Welcome to Choteau, Montana, in 2018. What was once only a small city focused on fossils, has now started to turn into an equestrian mecca. Everyone still knows everyone, so the question remains, what will you become?
06/04 - Site opened 18/04 - Update log #01 including new features! 27/04 - A New skin has been released!
Gail was born blonde, but age darkened it to brown. Sometimes, she’ll put blonde highlights in. She has light brown eyes and has started wearing makeup when she isn’t expecting to ride. She stands at an average 5’6” and is definitely built like a rider. Even though she prefers wearing her hair down, Gail will always pull it back to work or ride. Since she stopped showing, her hair has gotten a few inches longer due to not having to shove it all under a helmet. She isn’t always able to dress in the latest fashions, but Gail tries to always look put together and professional. She’s most at home in show clothes, but she loves relaxing in a warm sweater when the weather gets cold. For teaching, a polo and clean jacket, breeches, and tall boots constitute a professional look.
Personality
Gail was always one of those people who knew what she wanted and was willing to put in every effort to get there. If life didn’t go her way, she wasn’t one to quit or throw up her hands in defeat. Nothing in life was given to her for free, so she learned early on how to develop a strong work ethic. She’s strong-willed and decisive. In the saddle, she possesses an incredible amount of focus to the point where she wouldn’t notice if the world ended outside the arena. At her previous barn, it was well known that trying to talk to her was futile until she dismounted. She rose to the top through hard work and long hours and is extremely proud of that fact.
The near death of her husband brought Gail back to the realities of the unfairness of life. She struggled with the fact that no amount of hard work would improve their situation without a bit of luck. Ever the optimist, Gail gained a greater appreciation for everything she does have and the sweat and blood that went into getting it. She learned how to humble herself and how to ask for help. Gail has an extremely positive outlook on humanity because of the amount of support she received when she reached out for help caring for her husband.
As for Roderick, she can’t imagine life without him anymore. Seeing him smile and laugh is the greatest joy she knows. Even at the peak of her show career when it was a fight to get the most points and win, Gail could never hate her competitors. She believed that riders who beat her had the better round and that she should learn about what made their trips better. After all, everyone who rode loved horses and loved to compete or else they wouldn’t be there. She can’t hate a fellow horse lover.
History
Gail was born comfortably middle class in Upstate New York. There was a riding stables only a half hour drive from her house, and she loved looking out the car window at the horses at the pasture. When she was three, her father received a promotion, so there was enough disposable income for her to take riding lessons once a week at the stables. For Gail’s fourth birthday, she got her first riding lesson on a steady, old pony. Three months later and she was hooked on the sport. The barn offered small in-house shows during the winter season so new riders could experience competing in a low-stress environment while the more advanced riders showed in Florida. Even though Gail’s parents couldn’t afford to buy her a nice jacket and boots, other riders at the barn pitched in with their used attire. After only six months of riding, she competed in a small lead-line class and walk-trot flat class. Getting a red ribbon in the flat class was one of her fondest early memories.
By the time she entered elementary school, Gail was starting to learn about jumping. She spent a whole year working over poles and cavalettis perfecting her position. Moving on to jumping low crossrails was a huge achievement, and her parents let her compete in a local schooling show as a Christmas present. However, Gail fell in love with competing, and her trainer urged her to take more lessons to improve her riding. Her parents struggled to afford the extra costs of showing even for the local schooling circuit. Gail’s trainer let her exercise the other ponies in exchange for an extra lesson or two during the week. As soon as school ended for the day, Gail was driven out to the barn to ride ponies and hope her trainer had enough spare time to give her a lesson outside the one scheduled one each week. Gail’s parents felt their daughter was trapped working extremely hard and loving a sport unable to rise to a more challenging level.
A miracle finally came a few days before the start of the show season when Gail was ten. One of the other riders came down with strep throat and couldn’t show her pony hunter. Unwilling to scratch entirely, Gail was asked to ride the pony and could borrow the other girl’s show clothes. It was even agreed upon that the pony’s owners would pay all the show fees. The years of exercising whatever pony needed to be ridden that day taught Gail how to jump on any pony and get a good ride from it. The first warmup class was a disaster with several missed lead changes, a refusal, and missed strides. Gail’s trainer spent the next hour trying to get her to calm down and focus. The girl that rode out of the show arena after the second class was entirely different from the girl who rode in. By the end of the show two weeks later, Gail brought home a multitude of ribbons. She didn’t win everything, but she placed no lower than fourth in any class. In the second week, she was named division champion.
That was the start of Gail’s catch riding career. At first, other riders from the stables asked Gail to show their horses and ponies at shows they couldn’t attend. Eventually, other owners started asking Gail to ride their horses and were willing to pay her to do so. At home, she still rode as many mounts as possible.
As a Freshman in high school, Gail’s parents succeeded in saving enough money to afford to lease their daughter a competitive warmblood for the show season. She went down to Florida for the first time to compete with her new horse. She continued catch riding and winning. Between what owners paid her to ride their horses and the money she won from classes, it was enough to offset the cost of showing so as not to be a punitive financial burden on her parents. For the first time, she was invited to compete at Maclay and earned a very respectable third place in the National Championship. In the interval until the Florida circuit, Gail was introduced to jumpers and fell in love with the fast-paced discipline. Though she continued showing primarily hunters, she was able to show one of her trainer’s jumpers in small classes to get some experience. In her junior year of high school, Gail swapped out her hunter for a talented Thoroughbred jumper and did well in the children’s jumper classes. In her senior year, she started competing in the adult amateur classes. After a couple more years of showing, the owners of Gail’s jumper agreed to sell the horse to her.
Gail was twenty when she first started competing in the amateur owner classes with her horse, Sable Star. That year at the Washington International Horse Show, she met her future husband, Roderick Faulkner. He was struggling to hold a horse still while the rider, his niece, finished putting her hair up. Gail showed him how to hold a horse properly and what to do if he did start fidgeting. The two started talking throughout the week, and Gail offered commentary about the various horses and riders in the class. Afterwards, they promised to keep in touch. After a year of dating, loving, and supporting one another, Roderick proposed, and the two married after the following show season.
Roderick moved to New York to be with Gail and to finish his teaching degree. At first, their marriage seemed like something out of a fairy book. They agreed to wait until Roderick finished his schooling and got a job before having children and merely loved the other’s company. To celebrate Roderick finishing his degree, he and bunch of his friends went out to Lake Ontario where his best friend owned a summer house. Gail even took some time off showing to be with her husband. They shared the water with a group in a motor boat dragging a synthetic inner tube. One of the people on the tube fell off and wasn’t immediately spotted. The boat driver didn’t notice that he was coming in closer to the shore or the swimmer in the water. Roderick was hit and suffered severe injuries from the propeller. He was in the water for several minutes before medical personnel got to him. Gail saw the whole thing from the shore.
In order to be with her husband while he recovered, Gail took the rest of the season off. Roderick moved in with Gail’s parents while she worked several low-paying jobs. Even though she was good enough to be competitive in the Olympic qualifiers, Gail put higher priority on her husband. Roderick took up substitute teaching as soon as he was well enough to function independently and work.
Welcome to Choteau, Montana, in 2018. What was once only a small city focused on fossils, has now started to turn into an equestrian mecca. Everyone still knows everyone, so the question remains, what will you become? 
