipline and go to bed cause i had work in the morning 💔 and then i was working on it last night and had too much to say and needed to continue in the morning. so here's a warning and apology in advance for how long this is going to be, very sorry but i apparently have many many thoughts!!

if i end up writing something for this au (which is looking more and more likely) it would maybe be a series rewrite type thing where the only thing that changes is the sport. but obviously, them riding would change so much.

logistics - how them riding for the school would work

in this au, they are all english riders. this is mostly because english is my style and i will admit, i am biased, but also because for team riding (especially for a school) i think english makes more sense. i also just think that the competitive world for english riding has a lot more possibilities and longer events than the western world (but i could be wrong because i honestly don't know too much about it). so the way it works is that universities have riding teams and each rider competes individually for their scores at competitions. i have decided that they compete in the eventing world because i think its the most fun and like having the different disciplines to be able to make the characters have one that they favor. for those who don't know, eventing is competition with three parts: dressage (fancy horse dancing type shit), show jumping (jumps inside a ring), and cross-country (jumps outside a ring usually across a long, varied terrain). their individual scores are combined with everyone from their school's team and then those decide which school wins but they also get individually ranked too which is cool. the ravens obsess over winning team scores and winning individually of course.

the only issue with this is that the existing teams inside aftg have a wide variety of how many people are on a team and that doesn't translate well math-wise for team score calculation. i am thinking that each team can have a certain number of people competing (maybe 9 for obvious reasons) and the bigger teams specially select their 9 depending on who is hosting. like maybe dressage judges at are known to really like this one style at a certain school so they tailor to that or the cross country course at this other school is notoriously difficult so they adjust their roster with that in mind. the foxes wouldn't be able to adjust who competes like that which is widely considered a disadvantage, as well as the fact that if one of their horses goes lame, they're kinda screwed. for fiction reasons, we'll say they get lucky on that front.

also, and this is unrealistic to how eventing works in the real world but again its fiction so i'm saying whatever, each team can have three (? idk i just picked a random number) alternate/sub riders who can tag in for one event. again, the foxes have a disadvantage with their small numbers. so when neil joins the team, he doesn't get one of the nine roster slots. instead, he begins by sub riding for his teammates. particularly, he was supposed to be a sub rider for seth for dressage and seth gets pissed off about neil’s lack of experience. maybe he is allowed to sub in for multiple different teammates? idk, i haven't really decided the made up rules here

logistics - incorporation with the yakuza

the moriyamas own belmont park in new york (the site of the belmont stakes which is a huge race in the US for those who don't know. look it up lol). they have a office somewhere in the city for like business things maybe but they use horse races, especially the belmont stakes, to bring in clientele both from across the US and from abroad. this is similar to how they use the ravens' court and the towers in canon. it’s also a great way to move a lot of money and hide the unsavory part of their business. but beyond racing, they don't care about horses or the riding world. they know and care enough to be competent, successful owners of belmont but that's about it. so riko is all convinced that he's gonna be the best eventer out there and then the main branch and his dad will care about him but he's dead wrong.

nathan still has that widespread range business man thing going on that he does in canon but he is connected to pimlico (which is the racetrack in baltimore where the preakness stakes is held). the preakness stakes and the belmont stakes, along with the kentucky derby, make up the famous three race series called the triple crown. personally, i think this detail makes this au make even more sense because the moriyamas and the wesninskis can both have connections to prestigious af racetracks in their canonical cities. and with baltimore being a port city, lots of drugs are smuggled into the harbor so maybe nathan uses races to move and sell drugs as well as dealing with money and bodies. and i'm thinking that nathan doesn't own pimlico though and is just a serious investor or co-owner (or something) who owns a lot of race horses that operate out of pimlico, mostly because he needs to be a step down from the moriyamas but who knows. maybe he does own pimlico. would love opinions/thoughts.

