Cob Jockey

In terms of show goals, my only goal for Disco this year is "Do Pony Cup," and at some point I realized that I should, you know, do a practice show before then. 

Despite it being rated, Waterloo was the obvious choice: halfway between us, and we've talked about doing it together for years. Her dad lives silly close to it, and with the facility for sale, we weren't sure how many more opportunities we'd get to make that slumber party a reality.

For sale! Please buy it and keep it a showgrounds!

Entering was such an ordeal in pretty much every way possible, including Kate's vet giving us shot/Coggins records with just stable names on a receipt printed on a dot matrix printer, and not understanding why that wasn't enough, and me not realizing that pony class measurements were only held on Thursday night (we would be arriving on Friday).

That last one ended up being a blessing in disguise, but we'll get there.

Our two stallions stabled side-by-side

 

It was so, SO good to see this horse again, guys. I really didn't realize how much I miss him or how much he's grown on me in general.

But man, as of Friday night, as we crammed a lesson in very quickly before sunset, I was not entirely sure entering my first rated show in five years on my green five-year-old when I hadn't really ridden in years and had never braided him was a good idea.

(lol)

Look at me, riding my baby horse at a showgrounds for the first time!

He felt incredible, nothing like the baby horse I had given to Kate three months earlier, but I was riding like a sack of potatoes. I could barely turn him, and I couldn't figure out his canter aid. 

Another competitor saw JUST this view of the boys when Kate pulled up and asked if they were Welsh Cobs. I was gobsmacked. In all my years of showing Welsh Cobs, no one has ever properly identified them, let alone from this angle! She made my day.

 

And complicating things further, in the three months Kate had him, he'd completely outgrown his saddle, and it was tipping me forward badly onto my pubic bone. I actually ended up riding in one of Kate's saddles, a Stubben that worked out wonderfully for both of us, and it's saying a lot that I never noticed that saddle all weekend.

The Most Chill about show stabling. Still has never needed a chain anywhere we've gone.

I had an 8:00am ride the next morning, with Kate's ride a few minutes before mine so she wouldn't be able to coach me. After my lesson, I said "I really think I want to scratch that first test, I just don't think we're setting us up for success between the fact that you won't be able to coach me and having to braid him for the first time and everything."

Kate talked me off the ledge, saying lets stay entered and just see how he feels in the warmup. So that's what we did. To be continued...

It's here!

And...the story isn't over yet.

Because what about my saddle fitting journey could be easy?

 

The good news? It's here and beautiful.

The bad news? It's missing a couple of key features we discussed that I won't budge on, like serge panels and both billets coming off the waist of the saddle.

 

Now, normally with a situation like this I wouldn't post about it til it's done and over with, and I know what the full story is, but since I posted it was coming this week I feel like you guys deserve an update. That said, I'm going to encourage you all to suspend your outrage until we all - myself included - know exactly what happened and why, because I don't yet.

Going to swap out that pink rhinestone, but otherwise, this is exactly what I asked for.

 

I've texted the saddle fitter, but she has a very valid and legit reason for being delayed in checking into it, so it may be a couple days before we talk. GP trainer was incredulous that those features would be left off, and says in all her years of working with Patrick this is the first mistake she's seen. She also said they have a track record of doing whatever it takes to make the saddle owners happy, and she's not at all concerned that they won't fix it.

The standing still fit on Connor is absolutely impeccable. That system they use to take all those measurements of the back and then recreate his back shape in the shop in England REALLY works. I've never seen a saddle fit him this well before besides the CWD jump, and Mary agrees.

I did ride in it last night in my lesson, and the flap length is perfect (14") and the balance is perfect. The blocks are not right at all, but - eyyyyyyyyyyyy - they're Velcro! So we're just going to order a shorter set.

Definitely should have checked what blocks it was coming with by default, these are waaaaaaaaaaaaay too big, lol.

Connor wasn't super happy in it, but I'm not fussed about that yet because I think with a billet change and some flocking adjustments he will be. Mary thinks it needs the flocking reduced in the waist - it's on the same tree as the loaner, which he loves, but the loaner has a lot less flocking in the waist area. It's a similar problem to the Trilogy, and we all know how he felt about that.

