Pretty Things!!!

While I haven't been able to ride in way too long I do have some pretty new things that I'll be able to enjoy someday when the weather cooperates.

First, my PS of Sweden winter sale haul.

The pile, yes I went overboard...

Not a great picture but I got the grey broadband with the mirror like gems and I really like it!!

I got the really dark navy blue polos

and the pony sized dark navy saddle pad to match.
This is the same as the one I have from them in pink

and this brown one.  

I'm in love with everything and can't wait to get to use these pretty things!!!

My Eskadron bandage bag finally came in as well and I LOVE it. I was using a reusable bag and all of my bandages were tossed in it and often unrolled themselves. This has a bunch of pockets and clear little windows so I can tell if what I want is in there.

Also today my last two bandage liners came in from the Black Friday sale at RW. They had been awesome and called me to let met now how long it would take for them to come in and had said it may be as late as February so I'm pleased they arrived as quickly as they did. 

Now no more spending money for awhile :)

Fall Favorites

There may be a theme here...

Horze Saddle Pads:

Honestly I don’t know why I look at saddle pads from any other brand anymore! I ADORE European style dressage saddle pads and while Horze doesn’t have many that are quite as cute as some of the European pads, HKM pads for example, they do have more European styling plus most of them come in pony sizes. While Katai isn’t an itty bitty pony she is on the smaller range of what most adults ride and because of that even some of the suggestions for smaller pads just don’t work for her. I have 2-3 pads for her that are as small as I can find in "normal" dressage saddle pads and they are still just too big. One of them (around 20 spine x 22 drop which is REALLY small for most horse pads) even caused L to comment that it was no wonder she wasn’t listening to my leg since my pad was too big!

I have eight saddle pads from Horze, all in pony size, and they are wonderful! Even the ones on the larger end of the scale are close to 20 x 20 and the smaller ones just perfectly fit under my saddle. I can go pretty small for my saddle since it has a 17" seat and a 15" flap so I try to keep them as close to the size needed for my saddle as possible so that she doesn’t look like she’s wearing her mommy’s saddle pad.

My favorite is this one.

It is a little blingy but not too bad for a schooling pad and the brown works really well with Katai’s colors since then you’re only seeing two colors rather than three. It has this cool flag detailing along the spine and it fits perfectly under my saddle. Plus, I bought it when it was on sale for $22!! Pretty tough to beat that!

My second favorite is the one.

The color on this actually said Navy on the site and since Katai looks great in Navy I ordered it in that color. It actually turned out to be closer to black which I normally wouldn’t have ordered since I wasn’t sure if it would look ok on her. I actually don’t think it looks bad and it was a great experiment since I will likely end up showing her in a black pad rather than white based on her color.

Again this pad has some subtle detail but just on one side. It doesn’t have the fun little flag detailing but it is the PERFECT size for my saddle and I think I got this one for $21 on sale at Horze (plus another 20% off with a coupon I had as a frequent customer haha) which again is really tough to beat.

Sheepskin Pad:

Seeing the theme now?

I actually purchased this saddle pad on Amazon. I’m the queen of bargain hunting especially for things that I need but don’t want to pay full price for. Frankly spending over $200 on a mattes pad without even the option to shim it seemed silly so I went looking for a different option and found this pad. For $124 I got a nice, plush, sheepskin pad that has four shimable pockets plus it came with three sets of shims in different thicknesses! I also have Amazon prime so I got it with free shipping as well.

I didn’t know that I would need a shimable pad but since I was using the front shims for awhile I’m really, really pleased that I went ahead and bought this option rather than the cheaper $99 option in the same pad that didn’t have pockets. I really like this pad! It has nice plush sheepskin and the quality seems to be really good. The sheepskin isn’t as plush and soft as a Fleeceworks but it does seem to have more loft which is nice and it fits my saddle well. I think for a saddle that’s bigger than a 17" seat it may be a little short though since it fits my saddle perfectly!

Nifty Hair Remover Brush:

I had seen someone at the barn with one of these things and was amazed at how it magically seemed to remove hair from saddle pads, blankets, clothing etc. They had bought it from a tack store but once again I bargain hunted on Amazon and found this great, cheaper, no name version. It is truly amazing at removing hair and works better than anything else I’ve tried for this task.

Saddle Pad Collection

I've always loved saddle pads, they're just my thing. I really like how they're both pretty and functional and there are so many choices between the different colors, patterns, trims, designs etc. For me the trifecta is a dressage saddle pad that's small enough for my pony, that's easy to care for, and that's not too pricy.

My max budget for most saddle pads is $30 but I'm willing to spend up to $40 for just the right pad. To be easy to care for I need to be able to just toss them in the washer and dryer. Especially now that I'm riding five days per week and pony is working hard enough to get sweaty I go through 2-3 pads per week and just don't have the time to mess with doing anything special to clean them. Size is the trickiest thing for me because measurements are almost never listed and I'm looking for something smaller than what most people are looking for. This is both because my saddle is quite small and because she's quite small. My ideal is close to 20x20 but my favorite dressage pad is actually smaller than that.