nathan being involved with pimlico provides a reason for neil to grow up around horses. he was at pimlico a lot growing up. nathan and mary would often leave him with stable hands while they had business to attend to so neil basically grew up with the animals, learning to groom them, how to take care of them, etc. it sparked his interest in horses and when he was old enough, he started to ride (not racing but english style). and this would follow much of the same idea as canon where mary would take him outside of baltimore where people didn't know what his name meant and would let him take lessons. and how eventually, neil was supposed to go to tetsuji if he passed the test/was good enough at riding and the moriyamas would have bought neil a horse but mary ran away before the second day of the test.

the foxes and co. - their background with riding, their horses, and their specialties

(naming things is like the hardest part for me so none of their horses have names. please drop name suggestions if you want lol, i would love help naming their critters. also, if literally anyone is interested, i can do some searching and find reference pictures for how i think their horses look but rn it's all vague concepts in my head.)

allison: allison grew up rich so her being into riding wouldn't be surprising and makes sense imo. she begged her parents for a pony when she was little and after months and months, they finally got her one. they weren't expecting it to go anywhere, figuring that their fashion obsessed six year old would drop this horse thing after a few months max after seeing how messy and gross (their opinion) it can be. they put the pony up at a local barn where all the other rich kids had theirs and chalked allison's interest up to wanting to do what her classmates were doing. and it was obviously a fancy place with grooms and whatnot so allison really didn't have to do much hands on besides the actual riding. but still, animals are animals and her parents took one look at the smell and mud, which is only so avoidable even if you're rich, and didn't expect allison to stick with it. so imagine their surprise when she took to it like a moth to a flame and stuck with it religiously since she was six. they entertained it and funded it as she got older under the condition that she was putting the family business first. she went along with it until college where she chose losing them and their money so that she could ride for a school and keep her horse.

her current horse would be the one her parents bought her in highschool. maybe a ten year old? its her third horse. she had a pony as a kid who eventually got sold to another little kid when she grew too much for it. then was her starter horse for eventing who wasn't really bred for eventing but mostly bought because it would be her first horse. this one got sold when she was in high school so she could buy a horse better suited for eventing. this horse would be a very gorgeous warmblood who was bred specifically for eventing and she would be bay. (if you don't know horse coat colors, im sorry but look them up 😭 this is already too long so i can't explain them all) geldings (sterile males) are more popular in professional equestrian sports from racing to eventing but you can't tell me allison wouldn't say fuck that and get a mare (female) instead.

allison would be best at dressage and really enjoy the beauty of it. she and kevin refuse to acknowledge their mutual love for and sucess at dressage out of their canon-typical childish spite towards each other 🙄 but while dressage her favorite, i can also see her being killer in the jumper ring.

renee: renee started riding only once she was with stephanie walker. i don't know the canonical timeline of when she got adopted but we're going to image that it was early enough for her to become good enough at riding to get scouted. its fiction, we can bend the rules. but anyway, stephanie owns a little farm with chickens, a few sheep, two horses, and a single cow. she insisted that renee learned how to take care of the animals as part of getting back in touch with kindness and thought that along with religion, caring for the animals would help her figure out how to heal and become the person she wanted to be. one of stephanie's two horses (both rescues of course) was too injured to be ridden and just kept to have a happy, safe retirement and provide company for the other. the second horse is the one stephanie actually rode and she mainly rode on trails around their property and casual schooling (the horse word for training i suppose) and jumping. it was after maybe six months of living with her that renee first asked to learn how to ride and stephanie supported the idea wholeheartedly. eventually, they rescue a horse for renee as she joined her school's team which is her current horse. the routine of riding and bonding with her mom's horse and then her own really helped her.

like most rescues, her horse is not fully one breed but he's mostly american saddlebred. he's also a roan because the idea of renee having a roan just makes so much sense to me in my heart of hearts.

renee is best at show jumping. i think she would like the feeling of jumping successfully over high jumps and i love the imagery of her excelling at what is basically the riding equivalent of flying.