Mary came down on a weeknight to my lesson with a bottle of wine because she knew I shed some tears over this and she is The Best Friend. And then she cooled him out bareback for me while I drank my sorrows away.

So, while I wish this was a happy ending, we're not quite there yet. And, you know, since I'm only going to be riding my horse once a week for the next few months, if it does have to go back to England, I'm not upset about it. It's just one more entertaining chapter in my terrible, horrible, no good very bad saddle hunt!

Brand: Bua
Cost for Fitting: $150 for 7 day trial, including shipping both ways (You do have to put a refundable 50% deposit down for the full price of the saddle, like not a hold on your credit card, but an actual charge. Do not do this with a debit card (Really don't use a debit card at all, ever, especially online, but that's a conversation for another day.))
Number of Saddles Tried at the Fitting: 1
Number of Saddles Trialed: 1 

Betcha thought we were done with this rodeo, didn't you!

Hello from the "clearly not prejudiced against ugly and weird saddles" club

I'm not actively searching for a Dressage saddle at this point. My jump saddle is getting the job done and GP trainer doesn't mind it. But that hasn't stopped me from idly wondering WHY he seems to go so much better in it than in most Dressage saddles, and I'm starting to come to the conclusion it might be the tree points.

See, my CWD jump saddle has insanely flexible and short tree points, to the point that Mary told me not to freak out about the fit when I first set it on his back. "When you girth it up, it like, goes into sport mode and lowers itself down and around his back, which means it will look too narrow when you just set it on top of his back ungirthed," she said.

Sorry for the blurry picture, but CWD takes this concept so far, they only partially sew the knee block onto the saddle. See the black gap between the block and the panel? The block is just floating there, to allow for maximum panel flexibility for the horse's shoulder.

So my working theory that he doesn't like the long tree points of most Dressage saddles, even properly fitted ones, and isn't as willing to lift his withers into them. Former saddle fitter Mary agrees. Hence, we're investigating Dressage saddles with trees (no treeless!) but with short or no or flexible tree points. Enter Bua, a relatively young Irish saddle company with a radical saddle idea: a saddle based on a cantilevered tree.

Bua (or rather US-based rep, Irish Saddles USA) does a 7 day trial for $150 and will build and send you a saddle based on photos so I said, hey, low effort, low investment, and I'll get a good blog post out of it, let's do it! There isn't much adjustment to be done on these saddles - they fit "most horses" and on request, they can send you multiple types of panels. Mine came with a mesh covered/foam flocked set, and a leather covered/wool flocked set.

Wool on the left, foam on the right. The wool ones have a zipper so that you can adjust flocking easily, although they don't allow you to mess with that in the trial.

There are a few interesting features of the Bua. First, the cantilevered tree, which I've roughly drawn the position of in red here:

This means the rider is not sitting on the same surface that is in contact with the horse's back, even though it's a single united tree. That means the saddle has a suspension, kind of like your car's, and you can stiffen or soften the suspension on-demand using the mechanism on the back of the cantle:

So if you're trail riding you might want a softer suspension, but if you're flatting you might want a stiffer suspension.

Also interesting: the weight. The whole thing clocks in at 9lbs, and I could lift it over my head without even trying. I LOVED that about it. It's absolutely the lightest saddle I've tried.

Shown hanging easily on the flimsy baby gate that serves to keep Hank out of my trash can

If you're an eventer and you buy a Bua saddle, you need only buy one saddle because you can buy both jump and Dressage flaps for it and swap them out. I had the Dressage flaps only, but I'm all for anything that lets me own fewer single-purpose tack items, so I thought that was a cool concept.

Finally, the last interesting feature is the whole reason I tried it: the complete lack of tree points. It has a tree, but the tree has no points whatsoever.

 

So flexy

On the first night, I rode with it in the foam panels, and by the end of the ride, it was up over his withers:

Despite that, he went quite well in it, and from the moment I put him on the lunge to see how he went in it all the way through my Dressage ride, he was very willing to lift his back.

Me, on the other hand...

boingboingboingboingboing

In the above GIF, you'll see some of the most effortless still-crappy-but-progress half pass we've ever done, and you'll see my butt being bounced like a basketball. This is not a horse with a big bouncy trot, guys. And the saddle was in the completely ratcheted down low suspension configuration for this ride. Plus the balance was all wrong even before the thing crept over his shoulders.

