Today was the 1st (and we hope annual) Continuous Drive over at Little Everglades Ranch in Dade City Florida. This ranch is home to the Little Everglade Steeplechase . It also is the home of the new CAI event in Florida , the first in the Triple Crown CAI here in Florida–the Sunshine State CAI being the 2nd and Live Oak the 3rd.
It was a very relaxed event and so very much fun. The “obstacles” were fun yet challenging, the cones course was blind to us until we arrived on the course, but it was only 10 gates easily seen.
We had 2 distances to choose–the 6 miles and the 8 mile for those of who were more advanced. 8 miles? Just a warm up for my boy!!!:lol:
First obstacle was check in, we were supposed to offer our spares kit which was graded, we also had to offer our number at each obstacle and thank the volunteers for points at each hazard.
The rules were pretty much a trace pace with a few hazards and cones thrown in . We had no idea of what speed or optimal time other than “a slow cde speed”.
Second Obstacle was Pandomonium Panda-- we had to drive a 20 meter circle each direction around Kung Fu Panda. After our last adventure with a bear, I had my doubts about this one. The Panda was the Kung Fu Panda from the recent movie and was about 4 feet tall on a stump. Don;t know why it was out in the middle of the pasture!!
Zanzer understood he was on the marathon carriage and we were supposed to be doing hazards. He did not understand why we were NOT cantering (not allowed). He went in and did a fine job–plastic panda was a non-issue!!! We had to stop going in and out of each obstacle to give and get our card from the scorers. That the boy did not understand.
#3 was a huge spiral called Neptune’s something. You drove in the spiral to the center then turned and reversed and drove out. Very cool. As we left, we heard them say we had done the best job of all for the day!!
The fourth obstacle was a cattle scale. A huge one where you drive the truck and trailer on to get the weight of the cows on the trailer. The boy trotted bravely on to the scale. We had to give a guess of our combined weight–horse, carriage, driver and gator and assorted equipment. WE over shot by 130 lbs.
Down the course we went to hazard number 5. This was a true hazard with A through F but we were told to drive 5 gates. It was several round hay bales painted and decorated to look like pigs and cows. The pigs had big pink ears and tails, the cows had horns I think. Well anyway, Zanzer is ready to blow out this hazard as we entered —but whne I didn;t cue him to canter, he got mad!! He started bucking even while I was driving him forward!!! :eek: :eek: Bad bad boy. Then he realized he was being driven toward monsters!!!:lol: He bowed away from one of the cows and slammed into one of the pink pigs. We were the only ones of the day to body slam one of the obstacle elements. ;):winkgrin: As always we provided a good amount of entertainment for the day.
Down the trail brought us to Square Dance. It was large square with a cone in each corner and one in the middle. 8 gates were created in that way–the 4 sides of square plus the x created 4 more. The object was to drive all 8 gates as quickly as possible. We drove a a circle and then a circle in the center–got all 8 quickly.
Then we came to a 10 minute hold --and we had only gone 3 k.
Then we had the Spell Check obstacle. It was the outside dressage letters (all 12). We drew a slip out of a cup with a 5 letter word on it. We had to drive to those letters where a circle was drawn around the letter and cut it with our wheels. Wehad to spell PEAKS. Easy!!
Then through the beautiful country side of cypress heads, lakes, pines, pastures, huge oaks with spanish moss all around. By now Zanzer has settled and had on his working distance trot. He settled and was just swining along.
We came to a fenced lane with a dozen baloons that we had to tap with the lashes of our whips. With the wind bobbling the balloons about it was a challenge.
Then we had more time to swing down the trail through the beautiful 2000 acres. Literally through the river (dry) and through the woods we went, the horse knew the way to carry our arses:D and we arrive at the 10 gate cones course.
Very easy and smooth we went. It did help of course that we had volunteered in the morning and they had put us on the cones course!!!:winkgrin: But it made no difference, everyone went Double clean all day.
Then a short jog up the hill and we were done. I never did hear the optimal time, but that is okay!! It was so much fun and I got to see my gator ( a good friend I rarely get to see) .
We wound up taking 2nd in our long distance horse division, not bad out of 8 horses. And we took home best decorated carriage, which can be seen at the following.
The actual rules can be found at http://www.cypresskeep.com/LER.htm