dan: okay honestly, i am struggling a bit with dan's backstory in this au for the same reason i am having holes with neil's - horseback riding is expensive and add owning a horse to that?? its insane. and we know that dan didn't grow up with money. the easy answer here is that her first job was being a stable hand after school at a barn around her. she got this job at maybe 12 because it's mostly chores and manual labor and the barn paid in cash so it was under the table and her being under 14 wasn't a problem. after idk a year? two years? though, one of the trainers started to notice her interest in the horses beyond them being her job and the way that she would watch the lessons. this trainer eventually offered to let dan into the lessons for a docked pay. dan would ride the school horses at this barn from then until she graduates. the docked pay would also force her to take up another job which would allow her to strip like in canon. seems like an insane schedule to me cause riding takes more time than exy would but i suppose we're suspending disbelief again.

i really really don't know how dan acquires a horse to have at palmetto because college athletes need their own horse. my best answer (that is really not all that good) is that psu gives wymack a fund to help some of his riders buy horses. the only way this swings is because wymack keeps as small of a team as he can so psu already doesn't have to fund the equestrian program as much as they could; that wymack isn't fully funding the horse, only partially; and that dan has money from a combination of saving up, her "sisters," and her aunt giving her some money as an apology for being shit which dan only accepts because she needs it for the budget her and wymack worked out and not because she is accepting the cheap apology that comes with it. dan's savings were meant to just go to her attending a local community university because she didn't think she could ride for a college at all until wymack saw her school ride against renee's and then scouted her. she is at psu on scholarship so she was able to use her savings towards a horse instead. her horse would be a rescue that she got upon arriving at psu a month early. her and wymack rescued him and that extra month dan spent bonding with the horse and learning it's fears/issues/quirks before the rest of the team arrived to start summer training. the foxes having so many rescue horses on the team is perfect imo because it's so so them.

dan's horse would be some thoroughbred, maybe some quarter horse just because of their prevalence in rescues and would be chestnut with four white stockings/socks. as captain, i feel like dan has a very strong foundation in all three of the disciplines. but i think that she likes cross country best and enjoys the part of the course that's a long space to just run.

matt: matt's story would go similar to his canonical story. where after his mom finds out that his father introduced him to partying and drugs and he got too far into it, she tries to get him to rehabilitate from it. she teaches him boxing to channel his anger and uses his dad's money to get him into riding. she doesn't know much about it but she knows horses are supposed to be therapeutic so she feels that she is covering the whole emotion spectrum in terms of support. as matt takes to the sport, she encourages it and eventually they buy him a horse that he takes to psu with him. while learning, he had ridden school horses at the barn and then eventually had leased one before getting his own.

his horse would be an OTTB (off the track thoroughbreds, so a horse who used to race and retired from it around 3-4 years old, usually bc they aren't great at it lol, and then get adopted and retrained to do something else), one of the tallest horses on the psu team, and a nice medium bay color. i feel like matt would also favor cross country but because he enjoys all the crazy looking jumps (seriously, look them up bc they're very silly and cool)

seth: being from alabama, it only makes sense to make him a farm boy lol. plus he is from a big family so i feel like the odds of that actually being canon are pretty high. unlike stephanie walker, the gordon farm is large and has many many animals. they own chickens, a few cows for milk, some pigs, and have a barn where they keep their horses (they have maybe 3-5?) and they board the rest of the stalls out to other people so they have about 10 horses on their property. seth grew up doing chores around the farm, driving tractors way too young, and caring for horses as soon as he was old enough. like allison, he has been riding since he was in elementary school although in a very different sense. where allison grew up riding all prim and proper, seth grew up riding around the farm, taking one of the family horses out bareback to just run and run and run. he and his brothers would race sometimes and would jump over anything and everything they could find, even building jumps sometimes out of random things from the local scrapyard. when he got older, he started to ride some of the border's horses for them as a job. he was always the best with horses out of all of his family. they just always got along with him. so while he grew up riding unconventionally, once he started riding other people's horses for them, he learned proper techniques and skills in order to do a good job and therefore, keep the job. his parents made all of their kids be involved in some sort of club (as a way to slack off more from their parenting duties) and while they all stuck to 4H, his freshman year of high school, seth switched and joined the school's riding team. it was then that he got his own horse at last. i also feel like seth has some skill with caring for horse injuries. like knowing what is wrong with them and treating some of them. i imagine that it comes with the territory of growing up on a farm.

