Yay! No dry spots!!

I have been on a saddle quest – trying to find something that fits both Buddy and I and that doesn’t weigh half a ton!!  After the show a week ago, I went back to my saddle fit book – I haven’t opened it since I stopped trying to find something to fit Louie, so I dug it out and was reading.

I had an “AHA” moment (or maybe it was a “Duh you dumbass” moment) when I realized that while I’d been going wider and wider, I was making the problem worse!!  First of all, the saddle we bought from my father in law has Quarter Horse bars which means a 6 3/4” gullet – I thought that it had Semi bars and ruled it out as a fit for Buddy…..my Textan had Quarter Horse Bars and I loved that saddle but I didn’t feel secure in the seat and it was leaving dry spots right behind his shoulder blades – so I thought that this meant I needed a FULL QH bar saddle with a 7” gullet.  I bought the roping saddle which weighs a TON and while I thought it fit him well, after the show on the 2nd I noticed that he STILL had dry spots…..what does this mean??  

I came across an ad in the Uncle Henrys, someone wanted to trade a practically brand new Wintec All ‘rounder western saddle and a full set of Weaver nylon tack with a matching Mayatex saddle blanket for an english saddle.  I happened to have an english saddle with pad, 2 girths 2 bridles and a breast plate in my tack room that I don’t intend to use so I emailed.  Pictures went back and forth and she was up for a trade so we made all the arrangements to meet.  I was a little skeptical that this would be my solution afterall, if a 7” gullet is still causing pressure points then going to a 6 1/2” gullet isn’t going to help….right?

WRONG!!  According to my book, those dry spots typically mean that the saddle is TOO WIDE.  DOH!  So we met and exchanged saddles – I came home and tried it on him and it sat nice and level on his back, I hopped on and we took a couple laps in the driveway it’s comfortable for me, the test was going to be a longer ride but I was short on time and the kids were here so it wasn’t going to happen on Saturday morning.

I finally got the opportunity tonight to go on a real ride.  I tacked him up and we headed out – he was being a jerk.  Obviously he thought if he misbehaved too badly I’d give in and get down….WRONG.  We got over to the river and with a little coaxing I got him down TO the water – toes almost in the water but he wasn’t gonna go that far.  I was happy to continue on our ride once I got him to stand RIGHT at waters edge and NOT fidget.  Once he stood still for a couple minutes we continued on down the road.  This area is a little high anxiety for me – it’s LOUD, there’s a dam and a pump house that make a LOT of racket – there are always people fishing and on the other side of the dam is a beach.  All of this would be fine IF the little stretch of road by there had a good shoulder on it – but it doesn’t – it’s almost like a goat trail carved out of a mountain, to one side there is a STEEP bank down hill and on the other side it’s a steep up hill bank.  There’s basically NO gravel shoulder and the road is narrow.  I always stress a little right here, especially after the incident with Louie a couple months ago.  

Anywho – Buddy was doing his best to play a stubborn mule and a couple times he even tried to back up as fast as he could – like THAT would scare me…..ok it did a little but I whacked him and told him to cut it out.   We were fine until we got to the beach area.  Not only did we have scary water – but there were shrieking children in the water!!  He was fine, a little more alert than normal but nothing major, until one of the parents moved by their car!!  Holy cow – all 4 feet went in different directions, I thought for sure he was going to sit down!!  It was the funniest thing!  I laughed it off and told him to stop being so silly and off we went.

We headed down the fire road that we avoided last time because of the tractor.  There were boaters in the water some-what near the road and he was a little spooked by that but other than stopping a couple times to check them out he did fantastic!  We got near the end where there are a couple horses and he started his foolish whinnying.  One of the horses answered a time or two but then shut up and that was the end of it.  It was right around this time that I noticed that I couldn’t hear Lucy screaming anymore either…..and all of a sudden Buddy was perfectly happy to go on about our business and no more funny business!!  We took the trail across to the lodge road and when we got out the other end, it was starting to get dark – where oh where did summer go?? – We headed towards home but we met something we’ve never met before….cars – WITH headlights on….I had this feeling that I was going to go flying, but instead of panicking I just patted him, stopped him by the side of the road and decided to greet the cars head on.  He was perfectly fine!!  PHEW!!!  As I’ve mentioned before, he’s ok with cars when they come up behind him, but a bit spooky when he sees them coming towards him so I expected that he’d have a head fit when these cars were coming at him WITH lights on and on a gravel road!!  I’m so proud of my boy!!

After the cars passed, we trotted for a little ways – my stirrups were a little too long though and his trot is still a little hard to sit to right now, the stirrups were too long for me to post so I had to settle for standing in the stirrups.  I need to work on slowing his trot down but for right now, I’m just happy to have a nice steady trot from him for more than a few strides!  The rest of our ride was pretty uneventful and I was anxious to get home and see how the sweat marks looked on his back.  

He was starting to get pushy when we came out of the field so I made him go the “long way” home – we went up my brothers old driveway along dads fence, thru his yard and then down his driveway to the road.  Why you ask?  Well I wasn’t ready for our ride to be over but really I just can’t stand a pushy horse going towards home and he’ll have to learn that we’ll get home when we get there.  If that means we do laps until he stops pulling on my arms then so be it!

When I got home I pulled the saddle and pad off and set them in my truck so I could adjust the stirrups and was THRILLED to see very even sweat marks and NO dry spots behind the shoulders!!  YAY!!

I can’t wait to do it again….tomorrow morning maybe?  All told this little loop takes me about an hour.  There a couple of branches off the main route that I can take so we can mix it up a little, I’m thinking that this little ride will be one that I try to get in a couple times a week to get some more miles on him.  He’s doing great and I think that the best training for him is on the trail!!  Tomorrow I may try loping one particularly nice stretch of trail!!  Hopefully I can get some pictures of the trail too – I feel bad just blah blah blah-ing along like I have in the last couple posts!!