On Wednesday I had my final lesson with seasonal trainer. She’s only around for a few months in the spring and fall. She’ll be back in July for a week to do horse camp, but won’t do lessons so this was the last one until fall. We did a lot of the same thing as last week so mot terribly interesting. But Nilla really just needs to work on the same boring things: bending, yielding her shoulders, and going on the bit. It’s not going to be interesting for a while.
We did do a few small cross-rails to keep things interesting, but it was really not that exciting. I also had to keep stopping because I had raised my stirrups and was getting a calf cramp from riding with them higher. They could still go up a hole to be in the right place, but I’ve been doing long stirrups for trails and flat for so long that my legs have gotten out of shape for proper hunter/jumper length stirrups.
Just how interesting was this. you ask? So interesting that my husband was napping on Shasta from the excitement.
On Thursday, Nilla had her final ride with seasonal trainer. I got to the barn early and was talking to the one woman who I am trying to convince to lease Dijon. She rides Western and I have taken my western saddle apart to use the stirrups on my treeless saddle. So I had the seasonal trainer pick another western for me from the schooling supplies.
We rode over to the winery park to test out the saddle and let me say, it was agonizing. My knees were screaming and the cantle bars kept hitting me in the thighs. I also don’t think it was fitting very well on Dijon. So I will probably need to reconstruct my western saddle. I bought replacement fenders to go on my treeless, but they were so stiff they were destroying my knees and ankles. So I put the western saddle’s fenders back on the treeless. So I am not sure how I am going to fix my old western saddle.
Any western readers know where to get replacement fenders that are not made by King?
There are some fenders on eBay, but it looks like they'll run you $80 or so. :/ I'd almost look for a different saddle. A lot of people sell older western saddles used for less than that. (Around here at least…)
it looks like you and NIla are making lots of progress
That last picture is priceless.