Irish Saddles USA, the distributor I was working with, suggested I do the next ride with the wool panels to see if that prevented the saddle from slipping, and changing out the panels took me all of 2 minutes after watching a YouTube video. You just undo a strap with a button fastener, slide the panel off, slide the new panel on, and re-fasten the strap.

Shown with one panel removed

The wool panels helped quite a bit, the saddle didn't creep forward at all for my second ride, but I still found the balance all wrong - it was way too high in the pommel and way too low in the cantle, setting me back on my "pockets". I also felt very high off the horse and like the saddle was somewhat unstable laterally.

Pommel too high, but look at that fit along his shoulder. Not many saddles fit this closely on him.

By this point I had a feeling the saddle wasn't for me, and the biggest reason? I found my seat aids very ineffective in it. For example, normally my canter depart aid is lifting my inside seatbone, but that aid must have not been getting through because I had to back it up with leg. And the suspension would have been welcome on a trail ride, but was not helping me in the Dressage ring.

That said, I still asked them if there was anything we could do to improve the front-to-back balance of the saddle, and they said no, and with that plus the seat aids thing, they told me this might not be the saddle for me. I appreciated the honesty and how easy they were to work with.

Really though, this balance ain't right

So what's the bottom line here? This isn't the saddle for me, but this was also not a waste of time and money. He did go better in it. That IS a datapoint to support my theory that he doesn't like long tree points, and he seems to prefer a less-well-fitting saddle with no/short/flexible tree points over a well-fitting saddle with long ones, like my old CWD Dressage.

Long tree points are HARD on a horse shaped like Connor

Do I think Bua is a bad saddle? I do not. I think they really have a good concept from a horse welfare standpoint. There's no denying Connor went better with me suspended over his back rather than sitting on top of it, that model just doesn't work for my sport. 

If my horse was in a medium tree or smaller and I never had to sit the trot, I would definitely give Bua a legitimate shot. And I desperately wish I could combine the rider-focused Eq Saddle Science saddle with the horse-focused Bua saddle to create One Saddle to Rule Them All. No one's asking my opinion though.

 

The rep was great to work with and answered all of my many questions promptly, so if you're curious about trying one, I can very much recommend working with Irish Saddles USA!

Yesterday, after all that, I finally bought a Dressage saddle. I ended up with a 12 year old wool flocked CWD for 1/3 of my budget, from my pseudo-local tack shop. Which is, you could say, right where I started.

Get ready for some French saddle porn

I learned SO much from this experience, but I think my most important takeaway is that saddles should be seen as temporary residents in your tack room (thank you, JenJ).

Your position changes, you get fat, you get skinny, you start working out, you stop working out, you have a baby, your horse loses topline, gains topline, gets fat, gets EPM, and the saddle that works for you today likely isn't the saddle that works for you five years from now.  And I feel like that's especially true for Dressage saddles.

Getting its first deep condition in my workshop. It was clearly well-taken care of, but it still soaked every bit of it up.

Combine that with not really ever having a "wow!" moment with any of the trial saddles, (do not tell me how amazing it will be if we order mine with slightly different features, I need to feel it before I sign my life savings away), with how much new saddles depreciate as soon as you take delivery, with how expensive they are, and with how generally screwed you are if you don't like it/it doesn't fit, and I ultimately decided a custom saddle isn't for me, and truly, it isn't the holy grail of saddle shopping I thought it was. Maybe if custom saddle money was throwaway money for me I'd do it, but it's not.




It's entirely possible that two years from now I'm going to be moving this CWD along after one or both of us changes, but at this price point, I'll almost certainly be able to recoup most of my money, whereas I wouldn't with a custom saddle, which made signing away the money so much less painful!

After conditioning. It has a 13.5" flap measured from the bottom of the stirrup bar, tee hee.

Some of my other takeaways:

1. Searching for used saddles is time-consuming and frustrating, but ultimately less risky than going custom

2. It's impossible to know what a saddle will feel like just by looking at it, which makes used saddle shopping insanely difficult. Heck, just looking at the picture of the CWD I ended up with, it doesn't look like something I'd like. But I love it.