his horse would be a rescue and has to be a thoroughbred. its truly the only breed that would match his ingrained desire to run. and seth is the only one on the psu team to own a black horse.

his early years and habits make him a beast at cross country while his job of schooling the border's horses gave him the foundational skills to do show jumping and dressage, but he finds the latter stuffy. others at psu may favor cross-country or be best at it of the three disciplines, but seth is unrivaled at it. the way he grew up means that he and his horse are fearless on the course because they have most definitely jumped crazier. he gets some of the best times and practically never has any faults for it which drives kevin up the wall because he finds seth insufferable but there is no getting over how good he is at cross country.

kevin: grew up riding with his mom until the accident and he went to tetsuji. i'm choosing to say that he grew up partially in ireland, maybe kayleigh spent half the year there or something, who knows. but because of that, some of his foundational riding skills he learned in ireland. this doesn't mean anything besides the fact that i want him to feel yanked from his heritage when he goes to the nest, you'll see why in a second. kayleigh was an eventer best at show jumping and she was encouraging kevin to be the same but joining the nest messed with that. when kevin entered the nest, tetsuji sold his horse and riko's and made them get matching but not related warmblood horses instead. in the nest, kevin learned to prioritize and excel at dressage first and foremost and his love for show jumping became secondary. (jean joined and got the horse of a graduating raven who wanted to buy a new one to ride professionally with). when kevin and riko were 16, riko wanted new horses for them so tetsuji sold their old ones (and hey maybe instead jean should get kevin's old horse for maximum jean angst...). but this time, their horses weren't matching warmbloods. riko got a warmblood again but kevin insisted on getting an irish sport horse. he grew up riding them, kayleigh had owned one, and kevin just wants to feel more connected to his heritage. that and history are the only two things he got to be different with.

so kevin has an irish sport horse. he keeps his horse when he transfers to psu. and its a grey which caused so so much uproar with riko and tetsuji. because greys are born black and they lighten to white with age. but the rate of this is not identical from horse to horse. so when kevin gets his ISH, riko gets a grey warmblood but they are never as identical as riko wants them to be which he punishes kevin (and jean) for all the time. but kevin feels that it is worth it, that anything is worth it, because not only did kayleigh have an ISH, she had a grey ISH.

as established, kevin is best at dressage. canonically, his playing style is all accuracy and statistics and precision so it matches up very well with that and with the ravens being dressage heavy. but he is very very good at it all because he's kevin day. maybe over the course of being at psu he rediscovers his love for show jumping but the kevin we see in canon tends to drink instead of confronting his pain and working towards healing. so there's a chance that he is too afraid of his grief to focus on and excel at the discipline he associates with kayleigh until long after graduating. maybe wymack eventually helps with that.

nicky: okay i’m actually not too sure how nicky starts playing exy in canon. for most of these, i’ve been modifying their storyline using how they get introduced to exy but im kinda at a loss with nicky. i mean he did grow up in south carolina so like getting into riding doesn’t seem too absurd but i’m having a hard time reconciling horses with his parents…….. so uhhhh help?? 😭 (mostly joking but if anyone knows how he started playing exy and when that was, i would love to know)

when he joins psu, he rescues a horse. he would be another that would use wymack’s school approved fund to get a horse. it’s that, some of his savings, and a bit of tilda’s life insurance. i feel like nicky’s horse would be mostly thoroughbred with some quarter horse like dan’s but he would be bay. he definitely would have a blaze (a type of facial marking) and a cute little pink nose.

nicky is best at dressage and struggles with cross country. he and his horse just tend to get spooked by some of the super funky looking jumps as is common with rescues. and i think the methodical aspect of dressage would be easiest for him to understand and work towards.

