One of the muscular feed-shed rat-cats lay on a stack of hay bales licking its paws. The striped shadows on its fur made it look like a tiger. Shelby looked up at the blackboard, muttered, 'Two green chaff, one pellets, two stud mix,' and then slid the dipper into the chaff bin. Some of the agisters at the stables kept their own feed in their tack rooms, while others paid extra to have their horses fed by the staff. The feed buckets for these clients had the horses' names on them. It was simply a matter of filling it with the ingredients listed on the board next to the horse's name and then placing the bucket in the trolley ready to take out to the stables. All around were the sounds of horses – snorting into their bins, cantering in the arena, clip-clopping down the laneway. Shelby could hear the puff-squeak of electric brakes from a truck backing in. She could hear the crackly thumping and scraping of someone moving bags of feed around in their tack room. In the arena Miss Anita's voice was calling out military-style, 'Left, right, left, right.' Somewhere in the next stable block a group of girls laughed.