3. I still firmly believe the saddle industry is broken. I have no answers. I admire the people who are trying to do something about it.

4. Brown Dressage tack would have been awesome, but a saddle we both love matters SO much more than aesthetics.

5. Maybe Connor does have a type.

At any rate, I'm now the proud owner of two CWD saddles, so I guess I can keep wearing my jacket!  Now to sell my brown short girth...

Last week, my local tack shop (which is run by a college classmate of mine) put up a picture of a consignment Dressage saddle on their Facebook page that looked like it might work for me and Connor.  What else am I going to do with my quarantine time?  May as well try a saddle!




This little fella is a 17" 2008 CWD SE05 with a short/forward flap, listed for 25% of what they go for new.  Before I went to pick it up, I sent a picture of the stamp to Connor's Aunt Mary to see if she thought it might work for us.  She thought it would, but she didn't recognize the third panel number at all, even after referencing her former CWD saddle fitter books.  Turns out that may be because...

Yeah I know worst picture in the world

It's wool flocked!  I was shocked, but also happy, since that opens up fitting options immensely if I do like it.  Mary thinks there's a chance it came from the factory this way, given the weird panel number and the fact that CWD has been known to do a one-off in wool from time to time.

No bridging

What do we think so far?  I find myself liking it more and more with each ride.  Any smaller in the seat or any bigger in the blocks and it would be too small, but as it is, I find it supportive without being in my way, especially in the canter.  It doesn't have a knee pad, and I love the way my leg nestles into Connor without effort in it.



I don't notice it beyond the fact that riding seems easier in it.  I'm forcing myself to think about that logically though: is riding really easier in it, or am I just excited to be doing Dressage in a Dressage saddle again, because that is DEFINITELY easier in general.

Would Mary raise my stirrups a hole here?  Probably, and that would be a dealbreaker for this saddle.

As for fit on Connor, it's definitely too narrow in front, but I've had two saddle fitters look at it and tell me it appears that the tree shape is right, it's just the flocking that needs adjusted.  Tara in particular told me this saddle was likely flocked for something more uphill than Connor. 


The net result is that it pops up in the back as soon as it's girthed, but there are no pressure points anywhere.


My big question is, if we do fix this with a flocking change, am I still going to like the balance?  I'm inclined to say yes, because the change we'd make would be similar to what we did with my Adam Ellis a couple of years ago in which we lowered the front of the saddle, which had the net effect of giving me the sensation of more space in the seat, which I think would be a good thing here.  I know it would be worse for him fit-wise, but I might do one ride in it with the back shimmed to see if I still like the balance when it's level.


 I was supposed to have it for a week, buuuuuuuuuuuut then the governor shut down our state four days into my trial.  I texted my college classmate to ask what she wanted me to do and she said "Just keep it, if the seller wants it back sooner we'll figure something out."  So, it's now with me for an extended trial.

At least it's something exciting!

When we last left off in my saddle fitting saga, I had decided to move forward with the Eq Saddle Science flapless Dressage, knowing that I would #1 take an extended trial of it, and #2 request a second trial saddle, this time the blocktester version.



The blocktester version exists to do exactly what it sounds like: allows people to test blocks of different sizes and shapes in various positions on the knee roll area.  It comes with three sets of blocks, and they're going to be adding a fourth in January 2020.

This saddle is an older model compared to the trial one, and it's a 17.5" instead of a 17.  Which...




...I gotta be honest, I'm digging.  And not (entirely) because I've finally gotten serious about hitting the gym consistently over the past two months and gone up a pant size since the saddle search began.  (Far more importantly, I tied my all-time back squat PR from four years ago this week at 175 lbs/115lbs body weight and my workouts are starting to feel easier!  Bring on the booty!)

And had a huge breakthrough in snatch biomechanics

I scheduled the blocktester to where I'd ride in it for both of my trainers - my home trainer tonight, and then I have back to back weekend lessons scheduled with my GP trainer this weekend before she leaves to winter in Florida.  And Jan is coming too!



The one thing that's going sideways right now is Connor.  My trainer has noticed it too, he's not lame, but he's unusually reluctant under saddle currently, both in terms of forward, relaxation and just general balance.  I don't think this is saddle related because he feels the same for my trainer in her saddle as he feels in my jump and the flapless, and he's not palpating sore at all.

