Races Day One: The Parade

The next day was the first day of the races on which the amateur one-pony rigs took part, so Armenia’s stable was not participating. More importantly it was the day of the actual presentation or rather The Parade, as it was officially called; all of the ponies were to be paraded in front of the entire audience. That last part really excited Aeriella especially since all of the ponies would also get introduced along with a short description and the specification of the style-points gadgets that they were using. The introductions were read out by a herald, but written beforehand by the stablemasters. Armenia asked the women, if they were interested in writing their own introductions, but they were too preoccupied with the training and left that task to her.

Just like on the previous day they reached the arena dressed in coats, but this time underneath them they wore the full regular gear. The schedule was pretty simple: starting with the largest most renown stables the ponies would enter the arena lead by their stablemasters, as they slowly paraded each pony would be introduced with her name and achievements; if a girl was new the more elaborate introduction would be made which included background and motivation.

There were just four stables large enough to run in the six-pony rigs race, but the number grew exponentially with the smaller rigs; overall there were sixty nine professional ponies registered for the races and twenty four amateurs who were split into two groups which run in separate races.

Aeriella watched with admiration as all the professional ponies entered the arena, they wore beautiful highly-ornamented undoubtedly expensive gear; they were fit, strong, proud and confident. The elf marvelled at herself that she actually envied them a bit, she was a skilled, successful and respected sorceress and now she was looking at pony girls with admiration. The decorations were not necessarily subtle; golden wings attached to the head, feather headdress, precious gems, gold and silver in quantity that annunciated the stable’s wealthiness. These were all items that Armenia would not acquire for her ponies any time soon.