It's BACK!

I missed Wordless Wednesday but this is nearly a wordless post. My week has been nuts preparing to head to Seattle next week for, hopefully, my last trip away for a LONG time so I haven't blogged much. However, I did need to share this.

It's soooo beautiful

and looks sooooo much narrower haha

They Came! and Other Updates

I mentioned awhile back that I'd ordered a couple of Mattes pads, one for schooling and one for show, and that they hadn't shown up quite in time for my last show of the year. Then they were scheduled to arrive while I was in NY so I had to have them re-delivered when I got back. They showed up last week but I've been so distracted by farrier related things that I haven't shared yet.

I like them so much!! The dark grey one with the logo is for schooling/clinics etc. The light grey one is for shows. It honestly is a bit flashier than I expected but I think in the show ring it will be ok. I also LOVE the color of both of them :)

I'm really happy with both of them. The only thing I'm not happy about is that they're both longer from spine to girth loop than my other Mattes euro fit pad. I'm hoping that after they got washed a few times they'll shrink a bit but otherwise they'll work, they're just longer than I'd prefer.

Along with my new farrier and current (possibly past) farrier I heard back from the saddle fitter this week! He/they feel that my saddle does need to be made more narrow by 1-2 cms and just needed a few more pictures to figure out how much narrower it needed to be. I took a few pictures for them (that make Katai look really awkward) and sent those over. 

You can sort of see how horribly long her heels are in this picture

Of course the timing will probably be just wrong so that I'll finally have her hooves trimmed and be able to ride and then I'll need to send her saddle away. Oh well, at least the show season is over at this point. 

Withers and muscle have replaced the fat :)

I also found out that unfortunately I likely won't be riding in a clinical with Susanne in November. They had to do some rescheduling based on a few people's availabilities and turned two clinics into one. Because of that all the rides already filled up with people that board at my old barn. She is going to be teaching in Rochester but that's a LONG drive from my barn especially since that's prime ice season.

Oh well, I'm going to talk to Jane about other options for trailering off the property for a ride. At any rate, whether or not I can this year next year will be all about trailering places for adventures!

Random food pictures of the vegan "power bowl"
that I made for myself for lunch today. It was delicious

That's already quite a few updates but a have another! Jane's been looking for another boarder or two. During the past year there have been a couple of minor changes at the barn that involved Jane taking on some retired horses. At this point it's still just me and K that take lessons with Jane and since K's horse is semi retired she isn't even taking as many lessons. One of the few things I miss at this barn is having other people to ride and talk horses with.

About a month ago Jane let me know that she was looking to fill some stalls and on the way home from the last show I offered to post online for her. She took me up on it and I got it posted. There was quite a bit of interest but one of the people that reached out was someone that I boarded at J's barn with. She's toured Janes (last week) and now is planning to come to my lesson this week. I've got my fingers crossed that she and her friend (who also boards at J's barn) will end up moving to Jane's. It would be so great to be able to ride with them!!

Another Saddle Update

Where the magic happens

It's been awhile since I posted and a very long time since I did a proper riding post. I don't have one for you yet but I do have another saddle update!

I finally got the Prestige Lucky back on trial with the adjustment made. It got to the barn on Monday or Tuesday but I didn't make it out to try it out until Wednesday.

When I set it on her back it still very slightly bridged (very slightly lighter pressure under the seat) but once I girthed it loosely it felt better. Katai also stands with a more hollow back so I knew that once I started riding it wouldn't bridge at all.

Her darn girth groove is just so far forward!

I took the pictures in this post and then put a saddle pad on and then tried it out. I had planned on just a lunging day so I lunged her first and then hopped on for a short ride. She felt good but a little sassy because the saddle put my leg back a little further on her barrel and it sat back a little further so she was being sassy about my leg pressure.

She seemed nice and loose and comfortable over her back but honestly the saddle rode so differently than my previous one that I was feeling very out of it and wasn't completely sure what I was feeling. Then she went to canter (leg position again) but I went with it since I wanted to see what she would think of the saddle at a canter. At the canter she felt less enthused but my leg was also significantly further back on her barrel at that point than it normally is so I'm wondering if it was the or the saddle.

Not bad

Unfortunately when I finished my short bit of canter I thought that the saddle had still slid forward a bit and when I climbed off, after a little more trot work, I confirmed that it had. It had slid forward at least an inch. I was honestly pretty frustrated. This saddle is shorter through the back and has a point billet, two things that were supposed to help and yet it still slid forward.

I could store snacks in there

After some thought about it on the way home I'm going to try girthing it a little different, take some more pictures for the saddle fitter at VTO tonight and hopefully either I'll figure something out with a little tweaking or maybe they'll have an idea or maybe it just won't fit and it will be back to the drawing board. Fingers crossed!

I'm going to hopefully take more photos of my ride tonight and will share those soon.

Take What You Need and Leave The Rest

I'll be writing a lesson recap post soon but first wanted to talk a little about my saddle fitting appointment today because, frankly, I need to vent.

Katai was scheduled for a massage at 10:00am and then the plan was for me to get to the barn around 3:00pm so that we could do a saddle fit appointment at 3:30. I got to the barn a little early, helped with turn in and then got Katai all groomed and ready to go.

