;;let's get this started {kayden}

[blake williams]

Well, Blake felt a little...gay as he got dressed. He pulled on some riding jeans, the ones with no inside seam, and then laced his short brown paddock boots. To tie it off, he threw on some well worn half chaps, it was more comfortable. Yawning, he walked down to his car, revved it up, and proceeded to the barn. This, would be his first experience at the barn, his first encounter with the horses, and he was a bit apprehensive. Not nervous really, just unsure.

Coming out of the car, he walked towards the indoor, no use in walking down all the aisles and being late. Coming to the indoor he looked in, all empty. Checking his watch, he was about 3 minutes early. Hopefully this Kayden person would be here soon. Hopefully, with a decent horse that would be good to work with, but not too easy. He liked a challenge. Leaning against the wall, he glanced around, taking in his surroundings as he waited..

[Kayden Tristani]

Kayden, even though he was new to the school, was already getting a great deal of lesson requests. It was a lot of work but for the most it was fun. Kayden lived off of being around horses. Today though he was in a bit of a hurry due to the fact that his own primary trainer and the horse he was pointing towards the olymics - a horse that Kayden had shown to a win when his trainer was injured at Rolex in the CIC four star event - TRK Stockholm, were showing in the Red Hills Horse Trials in Tallahassee Florida. The event was being televised and since it was a severely dangerous show - just two weeks ago Darren Chiacchia, one of the worlds most talented horsemen, had to be lifeflighted to the local hospital where he is still in the Neuro Intensive Care Unit.

Anyways, after checking the log for his lesson coming up he hurriedly tacked up Just Kidding, a gentle warmblood school horse with lots of experience. From his students log he claims to have shown up to training level and schooled preliminary, but since the original log is written by the student, Kayden knew a safe school horse was best. Soon Kayden would have his own line of horses just for his students and himself, but until then he would have to use school horses. It only took him a minute to groom and tack up the calm horse, and after grabbing a helmet and crop in case the Blake fellow had not, he headed to the indoor arena.

Almost immediately he spotted the guy he assumed to be Blake and he halted the horse beside him. "You must be Blake Williams. I'm Kayden Tristani and this is Just Kidding AKA Kid. He's pretty simple but i wanted to see what you can do before i put you on anything with spunk. Got a helmet, crop?" He gestured to the pair in his hands to let him know that he brought them if he had forgotten. Stepping back he waited for Blake to take hold of the reins and mount up.

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[blake williams]

Hazel green eyes continued to scan up and down the aisles, the trainer should be here any minute. A quick look at his watch, and it was right about the time the lesson should start. But hey, Blake was late a lot, so he didn't care at all. Left foot tapped against the ground, his mind wandering, curious of what horse he rode. It didn't really matter to him, he'd ridden many over the years, by now he could take most anything anybody could hand to him.

He could hear the muffled sounds of a horse, and a person walking towards him. It couldn't be anyone other than Kayden and his lesson horse. Blake began to stand up straight, then realized he had forgotten two things, right in the passenger seat. Helmet and crop. Shit.. He thought silently, but breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Kayden with one, and a nice looking warmblood type horse. An easy smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, he looked calm, but a joy to ride. Yes, I am Blake, nice to meet you Kayden. He reached his hand out to left he horse sniff him before coninuing. And Kid. Then, his attention focused back to Kayden, who seemed about his age, and quite familiar, but he could dig into that later. Yeah, I seem to have forgotten mine in the car. He'd been a bit frazzled with 'moving' in, and he felt lucky to have even found the items in his dorm. Reaching out, he took the helmer, snapped it on, then took the crop, and reached for the horses reins..

[Kayden Tristani]

He nodded to the other guy, who honestly couldn’t have been any younger than Kayden himself, making the whole lesson thing slightly odd. He thrust the helmet and crop forward and stepped back to allow the guy – Blake – to take the horse. He then turned his heel and strode into the arena, dragging with him the second mounting block. Kayden had already ridden his personal horse, Cadillac Cruise, given a lesson to another student and worked with his project horse Colorado Ryan. He really was beginning to look for horses, but wanted to find horses that would be less work for him – something challenging for some of the students that were at the higher level. Hopefully this chap Blake would be one of them. “I’m guessing you know some dressage? Lets see a decent warm up. And by decent, I mean a warm up, but he is a school horse so he’s pretty much good to go. But I wanna see what your old trainers taught you on a warm up.” He was trying to get his point across, but didn’t really know how. Instead he flipped out his cell phone and checked the time before stuffing it into his back pocket and opening up his water, taking a long gulp.

