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!!

Retail Rewards

Awhile ago I put together a plan for a show outfit for me and Katai that looked something like this.

Of course I no longer have brown tack but I have almost everything else in this picture, albeit slightly different brands or styles, except a grey pad. Grey saddle pads are SO tough to find especially in dressage style and pony size. When I first looked I decided to get a Mattes euro pad since I have one and I love the size, styling, and quality and it looks really nice on Katai. However, since Mattes pads are pretty pricy I wanted to get one as a reward for  good show, or sort of feel like we'd earned it.

This past show felt that way to me so I went ahead and ordered a show pad. Except, they had free shipping if you spent over a certain amount and since two pads would get me over that amount I decided to go for it. Now I'll have three Mattes pads including my navy with the pink fleece, the
grey show pad, and another one that will be a surprise :)

Not sure if I've ever shared a clear picture of this pad
but I love it so much and it's held up so well

I also got some much needed summer stuff from Riding Warehouse. I picked out a fly sheet, fly boots, salt block, and I've really wanted to try Equifuse after reading a few good reviews so I decided to try that as well. They also have such cheap shirts that I got a couple of those since you can never have too many summer riding shirts.

I do have to say that this is only my second experience with Riding Warehouse and my first wasn't wonderful. It wasn't their fault, just a combination of a faulty pair of breeches and a show shirt I really disliked. Luckily they do have an amazing return policy so I was able to send both things back. I was anxious to try them out again since I've heard so many great things and my impression was much better this time around. My order shipped right away, arrived quickly, and everything was exactly what I expected. I look forward to future orders with them!

Special

I adore my local tack shop. They’re great and the owners are amazing and board at my last barn. They’re very active in the local horse community and put on the large schooling show that I participated in. I shop there and support them whenever I can, however, I don’t always love the clothes that they have. They, like any business, need to reflect the local community and in that community my tastes are underrepresented.

There is another small, boutique, tack shop on the other side of the city that has more of the brands that I like such as Asmar , B Vertigo, Equiline etc. but the owners of that place aren’t amazing and charge a higher markup on their stuff so I don’t like to shop there as much. Recently though my tack shop got in a bunch of stuff from HKM.

I loved the breeches and saddle pads that they got but wasn’t shopping for anything at that point so I passed on getting anything. However, I started to wonder if they would let me do a special order through them and thus save on shipping. One of the people that I did the hunter pace with actually works there and so I finally brought it up and found out that I could!

HKM is one of those places, like Horze, that has pony sized saddle pads and I’ve always loved their breeches. As I’ve mentioned I’ve sort of moved my saddle pad shopping “addiction” to breeches but I couldn’t say no to ordering and adorable European dressage pad. The best thing is that now that I have a European pony saddle I’m not worried about whether the pad will fit.

So we "scheduled" some time for me
to stop by and for us to shop together

So, I went in and spent too much time trying to make up my mind on what to order. I was originally going to order a couple of saddle pads but when I started looking at the breeches I couldn’t say no so I ended up with one pair of breeches and one saddle pad. Unfortunately I didn’t know the total going in since the tack shop needed to determine what the markup was going to be so it ended up being more than I would have probably spent.

Gotta love having a friend at the tackshop ;)

I’m going to sort of call these my Christmas present to myself which works since buying some European stuff is kind of what I was planning to do for my Christmas present. More pictures and a review to follow!

Getting Ready For the Shit Show

First I just want to explain that I'm not actually as negative about this as I've been coming off in my blog. I'm seriously thrilled just to have the opportunity to trailer Katai off property much less the fact that we are finally SHOWING!!! I'm so freaking excited about that that I can't even tell you.

The reason that I'm talking about the show like this is that honestly that's what I'm expecting. I'm putting on my horse training hat (for the first time in awhile it feels like) and going into this with the idea that there are going to be lots of great teachable moments and while that's a win, it won't be the show as much the environment around the show. I KNOW that Katai will be a handful, I also know that I can handle everything she throws at me.

I'm also thinking and talking about it this way so that I don't have any unrealistic expectations. I'm hoping that she's going to surprise me and be sort of laid back, but I don't think she will be. If she is It will be a happy surprise and I'll change my expectations.

I'm also not going at this with any sort of negativity or hopelessness. I've been doing a lot of visualization of things going really well, Katai being really calm and listening, and getting successfully through each test just as though we were at home. I'm firmly confident that we'll get completely through at least our second test and I have no concerns about falling off, getting hurt, or not being able to get her on the trailer for example. Only that, like I mentioned, there will be lots of good teachable moments.

Moving on, I've had a lot to do since I've never really shown before. I didn't have any type of shirt to wear or a saddle pad or anything. I'd picked up a few things ahead of time like this extremely "cool" sleazy hood (pony is primarily white after all)

and this saddle pad from Horze

plus a white polo shirt type show shirt but pretty much everything else will just be what I already had. For schooling shows at least my field boots, Katai's saddle, and bridle will all be perfectly fine. My helmet is the fanciest thing I have but unfortunately if it's warm out I may end up needing to wear my old helmet so I don't get a headache.

I didn't love the idea of wearing white breaches and a white shirt so I got a black, short sleeved show shirt from Kerrits.

Then ended up not being able to find a pair of white breeches that fit and that weren't ugly and weren't incredibly expensive and of course I don't need them so I'll be wearing some of my regular grey breeches and either the white or black show shirt. I'll be excited to do some more shopping for show clothes this winter as I'm planning for a, hopefully, slightly more competitive 2017 show season.

Fan Girl

So, I have to admit that I love watching horse vlogs on YouTube.

 

The same way that my generation is into blogging seems to be how teenagers are currently into vloging and for some reason I find them fun to watch. Something about watching someone else explain what’s in their grooming bag, or what their favorite polo wraps are is both enjoyable and educational and it is how I find a lot of my favorite tack.

 

Unfortunately most of the vlogs I watch are from people that live in either Europe or Australia so the tack they have available isn’t always available over here and since I love the look of European tack I normally fall in love with something only to realize that I could never afford shipping. Every once in awhile, however, I find something available in the states that I love and so when I found a Schockemohle halter at a tack store last weekend I had to get it for her.

 

Look at how cute she is!!

 

My two weaknesses are halters and saddle pads and although I’ve already got a couple of halters I didn’t have a breakaway halter so this will work perfectly to fill that spot. In these pictures I haven't put the leather crownpiece on yet.

 

Now I just need to find a way to get my hands on some of these…

More updates about my lesson today will be coming up soon!