Of all of the places that I've looked and shopped for dressage pads Horze is my favorite because most of their pads in pony size fit all three of those things especially when they are doing one of their sales! For that reason I bought four new dressage pads at their Black Friday sale for my birthday present to myself.

 

In the picture above the two navy blue, the pink, and the middle brown pad are the new ones. All of the pads except for the top brown one are from Horze. In this picture I'm only missing one, pink (Euos not Horze), pad that is currently in use. The grey is dirty and needs a wash and the others were just washed and are on their way back to the barn. It will be so nice to have 10 in rotation instead of 6!!

 

Veggie is indicating my two favorite pads just like Vanna White. He was unable to stretch to the black pad in the opposite corner which is my other favorite.

I'll try to remember to get a picture of Katai in her matching set of brown dressage boots and new brown dressage pad because she's going to be adorable :-)

Back on Track: Lesson Recap 11/29

I had an amazing lesson today.

Let me just take a minute to squee about my pony! She was so wonderful today, she was listening and thinking rather than just reacting. Somehow between my mood, my pony's mood, and L's instruction everything just worked perfectly tonight.

It's been a rough couple of weeks on the pony riding front. Katai has been crabby, speedy, and just not herself. I found a place on the lower right side of her neck where she was a little reactive so I'm hoping that that's all it was. That lump is getting smaller (maybe she was kicked?) but I'm having the saddle fitter/horse massage expert come out to check and likely reflock my saddle since it's settled a fair bit since I got it in July.

I'm not especially good about being motivated to write when things aren't going well. I tend to sort of withdraw into myself and have a tough time putting it down on paper or journaling it on this blog. It's something that I'd like to work on since those are the things that will probably be the most interesting to go back and read someday but it's tough to blog when that motivation isn't there. At any rate my New Years Resolution is going to be about blogging more regularly next year.

Anyway, back to the lesson today!

We started off warming up at the walk and L was working with me right away since she was running a little early. She gave us a few loops to warm up and then, pony was prancy, helped me get a more consistent walk before suggesting that I do some trot work before we had a blow up. Katai was hot to start out and really wanted to canter but she was also listening and not having a temper tantrum so instead of pushing her forward, like we've had to do for the last few rides, we were able to insist on the trot. It didn't take her too long to give in and behave at the trot and then we went back to walk.

Katai is pretty sure that the walk isn't a gait. In her opinion it's just a way to get to the faster more exciting stuff and we should just skip it, or come as close to skipping it as possible. She get's bored quickly and uses any excuse to go faster, ie. leg cues, and then tries to race off. She's very balanced, athletic, and convincing so it's been a tough gait to work on. Today though she was listening enough for us to do some trot/walk/trot transitions. L had me vary the number of strides of walk that we did every time so that she wouldn't start counting and after several to each side a had a pony that was finally in front of my leg. This has also been a struggle because pony is always moving so fast that she never really needs me to give her much of a cue to speed up so then she doesn't understand it when I do ask and gets all bent out of shape over any little squeeze of my legs. Tonight, once we did those transitions, she was AMAZING. I finally had the ability to work on half halts! Oddly enough everything just works better when your horse appropriately reacts to forward cues.

Who would have known!

I've gone back to reading the book Light and Easy Dressage which I reviewed previously. It makes such a difference for me and really helps me find and keep the right mindset. Pony is a mare, and mares need praise. She does not need me nitpicking everything she does, she's a perfectionist like me and is insecure about certain things and needs someone to encourage her and bring her up. I can praise her for even moving in the right direction and it gets better rather than worse since then she relaxes and has some confidence. This is something that I forget way too often but reading this book, a little every day, on a regular basis really helps me keep that mindset. Based on that I praised her through the entire lesson today and made sure that I made plenty of opportunities for her to do things right and get pats. I really believe that it's part of what made the huge difference in my ride today over my ride last week and is something that I plan to keep up!

Next week I'll finally get back to my five ride per week schedule although one of those days I may lunge and clip rather than ride. Katai has been getting too sweaty and although I took off a decent amount of hair she's grown a lot back and is just working hard enough at this point for me to remove a whole bunch more. I'm thinking that I'll pretty much do a blanket clip and this time I'll do better at documenting that in pictures!

Upcoming I also did a little black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping and bought myself a birthday gift from no other than my favorite store, Horze! I got four more saddle pads #saddlepadobsession (all in the $20 range and made specifically for dressage ponies) as well as a set of 4 cheap dressage boots in brown. I adore Katai's pink boots but I really need a second pair so that I can get these in the wash and still protect my little dressage star's legs. I plan on getting a set of navy from that same company but they are $90 per pair and that's just not in the budget right now so this set will work in the meantime and they'll match three of my saddle pads which will be nice! Supposedly the timing is actually supposed to be dead on and they're supposed to arrive right on my birthday so we'll see if that actually happens :-)

At any rate I'll try to be better at blogging this week and will certainly be better about pictures.