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.

Announcements!

These may not be exciting to anyone other than me but I am pretty thrilled and want to share.

 

First of all, I believe I mentioned that my friend H had moved to my previous barn, with J as a coach, last summer. I was so excited to have her there but then as things started to go downhill I felt guilty. When I left I didn’t want to put any pressure on her to leave as well since she was in a very different place with J based on her own riding but mostly on her pony since J didn’t think he was “completely worthless”. I talked to her, of course, and explained why I was leaving and she witnessed some of J’s behavior to me but I didn’t want to feel like I was dragging her away with me so I mostly kept my feelings to myself.

 

                    H's Adorable Pony

Fast forward to last week when I met up with H for lunch. We started talking about lessons and how things were going and I could tell she wasn’t happy. She was mostly positive and trying to explain how things were going in the best possible light but she was upset so I talked her through it and eventually, on the drive to a tack shop for some retail therapy, she vented her way to realizing that it was time for her to move. I was still trying not to influence her much but I could tell that she was starting to see a lot of the same things I did when I left so I was glad when she stated that she was going to start looking.

 

I gave her some of the contacts that I knew about and she looked into them but also looked into a few options with contacts that she got from her friends. She was going to set up a lesson with the trainer I’m going to start working with (Y) but there were reasons for her to look elsewhere.

 

H lives about 1-1.5 hours away from where I live and the barn we both boarded at was sort of in the middle. About 25 minutes away from me and about 45 minutes away from her but she had to contend with more traffic. Now I’ll be driving about 45 minutes to the new barn but it would have still been about 35-40 minutes away from where she lives so when she realized that a top dressage trainer had a barn and training program only 20 minutes from her house she jumped on it. Most exciting to both of us, since we both are passionate about ponies in dressage, this trainer is one of the people on the Pony Task Force!! She’s went to see a lesson and has officially got a spot at this trainer’s (who I will call P for Pony) barn. I am wishing her all the best and can’t wait to go see her take a lesson. It’s wonderful to know that she has found such a great situation and I’m extremely happy for her.

 

I do have to admit that I am very slightly jealous. This is such an incredible opportunity for someone that loves ponies and wants to only every ride shorter equines. However, while every review is glowingly positive for P, I actually think that even if it weren’t for the 1.5-2 hour drive to study with P I would chose Y just based on teaching style, personality, and boarding options. I can hardly believe that I get to move a week from Sunday and it feels like Christmas J

 

The other exciting news I have is probably even less exciting to the general public but I am so happy and relieved that I can’t even describe it! As anyone who owns horses knows saddle shopping is like hell. Even if you have an unlimited budget it can be horrific trying to find a saddle that fits both the rider and horse for more than a month and if you add any type of budget to the mix it gets ten times more difficult. Now add oddly shaped equine to the mix and it really seems impossible. I’ve been wanting to consider custom saddles for awhile but my budget is just not $4000-$5000 dollars and that would only buy me a mid to lower end custom saddle brand (at least from the brands I was aware of). However, after much searching I finally found a custom saddle company that will make a completely custom saddle in my budget and that has almost only positive reviews.

 

          I think I'll pair it with this bridle

I believe I’ve narrowed down which of their models I’m most interested in and reached out by email earlier this week to get some more feedback on what my budget will need to be for what I want. I’ve made it my goal to order by the end of May/June and will make that work even if I need to get a part time job for awhile to pay for it. I’ve also listed some of my collectables for sale to help me get to my goal. I am so freaking excited that I finally found the answer to my saddle fitting woes! I promise I will share more information and pictures once I’m sure I’m heading down the right path and then Swanky Saddle here I come!

In Love with Lessons

My decision to move to this barn has been so well confirmed this week. I adore my instructor (coach would be a better word) and my pony has been quickly returning to her normal self. After my rides last weekend I wasn’t able to make it out to the barn on either Monday or Tuesday because of my social life.

I swear, I never used to have any kind of social life at all and now it feels like it’s been getting out of control. This weekend I left completely open so that I could relax and take care of normal things like dishes and laundry and focus on Katai.

At any rate, on Wednesday morning I planned on going out to the barn to ride and work with Katai but I got an email from J that she would be unavailable for my lesson on Thursday because of a show, Eventing, that she would be coaching her students at. So instead I had my lesson last night at 8:00pm. I was thinking that Katai might misbehave because of the late hour and change in her schedule but she was actually really excellent and best of all I had my first lesson riding her!

That lesson confirmed for me that J is exactly the coach that I hoped she would be. She approved of what I’ve done so far but I found several things that I would have done wrong if I had continued on my own which is exactly why I moved her when I did. Even better, while she sees and is honest about Katai’s limitations she has never questioned me for riding a nontraditional pony and being interested in dressage. She has praised Katai for her brain and said several times how cute she plus she recognizes that I’ve ridden in the past and I’m not completely incompetent but really NEED good instruction since I just haven’t had it. She is also an incredible horseman at everything from groundwork, to tack fit, and of course riding and while she is currently helping a student who rides at PSG and is schooling GP she is really good at teaching me the basics.

Last night we started out by trying some saddles. I had brought both the saddles from the previous post and it turns out that neither one actually fit. Then we also tried a dressage saddle that was at the barn as well as another close contact saddle which is what I ended up riding her in but even that one didn’t really fit. Katai was decently good standing in the arena while we messed around with her and she is figuring out how to stand still even if it still isn’t really her strong suit. I think the plan had been to do more lunging with her but with J’s close contact saddle on she asked about what I wanted and I said to ride. J was concerned about the girth, and I think about Katai since she’s only ever seen her as a little fireball on the ground and never with someone on her back. She did allow me to climb up though and after some initial corrections to the way I mount, I’ve always been pretty haphazard about it really and have gotten even sloppier recently, she gave me a pony ride around a 20 meter circle for quite awhile.

She helped Katai understand some of the concepts, like stretching into contact, that we are working on and it was wonderful to have help on the ground because it is something I’ve never had. After a few laps in each direction, and a reminder that I could hop down if needed, she finally let me go and stood back. Katai was her normal workmanlike self even if she was very forward. She listened and we had some great moments and I think that J was able to relax a little seeing that I wasn’t going to be instantly killed. Katai really has been pulling some interesting behaviors on both myself and J and has been quite the handful over the past few weeks so I can completely understand what J would have to worry about. Luckily I’ve gone slowly enough and strictly enough with her under saddle training that she really is a little doll about being ridden even if she isn’t always on the ground which is something I’ve mentioned before.

Tonight Katai just had grooming/cuddle time. I did try yet another saddle on her but again it didn't fit. I am starting to figure out where I've been going wrong though and hope to get this figured out soon. I've pretty much had every saddle from the tack shop out on trial at this point and the clerks are starting to laugh at me when I come in :/ Oh well, it will all be worth it when I finally have a saddle that fits!!

Muddy pony is muddy and very happy to have some hand grazing time with me. Next item of business is to get her used to the wash stall ;-)