I was talking to my friend, who is not horsey, about my saddle.
You know someone is a real friend when you can bore them with the details of your saddle and they will actually feign interest! Her hilarious blog is over here, by the way...
I was saying that my new saddle, which is a 15 instead of a 15.5 like my old one, fits now, but I'm currently in my skinny/fit stage. I gain one pound and its all over. The first place every excess ounce heads is my... hindquarters.
She was fascinated that saddles were sized to butts this way, and I proceeded to ramble on about how you can try to size your saddle based on height and weight, that there are charts you can use. I prefer the jeans size method since I figure that's a more accurate measure of my ...hind quarters. 'Cept for wranglers. I can't fit in any size wrangler, since have no waist.
But the problem with my hindquarters is that they are somewhat unstable, if you know what I mean. So I need the yoga pant equivalent in saddles -- elastic cantle and Cheyenne roll, some thing that can stretch to accommodate the occasional chips and salsa binge.
Maybe a woman really needs to have a fat saddle for that one week a month. Or that two month period where all food triples in calorie size. (mmm. egg nog...)
The new saddle (which currently fits my on the lite side butt and is perfect on Smokey's back) is a challenge in another way. I'm sitting in a completely different way. Many endurance saddles have this kind of seat, sort of flat on the horse. I always had barrel saddles which put you nice and deep. I'm getting the hang of it at the walk and trot.
The canter, notsomuch.
My big horn barrel saddle that I will never get rid of. Fits Lily fine and most QHs... I don't use this saddle pad with it. Must have been the only one handy...
My Tennessean that fit Cibolo perfectly and may have fit Smokey. Sold during Rashid Clinic. Cuz I'm smart that way.
So how about it, endurance riders? What's up with the flat seat anyway? Why is it better on long rides? There must be a reason - endurance riders are the least worried about show and all about go...
Work has been a little intense, but that gave me time to wait for this to arrive.
This is the best deal I've ever gotten on a saddle and I have to say I really just spoke out loud - I need a gaited saddle, name brand, for about $500.
Meet my Circle Y, gaited trail gaiter, used 6 times. $560 (that $60 was for shipping). Found it on Horseclicks, which was a new classifieds for me.
Thank you, Universe!!
First day try out (for all of 15 minutes, had to get home): Very cushy seat, fit the horse, fit the butt. :) I will see how the flex tree works out. We have another flex tree saddle, also a circle y, park and trail model for Lily that has worked very well.
Everything was going pretty smooth. Smokey and I have had increasing success turning at the canter. Then I saw it.
A dry spot. Walk around to the other side. Oh goodie. A matching one.
My little colt is growing up. And all this crazy cantering is bulking up those shoulders, apparently.
Here's the horse I bought.
Here's the horse I have now. Not only did he change colors, he's shaped different!
Thanks A LOT, Trail Rider. I *had* a perfectly standard QH bar sized horse. But no, you had to get me cantering and NOW look at him. Lord only knows what kind of tree he needs now. (I swear, if he needs a gaited tree I'm going to kick myself. Hard)
Speaking of which, Smokey turns six this month. I decided to give him a nice bath and shampoo him up, inspired by the rather intense day over at Brown Eyed Cowgirl (between her and Mickey, I'm worn out just reading). Look at him. Isn't he shiny?
Isn't the hay in the mane thing adorable?
But honestly. I don't know why I even bother.
Smokey: You know, I think I'm still clean on the right side...
Me: Oh geez. I can't look. I knew I should have tied him up.
Cibolo's new saddle (remember?) is just fabulous. Here are a few photos from his modeling session.
Here he is at the trot. You'll notice he has his pink Cavallo boots on. I was going to dye them black, but then I fount out they are actually pink for breast cancer awareness, like the pink ribbon thing. A portion of the proceeds went to breast cancer research. Given that, Cibolo and I agreed they should stay pink.
It's funny, my friend TR was deeply concerned that the saddle wasn't going to fit. No way a gaited tree should fit a registered QH. So he let me borrow some naked trees he got from Dixieland Gaited Saddles.
The fitforms from Dixieland Gaited Saddle - this is their photo, not mine.
When you buy a saddle from them, you can get naked trees to actually try on your horse - you can learn about it here. He was convinced when I tried the fitforms on my horse I'd find that the QH trees would fit better.
I was glad to try them, because I really wanted to see how Lily would do. I was already convinced about gaited tree on Cibolo - after all, I had a trainer, saddle fitter, and a rancher with 40 years of horsemanship under his belt all check it out. I certainly wasn't making my decision based on my 60 minutes of saddle fitting training. But I figure if I was right, this would just confirm it.
The forms are coded just with letters. TR wouldn't tell me which was which, so I wouldn't be predisposed. He had done the same with his horses.