[blake williams]

Doubts crossed his mind after he took the horses reins and as he proceeded to the mounting block. He didn't need a mounting block, but he always felt better using it for the sake of the horse's back, and he didn't think this Kayden kid would approve of vaulting. The doubts, would he teach him anything? He literally knew nothing but the guy's name. Yet, he was giving it a shot, though he didn't like taking lessons from someone his own age. With fluid of someone who had ridden for awhile, he mounted up onto the horse. After adjusting his stirrups, he reached down and gave the horse a small pat/scratch on the shoulder. He gave a small nod to Kayden as he spoke, then nudged the horse to a walk with his heels.

The horse seemed pretty loosened up, but he wouldn't take any chances since he didn't know exactly what they would be doing in the lesson. He pulled the reins to an even lenght in his hand, holding the outside firmly, yet gently, and squeezing the inside rein. When the horse finally come through and round, he urged the horse with calves into a longer stride. When the horse was at the pace he desired, he proceeded to do some 20 meter circles, then spiral into a ten meter, then spiral back out. He did this each direction, and when the horse felt supple walking each direction, he squeezed him into a trot. All the while, he was maintaining even contact, the horse for the most part coming round and through. At the trot, he started out with twnety meter circles, then would switch directions. After the circles, he did 3 loop sepertines in each direction. This got the horse supple, responsive, and able to change to direction when asked. He liked to do half-passes and extensions, but he figured he would wait till after the warm-up.

Then, Blake changed it up. He went to the sitting trot, which wasn't his favorite, but he liked it best for spirals at the trot. He started out, like at the walk, at twenty meter circles, then down to ten meters before spiraling out. Once again, this was done at both directions. When he hit the next corner, Blake sat deeper and pushed forth as he put his outside leg back and asked for the right lead canter. Kid easily obliged and moved out into a canter. The transition wasn't as smooth as Blake wanted, but he would do a couple more transitions before he considered his warm-up done. After one twenty meter circle, he sat deep again and stopped moving with the horse and lightly pulled back, bringing the horse into a springy trot. Obviously, transitions were something that needed to be fine-tuned with the animal. After getting the horse back into the even gait and having him round and coming through, he asked for a canter once more, and this time the transition was much smoother. After doing two more circles, he went across the diagonal, and right before X, he brought the horse to a trot and about four strides later he picked up the left lead canter. A small smile tugged at his mouth, please with the way it went. It wasn't perfect, but it had been better than expected. After doing the same thing at the left lead as he had done with the right, he slowed back to a trot, then a walk. A few strides at a collected walk, then he slowly loosened his reins, looking for a free-walk. Some strides of that, and he went to the buckle, his hand reaching down and scratching the horse lightly on the shoulder. It was a fairly simple warm-up, he thought, as he walked toward Kayden. It didn't invovle high-level dressage, but it got the horse loose and supple, and best of all responsive. He nodded toward kayden as he came closer, showing he was done with his warmup. When he finally pulled up infront of Kayden, he leaned back a tiny bit, a small tug at the reins, and the horse obediently came to a halt.

[Kayden Tristani]

Kayden sat down on the mounting block, his elbows placed on his thigh. He watched as the boy used the mounting block to swing onto the horse. His seat was noticibly deep and well trained, meaning hat like Kayden, he had probably ridden multiple difficult horses. The boy made his first wrong move by collecting the horse into a dressage frame too quickly. But Kayden decided to keep quiet and wait until the boy finished his warmup before critiquing him.

He was obviously self assured in the saddle and it showed as he began to work the horse through spirals and serpentines. Kayden noticed many things he did wrong, but still remained quiet. Finally the boy brought the horse to a walk and headed to Kayden, halting nearby. "Well on a good note you have a good seat and light hands. As for the warm up, you should start how you ended - the horses neck long and low. If you don't give a hrse time to stretch his back out - which is done by putting his nose on the ground - his muscles will shorten. So to achieve this you have to push forward and comb the reins; also you can ask them to come slightly round and push them forward so that their nose is almost on the ground but their neck is still rounded. Also do more transitions on a long neck. Trot, walk, walk, trot mainly - its good for their back. We'll discuss more exersizes after we jump. First i want to see you shorten your stirrups and hand gallop around the arena on each lead." With this Kayden turned away and began to drag the standards and poles to the middle of the arena. They would only do a gymnastic line today.

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[blake williams]

He knew he would get some sort of criticism, every trainer liked their things their own way, there was no way to please every trainer. He would take, he wouldn't make an excuse or give any reasons for why he did things that way, he would just take in the advice, and use it and continue if it worked. He nodded as the trainer spoke, at least he started off with good things, not like others. And, it was a compliment he received often, he never liked to use heavy hands, he didn't like a whip too much either, but for some horses it was necessary encouragement. The stretching thing, he should've guessed. But, what's done is done. Alright. He gave a small nod, and the transitions, well, he usually worked on those after a warm-up, but once again, different people, different ways.