andrew: andrew getting into riding goes pretty much how him getting into exy does. he’s at a juvie center in california that focuses on sports to rehabilitate and the kids with extra good behavior get to partake in this therapeutic rehabilitation program involving horses (equine therapy is actually a very real and very cool thing). the program starts by having the kids work on grooming their assigned horse. kids would go in shifts during the day, some in the morning and some at night. so there were two per horse. and the whole program emphasizes getting in touch with your emotions and how you communicate them to the world around you because horses pick up on people’s emotions very well and respond to and/or mirror them. but andrew didn’t care about all of that - it was just the best, biggest cage out of all of the offered sports. but eventually, if you behaved long enough, you got to start riding your horse and andrew really is a natural and has talent. then early parole happens and tilda takes him in and he discovers aaron’s abuse. and suddenly he has all this life insurance money. nicky comes over and is raising them and then after he is hate crimed, andrew has his hearing. part of his deal is that he has to resume equine therapy, his lawyer claiming it as the reason andrew got early parole and therefore proven to be really effective for him. the state funds this so andrew gets reconnected with horses but with his meds, things are very very different. while riding for his school, he gets scouted by riko and kevin, turns them down, and then gets scouted by wymack and accepted with nicky and aaron with him.

and so, before their freshman year starts, andrew goes to an OTTB specific rescue and uses the life insurance money to get two chestnut half sibling horses. a mare for him and a gelding for aaron. they’re practically identical which he does on purpose. he doesn’t tell aaron he’s doing this or really involve him in the process. he just gets the horses. on the psu team, only allison and andrew have mares. everyone else has geldings. this is partially just because i think it makes sense for them to have mares and partially because i enjoy the idea of them having a grudging understanding/bond that's not really a bond with each other because of it lol.

i think andrew is freakishly good at show jumping. in show jumping, you need to clear all the jumps, in the correct order, and within the allotted time. i think andrew is uncannily able to ride within that optimum time and has a knack for knowing which turns to cut, when to push, when to hold steady, etc. but he hardly ever puts in the effort to do exceedingly well before neil comes along and starts asking.

aaron: also unclear with how he starts exy in canon. do him and nicky just not play until they get to psu? that would be insane….. but would explain kevin’s frustration with them…. but still it’s insane. i have no idea if thats the case or not. again if anyone knows, please tell me lol. but regardless, i think he would secretly enjoy the emotional bond between horse and human that the sport forms. but he would rather die than have anyone know that. (kaitlyn knows. kaitlyn loves how much aaron secretly cares for his horse. and you can't have cheerleading for horses bc they get scared of loud noisy things pretty easily so idk what the cheerleaders become instead.)

aaron doesn’t appreciate andrew’s gift horse because of how andrew went without him to the rescue but he is in no position to decline so he ends up accepting him. and he eventually really likes his horse. i feel like aaron would be best at dressage and enjoy it the most. this is mostly just vibes though based in how he's studying science and science is numbers and exact methods and whatnot.

neil: neil’s introduction to the horse world is largely established already. on the run though, mary wouldn’t let him near horses at all similarly to how she forbade him from the exy world. they kept to a lot of cities so this usually wasn't a problem but mary wouldn't let him watch races on TV or anything. all contact with horses was cut off. and then she died and neil ended up in millport. it is canonically established to be a small town so i am imagining a more rural version of millport where neil ends up working as a stable hand at someone's barn to make money for food. it's a small, dying town so the idea of there not being any open jobs isn't farfetched and maybe there's this old couple who can't care for their horses as thoroughly as they would like anymore. and so when there's a new kid in town, they get him to help out at the barn. and neil willingly takes the job even though he could probably get away with not having one and just use his stolen funds, but he wants to be around horses again.