The results - Lily is a standard QH, and doesn't even need a wide QH tree. Cibolo, while one of the QH trees fit a little, you could really see the bridging when he lifted his head. The gaited tree was much better, but not as good as the saddle from National Bridle. They don't use the same exact tree as Dixieland (which uses Steele trees). They have their own exclusive tree. You can learn more about National Bridle here - I'm one happy customer. Cibolo is in their Tennessean tree.
Check it out: the saddle doesn't shift on him at all.
Even at the canter.
That's Lily the background, fretting over her Cavallo boots which she HATES. She'll walk over anything with her feet, and hasn't shown any tender footedness, but if we go to Bandera (as I'm dying to do with Mandy), boots are really needed. I wonder if they might be too small - it's pretty tough to get them on. But once they're on, they look okay. You can see her trying to kick them off here:
Hopefully she'll come around.
Anyway, back to the saddle, you'll see the nice endurance stirrups. Someday I'll ride long enough to give those a work out.
Look mom! No hooves!
Look at his face. He is so much more comfortable.
I think it actually looks better with my red pad, so Cibolo will model that in our next shoot.
How does it ride?
OMG why in the world did I wait this long for a good saddle? Granted, I didn't even know the old ones didn't fit my horse, but now when I think of how it slide around on his back - ack, what a mess. How could I miss it?
This saddle has great cushioning for me too, is light to throw on (although those endurance stirrups are dangerous when you toss them up. I need to learn how to handle those things or I'm going to give my horse a bruise in his side), and makes me feel like I'm a better rider. It's easier to keep my seat.
My only problem is the fenders - they aren't broken in and the stirrups are always out of position. I find myself having to adjust my feet and re-twist them - I imagine on a long ride this will be tough on my knees.I'm storing it with my muck boots set up so they twist them (actually it was a darn clever set up, I should have took a photo. lol), but I need to definitely find a way to speed the process of "turning".
First, more on saddle fitting. Someone asked me why a gaited saddle seemed the right kind. Actually, it wasn’t the one recommended at first. At first I was trying a Meleta Brown that Kathleen said seemed to work better for this new, stockier generation of quarter horses. It was the only one of all the mass produced saddles she recommended because of the tree. Every other “production” saddle was built on the same tree, so no matter if I was looking at a Circle Y or a Tucker, I’d likely run into the same problem. The Meleta Brown is on a different tree though, one that is convex, with a flair to the shoulder.
Lou had one and we tried it. It fit much better, but I still thought it fit tighter in the shoulder the the pressure wasn't even. Improved significantly, but still not quite correct. But probably the best I'd get in a production saddle.
I learned that there shouldn’t be any uneven pressure from the bars of the saddle and merely a wide gullet won’t do. According to Kathleen, the traditional quarterhorse tree is like a plank – basically a straight line from shoulder to hip – or pretty close. It was made for quarterhorses of 100 years ago. Only problem - quarterhorses have changed a good deal as we've bred for a very different horse.So while you *can* make room for the shoulder by getting a wide gullet, that doesn’t take into consideration what happens along the back. In fact, it makes the tree really only fit in two places – the shoulder and the back. Or if it doesn't fit on the shoulder, it's likely to slide backwards, and really compromise your horse's back since he'll be carrying you in the area not over the rib cage.
A gaited tree, on the other hand, has a significant flare at the shoulder, and some at the hip too. Cibolo has big shoulders and a big butt. I suspect that this is why this tree is so much better.
I had still been considering the Meleta Brown when Peg, after the trainer left, showed me a saddle she got on ebay. “You don’t have to buy an expensive one,” she said. She encouraged me to try it.
I was pretty new at this saddle fitting, but I had to say, it fit perfectly to me. Later I asked Lou’s sister Catherine and Kathleen and they were surprised. It was like it was made for him. In fact, you could get in the saddle without tightening the cinch. And when we rode around for a minute, the saddle didn’t move at all. It was remarkable.
Here’s the website I’m shopping, the model she had is the Tennessean (initially we thought it was a crates, but National Bridle went out on their own some years ago). They have their own, exclusive tree. Thanks to Peg I have an option that’s not going to run me 2k. I’m hoping to buy one some time soon.
Our next horse: Diego, AKA, I got your number
It was when Kathleen worked Peg’s horse Diego in the round pen that I got the first training answer I’d been looking for – what is appropriate and effective intensity with horses. I did not want to have to become a witch, but my brand of firmness wasn’t working. I was missing something.
Diego was a beautiful gaited spotted saddle horse. He had tossed Peg during a buck and she’d broken her ankle. He could be pushy on the ground and was pushing her around a bit in the round pen by doing scary things – like rushing her.
Kathleen took over the round penning.
One of the things I watched was how Kathleen upped the pressure without upping the emotion. He turned with his butt to her, for example, and she brought that rope into a whirling snapping form. He nearly jumped out of his skin in response. You could tell no one had gotten after him.
