No Horse News Today

Nice But Warm

And I had physical therapy and a chiropractic adjustment. For some reason, I got sleepy after that, so I took a nap, then went for a swim.

I ulitmately decided not to work the Boys. No sense in throwing out a good adjustment, especially since I have a saddle demo to do tomorrow morning.

Ironically, it is at a barn I used to trailer to for lessons with Chris. I won't get lost, which is a good thing.

Had to clean the saddles and get my stuff together.

Called Ansur just to check on a few things. My client is not sure which saddle model she would be interested in, so I got some advice from central office. Ansur now has: the Classic which is dressage/all purpose close contact; the Carlton all purpose/dressage with lots of support; the Konklusion eventing/cross country saddle; the Elite, for hunter/equitation/jumpers; and the Excel, totally dressage. Add to that the Westernaire, a treeless western saddle which is, from all reports, absolutely beautiful, and the selection is huge.

I was at the point where I needed some clarification as to the differences and limitations of all the models. Since I really don't do much jumping anymore, I wasn't sure just what kinds of fences you could take in the Carlton or Classic before you really needed to go to the jumping models. Apparently, 2'6" to just below 3' might be OK, but for higher fences you really do need one of the jumping models.

When I evented, I actually used to switch from an all purpose to a flatter jumping saddle for the stadium (which used to be the last phase of the one day events) mostly because that's what I used in the show ring for hunter/jumper classes. I had a good all-purpose then too, but the jumping saddle just let me ride better over the arena fences.

I'll just have to figure out exactly what my client wants to do with her horse to give the right advice. It will be interesting.