After Kayden gave the next orders, Blake responded. He shortened his stirrups for jumping lenght, turned Kid around, urged him into a walk, shortly there into a springy, but collect trot. Then, when he felt the horse stretch out, he went into the smooth canter transition. It seemed as if the horse knew he was going to get a little hand gallop for he sprung into quickly when Blake urged him forth with his calves. His seat had taken more of the jumping seat, half seat as many would call it. After one lap to the right, he slowed down to the canter, the trot, and then did a diagonal to switch directions. Going left, he did the same thing to the right only starting from the trot and then to the gallop after the canter. After the one lap, where Kid felt more energetic, sometimes wanting to get a little spunky, Blake slowed him down till he was at a walk, then turned towards Kayden, eager to see what he had set up..

[Kayden Tristani]

Kayden ignored the boy as he galloped around the arena - if he couldn't do a simple hand gallop around the arena, then honestly, Kayden probably couldn't do much for him. He set up standards for three jumps, the first two being verticles about a stride apart, and the last an oxer about two strides off. He set up the first jump at about two foot six for warm up and the second at three foot. Turning he looked at Blake, "Take it at the trot the first time, canter the second time. Watch your striding."

Kayden rested back after laying ground lines at both fences. He wouldn't jump the boy high today, for he saw no need in this in the first lesson - but a simply line would show him about what he needed to work on.

[blake williams]

Blake watched closely as Kayden finished setting up the line. It looked fairly simple, nothing too difficult. He mentally figured out the height, the first two feet and a half, the second being three feet, approximately. Once again, he mentally thought out the plan, the trot would be the hardest since not a lot of horses liked to trot fences, especially the start of a line. Nodding at Kayden, he gather his crop in his right hand, then gathered the reins before squeezing the horse to the outside. He was at the middle, at B, so he picked up a trot, then in the corner he turned so he was coming straight towards the line. Immediately, Kid's ears pricked forth, his stride lenghtening but Blake wouldn't allowi it too much, but he knew it would bring him right to the spot. At the take off point, the horse was perfect. Knees came up, and Blake went into the two point position, arms stretching forth to release just enough, but not so much that he couldn't collect right when they landed. As they landed, he collected for the one stride, gave a small push, and repeated over the second one. Then, came the pole, which would later be an oxer, Blake popped up a little bit into the two seat just incase Kid decided to jump, but the horse just calmly went over it. A small smile flicked to the boys face, he loved the feeling of momentarily flying. He had the horse land on the left lead, and once again he turned up the center line, but now at the canter. He situated the stride so they got a good taking off spot, and once again things went well and smoothly. As he landed, he cantered a few strides before going to the trot then the walk, and going towards Kayden.

[Kayden Tristani]

Kayden's eyes were slightly narrowed in concentration as he watched horse and rider tackle the small course. The boy, Blake, had good form, but with the horse being a complete push button horse you could never tell exactly. After turning around the corner his approach was straight and his fold good. He gave a little too much with the reins, but that would be corrected pretty quick like once he was on a horse with some spunk. He had a horse coming in, one that he had already decided on getting, that would probably be one he could work with. Noteworthy was a mare, and a mare described it all. She was very ornery and had a lot of spunk. She was tough on dressage and had a lot of scope over jumps but if you didn't ride to the T up to a jump she would refuse.

When Blake stopped Kid next to him, Kayden looked up and smiled. "Thats enough for today. He's not much for you, but i have a mare coming in that I think will be an interesting match for you. You won't be the only one riding her, she's got some grooves I need to iron out, but she should be an interesting ride for you. You can take him up. Any questions?" He looked up and pulled the pamphlet that contained all the horses he was interested in out of his back pocket. He re read the information on the mare, Noteworthy, 8 year old Dutch Warmblood mare, trained up to training level in eventing. School master, NOT A PACKER. He smiled and nodded. Perfect.

[blake williams]

He knew rode well, not perfect, but then again nothing was ever perfect in riding. Feet came out of the stirrups, ankles rolling a bit to stretch them out. He nodded to Kayden as he spoke, glad that he saw it at least, that the horse was most definitely a push-button, you actually didn't need to push, but Blake felt he had to at least pretend he was telling the horse was to do. A mare...hmm, she'd be fun. And, he didn't care if anyone else rode her, he was always lucky to get a horse to ride in general. No questions right now, I'm sure I'll see you around if I have any.. He spoke as he lightly jumped off the horses back, and put up each of the stirrups, then took the reins over the horses head. Thanks, I'm sure I'll be seeing you. He never liked lessons, but he'd take a couple, he liked the regularity, and it would be one of the few ways he could actually ride. He began to walk off, turning once to wave good-bye to Kayden as he walked to put the horse up.

The End.