And yet there wasn’t any meanness or even aggressiveness in her approach. She was firm, but firm like a tree is when you push against it. She didn’t cut Diego slack when it was clear he had no clue what she wanted. She let him figure it out, and her intensity and consistency made him very motivated to try all kinds of things. The second he did the right thing – change directions by turning in to her instead of with his tail to her – she backed way, way off.
It took a while, but she didn’t baby him, didn’t make excuses for him, didn’t try to guide him much more than the clear signals she was giving. He had to figure it out through trial and error.
“We aren’t doing these horses any favors by trying to avoid freaking them out,” she said.
She kept asking for the same thing, in basically the same way. The pressure would only stop when he figured it out. Because horses will keep trying to figure things out.
Now she knew he was a pushy horse and could handle some pushing. With Skoal, she’d never gotten this intense – but he’d been already working hard at a tenth of the pressure.
Which is why there isn’t one way to work a horse.
Now sometimes a horse will get stuck. They will keep offering the same thing while they are in “Tahiti” mentally (they imagine themselves elsewhere and just have their body go through the motions. Ever work with one of those people? LOL).
In those cases she’d do something alarming to the horse, like tossing a rope out toward it’s hind quarters, slapping her rope to her side, something to jar it. But never getting aggressive.
Standing firm.
Eventually Diego turned into a model citizen in the round pen. But it was lots and lots of wrong turns, Tahiti moments, and a few jarring moments. He softened, listened, and followed Peg’s directions when she took back over.
So what I was missing was persistence, without emotion. Staying flat - or, as I came to see it, centered within myself - was what was the missing element.
Today I used a few lessons from that in the round pen – and even more when I was loading Cibolo when we went to the vet.
In April I'll be going to a clinic, my first multi-day clinic. I'm hoping to get some long rides in, read some books by the clinician, and outline what it is I hope to get from this experience. All in two and a half months.
But first, I have to solve a sort of embarrassing situation. Which saddle to use.
I have four saddles. Tomorrow I'm going to get them all set up on Cibolo and take some pictures to post.
There's the Circle Y Flex Tree Trail Saddle that is my husband's saddle and too big for me (17.5). But it's a lovely, well made saddle.
There's the Aussie saddle that I am selling because I can't feel my horse when I ride.
There's the pretty barrel saddle, Circle Y, but I bought it for my daughter and it's 14.5 - just a smidge too small.
Then there's my not much to look at but comfy to ride in 15" Fabtron synthetic saddle that I ride in most of the time.
I feel shallow saying this, but I don't really want to ride in my ... ugly saddle.
Silly, right? Someone talk me off the ledge here... I can't afford another saddle (at least not until I get rid of the Aussie). And it takes me forever to find a saddle.
Today was our second day of posting practice. Cibolo is being a very patient instructor, now staying in a slow jog trot which I'm finding easier to match rhythmically. I'm not by any means on beat every time, but it's so much better. Plus I find he stays in the trot when I'm in rhythm which I find to be very reinforcing. I swear i feel like he's saying "there you go, you got it."
He also didn't nose out today, and I was able to avoid trying to adjust his head as I was trying to stay in rhythm, keep track of my leg pressure, sit straight, blah, blah, blah. Yesh. Was I even riding before?
Keeping his head in is tough for me because I really want to not be heavy handed, especially knowing this bit is more leverage than I'm used to. But I stayed on the lower ring all day today because he was so inconsistent on Monday's ride. I decided I'd work hard to keep my hands neutral.
We worked on floating around curves, doing the bullseye exercise and some in saddle bends. I'm gaining confidence. All I want to do is spend time out there, neglect my work, let the dishes sit, never buy groceries. Just family and horses.
Suggestions?
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These days I'm in the market for a saddle because the aussie i have is just not feeling right... I tried a Tucker that's for sale at the barn (isn't it gorgeous?), but it's too large and so new that it squeaks like a cheap box spring. Why is it that every listing I see for a Tucker says "Ridden only 3 times" or "Only on a horse a handful of times"? How can people pay that much for a saddle then not ride in it?
I am in love with a Martha Josey Circle Y that's on ebay. I don't barrel race but I like the deep seat. Still I'm trying to widen my horizons beyond circle Y and big horn.
What's your favorite brand?
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I'm getting a little paranoid. We have a nice little trail ride planned for the 26th and my trail companion's steady eddy horse spooked and she's banged up (although she's still determined to go). When I tried to get together with some blogging riders, there was a fire and then a horse injury that required girth area stitches!
Seriously. Is it me?
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Here's my horse responding to my request for him to pose for a picture (the first picture on this post was about 2 seconds before this one). Nice ear, right? lol He has no understanding of focal length.
My big horn barrel saddle that I will never get rid of. 
My Tennessean that fit Cibolo perfectly 
