Cayman's 1st Day!

So poor Mr. Cayman is BEYOND skinny. We'll fix that soon, but still... He's also not particularly fit. That will also be fixed :)

He's also coming mostly from DQ world. He has eventing bloodlines, but other than 1 SC he's done nothing eventing related. I'm not convinced he's ever even really hacked.

I rode him a few times last week before bringing him here (thought that might be a wise idea :) and other than one day when he was clearly testing me (it was pretty funny) he was mostly lazy and, admittedly, kinda blah... Oh well -- not fit, etc figured was still worth a try.

Brought him out to the sandring -- I was told to do a walk hack today, and one of the girls offered to babysit so I was aiming to be ready to go when her lesson ended. He was bouncing around on the way out, so I was told to lunge him first. Umm ok. Go get lunge line, and promptly get yelled at for not doing it properly (I freely admit I wasn't doing it properly -- I let him trot around in big circles. No lunge whip, extra lunge line mostly bundled up etc etc. Not dangerous in any way but def not text book style either.) ah well. Will worry about that another day. Go to get on and get growled @ (really!) cause he doesn't stand. So Denny comes and holds him when I get on. Cayman rounds his back up and I can just feel the explosion -- but he just trots off in a VERY animated trot. I was perfectly happy with this! Those of you who knew Zel as a baby will remember this was part of our daily life for several months :) But then I got yelled at (literally) to "make him walk NOW!" ummmm I'd really RATHER let him trot. But clearly not the time or place to argue about it. I let him trot a few more steps and then brought him back. But of course now he's bouncing cause he didn't have a chance to chill :( Was informed I was NOT to go faster than a walk today. Cayman by this point has grown an extra hand (congrats Mary!!!) and is carefully investigating all jumps etc for monsters...
Denny left @ this point (thankfully!) A bit of an inauspicious beginning :( My hacking buddy and I walked around the ring for about 10 mins (it's a big ring :) and let Cayman see the world and discover that mosters really don't live inside green barrels.

So then we venture out into the world... Now brave Mr Cayman has NO problems leaving the ring, passing the scary shed, the pond w/ ducks on it, anything. Until we hit the first field that had XC jumps in it!!!! And no little-white-fence-of-doom in site. He just didn't know WHAT to do w/ it. So our hacking buddy (show name "The Saint" - aptly named) and us wandered around and visited the scary xc jumps (now you have to understand this is nowhere near the actual xc course :)...

Then we managed to navigate between the scary water and the equally scary feeder. Cayman wasn't quite sure which would have bigger monsters in it and so cowered into his new best friend. hahaha not sure how he felt he'd protect him but sobeit...

At this point we have to start to navigate real hills... Now dressage rings tend to be FLAT. hahaha and DQs tend to get really huffy if they're not. And Cayman's brief intro to jumping didn't include any hills... And these hills are really mountains. Poor guy wasn't sure at all what to do about this and his solution?!?! Let's go FASTER!!! hahaha horse who I couldn't get to move at home had power gaits like you wouldn't believe all day today. N yes I realize that's a strength thing, but you see it showed me that he CAN go forward. hahaha and now that I KNOW that, there's hope. Real hope. Of course we have a bit of an issue in that crossing the running stream was no problem at all but entering the field of XC jumps was super scary. Like stop and run backwards scary. I would be the one who'd have an eventer afraid of XC jumps. "BUT LAUR!!! They EACH have a monster in them!!! There's a WHOLE FIELD of monster-houses! We should really go back across the running stream -- monsters drown in the water!" hahaha

Did I mention it was pouring rain through all this -- although for most of it we were in the woods so not too bad...

Anyways -- shortly after that we went back down the mountain -- clinging to his new buddy the whole way... Tomorrow he has a dressage lesson. And another hack. Could be... ummmm entertaining!

X your fingers for us!