Rest Day

A shot from the glorious ribbon show. We are the farthest from the camera. **I realize I look like a total chunk in this picture, but I promise it's mostly the baggy polo. I'm not in fabulous shape, but I'm not obese like I look there.**


The pretty ribbons, waiting to be won.

Miss Izzy is scheduled for her massage tonight. I didn't want to get on her today, just in case there was residual pain. As such, I got her out, groomed her, and re-pulled her mane. I leave it a little long most of the time since we're not showing, but today I brought it back to almost show length. I screwed around with a couple different saddles, trying to see what fit her.

The trouble is that in all the books I read, general saddle fitting guidelines are provided, but for more specific information, you are supposed to contact a worthy local saddler. This is a great idea. A saddler knows both saddles and horses and knows what to look for. The only trouble is that I live in IDAHO. There aren't really even saddlers for Western horses out here; forget that fancy english crap. I spent a while looking yesterday, and the nearest ones I could find were in British Columbia and Southern California.

I just don't have that kind of money.

Cathy checked my saddle fit for me today after I spent 40 minutes fiddling around with three different saddles and different padding arrangements. She said that my lovely leather saddle that I love fits her quite well, which was my initial assessment as well. It was also the assessment of the trainer who I bought it from who looked pretty closely at it. The fact remains that she had odd sweat marks indicating pressure on Tuesday after her lunging for a long time. To an amateur, this leaves two possibilities. Either my flat pad and my gel pad added too much bulk and changed a fitting saddle to a non-fitting saddle or the saddle slid forward while lunging and jammed up against her shoulders. I think both are entirely possible.

When I lunged her today in a halter with my saddle by only a square pad and the firth fairly loose, I did notice that it slipped forward. I scooted it back, and I think that helped, but she didn't sweat too much, and it was hard to tell. My next option is that the chiropractor comes out in a few weeks, and theoretically, he's pretty good at saddle fitting and whatnot. Now I just have to save my pennies to pay him.