We did this remote saddle fitting outside for cell signal reasons and Connor was like "...why?"

My best guess is that he's had an ulcer flareup, since he's been increasingly girthy over the past couple of months - with all types of saddles - and he's started spooking at nothing again too.  Either way, Carmi, the owner of Eq Saddle Science that has been doing all of my fittings, is encouraging me not to buy until I have some amazing rides again, so I can be 100% sure I'm making the right choice for both of us, which I totally appreciate.

The most interesting part of this whole saddle fitting process is that what I thought I wanted isn't what I wanted - but I'm not sure I would've figured that out if I didn't ride in 36 saddles over six weeks.

Before the fittings, I thought I wanted a narrow twist, flat seat, low cantle, minimal block.  Mostly, those were knee-jerk opposite reactions to my last saddle, which I know now was waaaaaaaay too small for me, but I didn't know that then.

I hate everything about me in this saddle looking back on it!  Funny how that works.  PC: Austen

I thought I wanted a flat seat, but it turns out I just want an open seat, and those two things aren't necessarily related.  I learned that I hate anything that cups my butt, where the rise of the cantle starts quickly behind me.  I began to see the surface of the saddle as a work surface: sometimes in Dressage you need to slightly change your position to get things done, and too small of a work surface limited my ability to do that - and I'm not talking about seat size here.

This felt appropriately flat and open.  Custom Wolfgang Omni (older version)

But that desire for a large work surface doesn't mean I want the saddle to encourage me to flop all over the place - I want the default balance of the saddle to put me in a good place, but give me options.  A closed seat does not equal more rider stability - some closed seat saddles put me far more out of balance than some open seat saddles.

I learned I really don't care how tall the cantle is, as long as, like I said above, the rise doesn't happen quickly.  Some saddles with very tall cantles felt very open, and some saddles with very short cantles made me feel trapped.

Short cantle, but I felt trapped in this

High cantle, but I don't even notice it

I learned I actually prefer a slightly wider twist.  I encourage anyone who has ever said the words "narrow twist" to keep an open mind where this is concerned, because I was saying it without truly understanding why and I don't think I'm alone in that.  I don't mean I want the twist so wide my hips hurt, but I learned that I don't like it when the saddle twist is more narrow than the width of my pubic bone.  I want the saddle to fill up the space between my legs (that's what she said?) and not make me feel like I have to contort myself to"snug" my thigh into the saddle, as MW would say.

WOW - wide(r) twist.  Liked it.

(And according to KB and Eq Saddle Science both, twist is a function of the horse's anatomy and not the rider's preference, so take that for what you will.)

Finally, blocks became fascinating to me.  I was wrong in thinking that big blocks always equal "seat belt saddles".  I rode in saddles with big blocks that you'd never notice, and with small blocks that felt like they were shouting at my knees "YOU SHALL NOT PASS".  I learned that I want the support of a good block, I just don't want to be pinned into place.

Both big and small blocks can be bad blocks

The difference between a good block and a bad block was not the height or length of the block - it was whether it asked or demanded a certain position from me.  A good block gently supported my leg in a good spot, and I didn't notice it.  A bad block said, "We're gonna put you HERE and you're NOT GOING TO MOVE, got it?" Even if it was the right leg position for me, if the block forced me to stay there, it was a bad block.

Good, big blocks.  And it should be noted that if I had bought the Patrick, we were going to custom shape these blocks, both by taking some foam off the upper right corner (as you're looking at them here) and by reducing the height of them by 1/2" because my thigh isn't that tall (in terms of how far it comes away from the saddle)

Also, interestingly, the difference between a good block and a bad block was so subtle - millimeters of foam that needed shaved off at the top or single degrees of angle.  The fact that there are some saddle makers that do not offer any customization of block position on their saddles is absolutely infuriating, and I will name and shame CWD and County for this because I think it's stupid that they ask you to drop many thousands of dollars on a saddle you can't really customize.  Custom, Patrick, Eq Saddle Science, Stubben and WOW all allow custom block shapes and positions with almost no limits.

And with that, that wraps up my saddle fitting series!  I hope you guys found this helpful.