and then maybe the coach of the high school's riding team hears about neil being good with horses. this relies on the canon established narrative of everyone knowing each other in millport. so word somehow gets from the old couple to coach hernandez and next thing neil knows, the coach is asking him to join the riding team. he was going to try to join anyway because again, he misses horses and riding, but this works out perfectly and he can frame the narrative of being new to the sport better. its not a stretch since it has been so long but he still has those instincts and a solid foundational base. and on the high school team neil either just rides a school horse from the school's affiliate barn or the old couple let him ride one of their horses. neil getting recruited by wymack would go pretty much the same. hernandez sends wymack video of neil riding and it shows how neil instinctually handles the horse freaking out and doing really well. so wymack, kevin, and andrew fly out to millport and watch the last show of the season and then corner neil.

again, how neil ends up owning a horse at psu is a bit unclear. because there is no way he would be comfortable buying one at that point in his character development even though he has the funds. so maybe he is another fox who rescues a horse partially funded by wymack's approved budget? or maybe we can say that the elderly couple he was working for let him take one of their horses because they had seen how neil and the horse had bonded and liked neil's riding and knew they couldn't provide the horse with the life it wanted. some animals like to have a job. maybe that was the case with this horse and the couple couldn't physically give him what he wanted. who knows

however it happens, neil would have an anglo arabian (a breed that's a thoroughbred and arabian mix). neil having a horse that's part arabian feels so so true to me because neil is canonically a runner. arabians are known for having crazy endurance and instincts that drive them to run. all arabians i have known have this innate drive to just go go go and i feel like that lines up with neil really well. and i am picturing a bay with pretty red undertones, like its less brown then some of the other bays on the team.

neil is best at cross country. again, no one quite matches seth's fearless mastery of all cross country courses but neil is able to instinctually adapt to the varied terrain and anticipate his horse's needs and responses in a way that makes him have really successful rides. he's good at picking which option of jump will put him at a time advantage and set him up for the best terrain (in cross country, some of the jump obstacles have options which the rider can choose from) without backing away from the challenge. i also just think that millport would be more likely to focus on cross country over dressage.

he is still relatively new to eventing though which annoys seth. like i said earlier, neil joined the team to be an alternate for seth for dressage (largely just to mimick how he joins as a striker and is supposed to be a sub but seth is like no fucking way, he is a newbie). so neil not having the years to back up his riding is something that gives seth a lot of frustration. in neil's childhood, mary prioritized him learning dressage and chose lessons and trainers that would give him a very solid foundation in the discipline because she knew he would be tested to become a raven and knew how they favored dressage. so this history is still with him but neil only started doing advanced dressage tests during high school so he's nowhere close to kevin's level. him having a horse that is part arabian works with him though because arabians are very smart, can learn new skills quickly, and have a natural flowiness to their strides. so even though neil isn't where seth thinks he should be, he still performs with a beauty and well enough that seth accepts him as a sub even as he still voices his complaints. i feel like neil would also sub in for nicky for cross country at some shows. that is until seth is killed and neil joins the roster.

wymack: most schools have at least three coaches, one for each component of eventing. that way they have someone who specializes in each discipline to coach their team. the foxes do not. they just have wymack. this is something that other schools and the media give him shit for/make fun of the foxes for. its just another way they do things differently. further, i believe in indigenous wymack becuase i really like that headcanon. i will readily admit my lack of knowledge here but i do know that there are ties between indigenous riding and the western style of riding. that plus how he lives in south carolina, i am imagining that wymack primarily rode western growing up and didn't really compete in eventing, if at all. this would provide yet another thing that other schools and the media pick at the foxes about. but wymack knows how to ride english too and while he hasn't competed for it, he deeply studied eventing with kayleigh and learned to master it because of her.

i do think wymack owns a horse or maybe two of his own in this au. ones a chestnut quarter horse because its a classic and the other is an appaloosa for no other reason then that i was obsessed with them as a kid. they’re so so gorgeous and i can’t make any of the foxes own one so here we go.