We started out with Katai fully tacked up and the saddle fitter, who I'll call H, looked over my set up in detail, did tracings, and took some notes. I was pleased and she let me know that Katai LOVED her massage and was all relaxed and blinky and happy about the whole thing. That made me feel good and we were off to a good start.

Unfortunately that's where my happiness ended.

Let me preface this by saying that I'd prepared myself for every contingency. While I felt it was unlikely that my saddle was a horrible fit I was ready for everything from it just needing a flocking adjustment to needing to buy a new saddle or even being completely unable to ride in it because it fit so horribly. What I wasn't prepared for was to have my emotions played with.

This pretty much captures our whole experience.

So, when H started poking around at the channel of my saddle with a concerned face I was ready for the worst and then she said she thought my tree was broken. I can't even imagine what my face looked like. The saddle is 6 months old, Katai doesn't have any sore spots and seems comfortable in the saddle, I haven't noticed anything off, the box the saddle came in was in excellent condition when it arrived and there wasn't anything scraped or scratched on the saddle that would show there had been any sort of damage.

Common sense has always been my friend so I started asking her about thing things above. Basically she said that no, Katai's back hadn't been sore during the massage, she couldn't flex the saddle in any way that was unusual, when she asked if I'd been hearing or feeling anything weird I let her know that I hadn't. She remained unconvinced and spent at least 10-15 minutes trying to (I felt) prove that my saddle was broken. What she was feeling were these two small metal lines that were unevenly long. Not unevenly placed but one was longer than the other. If I had to hazard a guess I would say that there was one line of solder that was longer then the other on the individually made tree. She also said that some of the stitching looked uneven and I agree but this is a handmade saddle and it's very, very, very slight. She finally decided that it was time to proceed so we tacked Katai up and she really examined everything both with me out of the saddle and with me in the saddle.

At this point I was already a little frustrated but was still hoping that H would have some advice. The problem was that I think I'd already lost a little trust in her because the idea that my tree was broken was so far out of left field that I had a tough time even beginning to entertain that idea.

Then, with me mounted up, she said that my saddle was beautiful but didn't fit my pony. Again, I felt a little crushed but was all ready for her to give me some ideas for what to look for in a saddle and some ideas for where to shop. Except when I started asking she hemmed and hawed over the saddle again for awhile and then started naming things that did fit. The shape of the tree, the shape of the panel, the length, the tree width, the flap, the billets, etc. all in the "fit" category and then she said that she didn't know what she would do differently. More hemming and hawing and then she felt around in the channel again, still sure that my saddle was broken in two and going to stab my pony's back, and said that she would change the width of the channel which was slightly too wide.

Saddle fit picture I was encouraged to take to show the maker. Not quite sure what this will show him other than that my saddle fits? Although after the flocking was added it does look a little high in front...

That was the first, and only, advice that she gave that I trust at all since she was actually able to show me what she was looking for. I do know that channels can be too wide and can see that this one could be too wide for Katai. This is what I was looking for, proactive advice before she gets sore and how to change it. Even better, she is able to fix it by doing some work on the panels of my current saddle.

Bad news, she want's me to contact the company about a warrantee to see about having them fix my "broken tree" and "uneven stitching". At this point I was about ready to gouge my own eyes out so I tried a different tactic and asked her what the cost would be for her to work on it. Common sense again since I knew that shipping it back (even if it weren't ridiculous) would be at least 200 even if there were a warrantee (which there's not) and the maker didn't think I was completely batshit crazy (which I'm not). She said that it would be around $150 so I let her know that if I decided to go that way I'd want her to do it rather than shipping my only saddle back and forth (and making it even more likely that my tree might actually be broken). She still pushed that I should contact the company and send pictures. I wanted to ask what I would be taking pictures of exactly but figured that would be too snarky.

but damn my pony is starting to look like a beefcake!

I kept thinking that I must be crazy, she's the expert right? She should know but every time I looked at the channel of my saddle and felt what she was feeling all I felt was a well constructed, not factory made saddle with a small quirk. She still couldn't tell me anything concrete that was making her think it was broken other than those uneven lines. I'll try to get a picture for the blog but honestly I don't think there is a picture to take since I don't think you can see them since they stick out about a millimeter from the underside of the channel (on the tree), slightly under each of the panels and you have to push on the leather lining pretty hard to feel them.

My phone a friend. Apparently I'm no the only one thinking it might be because it's hand-made

I was so frustrated that I couldn't get out of my own head on the drive home. I ALWAYS trust the expert. I want to trust the expert, that's why I work hard so that I'm able to involve them in my horse's care. At the end of the saddle fitting she kept saying that my saddle fit great (she did add a little flocking in the front and the back) and that it must not be broken or we'd be able to tell but by that point how was I supposed to trust her. She'd gone from the saddle is broken, to the saddle doesn't fit at all and you need a new one, to it just needs some flocking, to it fits great.

grrrrrrr

I'm going to talk to L and see if she has any advice. H wants to put a front gusset in it as well and I can't even begin to imagine that that will help it fit since I thought those were more for narrow horses with big withers. I can always stand to learn something though :-)