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...

Brand: Stubben
Cost for Fitting: $150
Number of Saddles Tried at the Fitting: 4
Number of Saddles Trialed: 0

Two different people messaged me on Facebook to ask how the Stubben fitting went, which reminded me that I never wrote about it!  Goes to show you how much attention y'all are paying to these saddle fitting posts, you remember what I tried better than I do.  To be fair, I did leave for Canada like thirty seconds after the Stubben fitting, so it got pushed out of my brain rather quickly.


It's a shame I forgot because Stubben was one of my more positive fittings.  This rep has been fitting saddles for 5+ years now, first with County (Ohio and I think Ketucky) and now with Stubben, where she has Indiana for the first time.  She made the brand jump because she was so impressed with "new Stubben". 

She also reps Bombers bits, and did fittings for those with my trainer and a barnmate while she was here, which knocked a bit off my fitting fee.  Please give her a call if you're into Stubben or Bombers.  She's new to the Indiana market as of September, and while she's not 9 years of education amazing, she's still one of the better fitters I worked with.



I ended up trying three models and seeing four (wrote the 1894 off on sight for looking too much like the CWD).  The first one, above, is their most bare bones model.  Even customized it'll come in under $3k.  It was fine - nothing special.

The last one I tried, and the only other one I have photos of, was fascinating.  It's a Stubben Aramis with a 17.5" seat...and a 12" flap, as measured from the bottom of the stirrup bar.  The literal shortest Dressage flap I've ever seen in my life. By like, a LOT.

Compare the same saddle pad with the Aramis...

...and the CWD, which by the way, IS a short flap!  Pro tip: use a pad you don't care about for fittings with new saddles so that if they bleed all over it, you don't cry.

I was absolutely enamored with that flap, with the feeling of feeling horse under my calf and not leather.  Literally 20 minutes after I sat in the Aramis, I sat in the flapless for the first time, and it struck me how similar the two saddles felt.  You don't notice the lack of flap in the flapless, except for the feel of horse under your calf, and the Aramis with the tiny flap felt largely the same.  The only difference is the way it felt under my thigh.

I've asked several fitters since then what the ideal flap length is, and they all say the flap should come lower on my leg than I've come to realize I prefer it.  No one has explained why that is, though. Maybe it has to do with sweat.  Am I allowed to like a ridiculously short flap?  Am I just overcompensating for the fact that I'm used to Dressage saddle flaps hitting my ankle bone?

The fitter pulled a block off of a jump saddle in order to meet my preferences, and I loved it.

The Aramis is a solid #3 for me.  That flap was delicious, but the rest of the saddle didn't knock my socks off.  This demo was way too narrow for Connor in the front, which, fine, it's a demo, but this is a brand that historically I haven't been able to get to fit him at all, so I was perhaps judging it more harshly than others when he didn't go well in it.

I did have one important takeaway from this fitting: I looked up the USDF/USEF rules on minimum flap length, and found that there are none.  Specifically, "An English type saddle with flaps and stirrups is compulsory for all tests and classes other than FEI tests..." is all it says, until you get to FEI, when you must have "long, near-vertical flaps".

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  I tucked that information away in my brain for future use.

Short List: Stubben Aramis (Really) Short Flap
Likes

• That 12" flap!
• The tiny little block that just hinted to my thigh that it needed to stay still
• The leather and comfort - Stubben has come a long way
• The fitter, who has purple hair (relevant I know) and is genuinely good at her job.  She definitely is one that lost money, driving 2.5 hours one way to get to me (I'm so sorry but thank you!)
• Velcro blocks, please and thank you

Dislikes

• Connor didn't go well in it, because the demo didn't fit, but even still that's hard to get past
• Just didn't knock my socks off