[Critique Group 1] Cleora's September submission

[sitting.duck at springmail.com]

I hadn't sent it yet Leonard. It is late, so I will call you tomorrow to be sure everyone got it.
 
        214 words
Learning Experience
by C. S. Boyd
When I was in my teens, I ran barrels in the rodeo contests each year. No, I didn't actually run. The barrel racers rode their horses around 3 barrels. The object was to direct the horse around each barrel in turn without turning it over.
I had barrels set up for the purpose of training in the area behind the stables where we kept our horses. One afternoon after school, I took my thoroughbred Queeny out to practice.
As we came around the second barrel, I noticed King, my quarter horse, standing at the back of his lot watching us. I didn't think much of it until the next day when I took him out to train on the barrels.
To my surprise, he immediately started as if he knew what to do and ran the barrels exactly as Queenie had done. I can't be sure, but it certainly seemed that he had learned from watching his mate, and I learned that letting a horse watch another was a method of training. So, I rode him down to a nearby farm where another trainer was working out, and let him watch a veteran barrel racer practice hoping he would learn the more skilled technique of the veterans racer.