abby: i'm thinking that she is a vet in this au instead of a team nurse..... i just feel like most injuries that the foxes would have would be horse injuries instead of people injuries. and having a team vet makes sense so that there is someone on standby for any problems and so that there is someone constantly monitoring how the horses are doing. but i think she has a basic knowledge of first aid because injuries of her riders would still not be good. and because foxes are foxes, her riders tend to get into fights with each other so she learns even more through learning how to patch them up.

bee: her role really wouldn't change much lol. but i like to think that she's a bit afraid of horses so she will come to local shows but like... keep her space or just be a bit hesitant cause horses intimidate her lol. i just think it would be funny. and it would give another thing for neil and aaron (and jean) to be exasperated with her about.

misc.

the ravens really emphasize dressage. this makes a world of sense to me because of their canonical obsession which synchroneity. we know about their weird way of dressing and walking and behaving all in perfect synch and see it at banquets and whatnot. dressage is a specialty that is rooted in perfection and discipline and obedience. even without knowing much about it, those three words should say enough about why the ravens would flock to it (pun intended). they obsessively train to master dressage routines and to be perfect in every single aspect of it. this also makes sense to me because dressage is the first of the three parts of eventing. you get scored in dressage first and the way scoring works, the lower score you have, the better. to do well on a dressage test means to be as close to perfect in every movement of horse and rider as you can be because that means, less penalties and a lower score. an emphasis in dressage would mean the ravens tend to lead score wise from the very beginning. of course they train for the other two parts but having a good dressage score is a huge advantage even if you're just looking at the psychological factor on you and your opponent of being in the lead from the start. and we know the ravens love their mind games.

while it is unfortunately very likely that the ravens would abuse their horses, i really fucking cannot stand animal abuse so i'm saying no to that. the most i will allow is that their horses are fearful and don't have great bonds with their riders because of the amount of negative emotions, particularly anger, that the ravens hold. even if they are not taking it out on the animals, the horses can sense them. that combined with the ravens never personally taking care of their own horses (like grooming them, tacking, bathing, etc.), it is easy to imagine them not having the best bonds.

instead of matching cars (or maybe in addition too them lol) all the ravens have to get a new horse when they join the team. so that they are all close-to-matching bay warmbloods. the markings on their legs and faces are allowed to have slight variation but that is it. kevin is the only exception to this with his grey ISH and riko too with although he only has the different color, not breed. riko plays off their greys as a superiority choice but he is very very annoyed at kevin messing with their synchroneity.

at the nest over christmas, neil isn't allowed to bring his horse. riko forces him to ride a bay warmblood instead. and riko is trying to force neil back into the dressage first mindset over all else.

it is also common for teams to have grooms for their horses who take over some of the duties of their riders. in the tsc world, we see the three waterkids for the trojans. in this au, they become grooms instead. they help out with cleaning tack, making sure everyone has their equipment and ensuring it is where it needs to be for traveling, and maybe do stable hand duties like feeding and letting out as well. i think that some schools have their grooms actually groom and tack up the horses for their riders (like the ravens) but the trojans understand the importance of having a rider do that with their own horse to maintain that bond between horse and rider. that and they genuinely enjoy caring for their horses. so the role of their grooms is less than at some other universities.

the foxes have no grooms at all. i think that they could have the funding for it but wymack worked out his fund to buy horses instead and i think this goes along with wymack's canonical wish of not having any outsiders interact with his foxes. allison had the biggest adjustment to this when she came to psu but she does it happily because she is pursuing the future she actually wants. similarly, the foxes don't hire anyone to drive their trailers either, they do it themselves.

#sorry this is probably more than you asked for 😭#in my notes this is was under the title “kevin day horse girl era”#this was way too long for me to proof so sorry if there are any typos lol #i didn’t have all of this cemented and then i started typing and ohhhh my god #it turned into quite the project #spent an absurd amount of time on this….. it’s a little embarrassing #couldn’t say if the brain worm for this au is satisfied or demanding more tho #aftg riding au #au explanation #palmetto state foxes #palmetto state university #eventing #aftg #all for the game #aftg au #equestrian sports #horses

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