Cob Jockey

We've had some surprising twists in the "why is Connor NQR" and "is it the saddle" saga over the past few weeks, so buckle up!

In our mid-December lesson with CGP, he was extremely resistant to bending, wasn't forward, would not "follow his nose" around a circle, would not lift his back and was exceptionally tense in the mouth.  CGP was stunned at how much had changed in a month.  She palpated him (far more aggressively than my own palpation technique) and declared him "probably" back sore (although admitted other things can cause the appearance of back soreness), and gave me some stretching exercises to do with him, and also advised me to get a hold of my vet.

NQR but real cute!  PC: Austen

I wasn't 100% convinced he was back sore, but the idea was enough to make me email Eq Saddle Science and say I wanted to send the flapless back for now, as I was renting it weekly at the time (with all rental fees going toward the eventual purchase price of my custom saddle).  They convinced me to let them send me a Port Lewis Impression pad to prove whether the saddle was digging in anywhere.

PLI pads are clear plastic half-pads filled with fancy Play-Doh.  You ride in them for 20-30 minutes, and if your saddle is causing pressure points, you'll see them clearly because the Play-Doh will be thinner/let more light through in that area.

The Velcro isn't lined up properly here, plz ignore

Now, I 100% took this pad on the basis of "is this saddle making my horse sore?", but I have to admit I was curious to see whether there really were four circular indentations in his back because I'm just so skeptical of the Reactor Panels.  But I couldn't have been more surprised when I lifted the saddle off his back after a solid 40 minute ride and saw...nothing:


It was so smooth, so even, I was absolutely shocked.  There were just very faint indentations where the panels were.  The pressure was completely even all the way up and down the panel.


I hadn't intended to actually buy this pad, but in the end I did.  I want this data, for all of my saddles and all of my current and future horses.  No, it's not going to tell you EVERYTHING about the way a saddle fits, but it's a great starting point for information we normally have to guess at.  As the owner of a stoic horse, I'll take all the saddle fit data I can get, even if it means buying a half pad I'll probably use twice a year.

Resetting the pad by rolling it out

(PS - If anyone local would like to borrow it, I'm happy to let people borrow it for a small usage charge, since these do have a limited number of uses in their lifespan.)

No real areas of pressure to note, except where I sit real hard on my left seatbone (facepalm)

The good news is, it's not the saddle, but the bad news is, it's not the saddle.  Next...

In mid-December, Jan and I went to spend the weekend at CGP's together.  It was my last time working with CGP until she returns from Florida in early April.  With Connor being NQR, we did a Saturday lesson to evaluate things, which was terrible, and then on Sunday we had an unmounted lesson.  But by far the most fun part of that weekend was just hanging out with Jan, Matt and Eli:

This is my "Jan's horse is so big I can't even get his whole head in a selfie because my arms are so short" face

Eli is huge, guys.  And also so very nice - both temperamentally and conformationally.  Hopefully Jan doesn't mind me mentioning that CGP was absolutely IN LOVE with Eli and thanked her for making her job as a trainer easier by buying the right horse.  And - sappy blogger community comment incoming - knowing everything Jan went through on the road to getting him like we all do, I felt such an immense amount of happiness and pride for her in that moment.  That's not a compliment CGP hands out lightly!

Jan mini-phasered Connor...

...and he loved it

Raced a snowstorm home and made it safely, took this photo to commemorate the occasion.  I never posted about my harrowing literal near-death experience hauling back from Cincinnati three years ago, but uh, let's just say I have PTSD about hauling over this particular route if there's so much as a single flake falling from the sky.

Of course we weren't leaving without getting photos of the big horse next to the little horse!  Although I don't feel like the photos do Eli's massiveness justice AT ALL.  Connor is 14.1 and change, and Eli is allegedly 17hh, although it feels more like 22hh when I'm standing next to him 😂

This photo and all the following photos are courtesy of Jan's husband, Matt.

Connor sporting his wool cooler I got off eBay for $20.

"Hello friend"

Then Connor noticed Matt crouching on the ground, and took it upon himself to go investigate:

"I love people!  You're a person!  Let's be friends!"

Cutest schnoz picture ever!

Looking forward to doing this again sometime!

I've lost count the number of times I've participated in Blogger Secret Santa, and the number of blogs I follow these days, so it's always especially fun when I get a new-to-me blog for Secret Santa!


This year Lindsey at Alta Mira Horsemanship had me, and she knocked it out of the park!  I ended up with a gorgeous new flick brush, to replace my current one which is less...flicky...than it used to be:


And Connor got a bucket of Stud Muffins, which he LOVES.  I've been only feeding them in situations where I want a high value treat, like clipping.  Not that he's ever bad to clip, but I think he's especially excited for it now that clipping = eating these cookies.



Finally there was a lovely bar of chocolate in there too, which I went to take a photo of and discovered my husband had eaten it 😂  He thoroughly enjoyed it, for what it's worth.

Aftermath

Thanks for everything, Lindsey!