I’m going to start out by saying that as much as I love my horse.. boy does he cost me some money, and it doesn’t appear that that will change any time soon!! Back in June 2018 I noticed that his brand new Bates Isabelle saddle was causing some muscle wastage and wasn’t fitting him nicely at all... it had been fitted by a Bates specialist saddler only 4 months earlier.. yet clearly it wasn’t fitted correctly and the resounding message from Sharp was that it was causing him pain!
I then went a bit overboard and had 3 different saddlers just to see a variety of different saddles and what would best fit both Sharp and I... after a lot of thought and trying out different saddles I went for the Prestige X-breath and ordered a new one.. with area Festival finals coming up my fantastic saddler loaned me a saddle until my new one arrived.. that would be January.. and on January 2nd 2019 Sharp and I were all set with a fantastic new saddle, and my bank account was considerably depleted!
Fast forward to today, 31st October 2019 – Halloween- and I am currently sitting on my couch feeling rather defeated and depressed! Why? Because I have just gotten home after a saddle check... I knew in my gut that it wasn’t going to be a simple fix, and it isn’t! All the fantastic work and strengthening we have been doing with Sharp, has created a monster... but in a kind of good way... his lumbar region has strengthen hugely and he is engaging beautifully, but the new muscle and the huge movement over his back now means that my beautiful, less than a year old saddle, No longer fits him correctly L We have a few options and a short term solution for the time being, but it’s highly possible that the solution is a new saddle! I have no idea how I will afford it – hence the depressed feelings I have.
So I am going to allow myself tonight to wallow in self pity, and tomorrow I am going to get up and start figuring out what the next steps are and how I make it happen! Because as I said at the beginning of this blog... I love my horse unconditionally and we have come so far to rectify and recover from the damage done from the badly fitting Bates, that there is no turning back! I will move heaven and earth to make sure that Sharp and I can keep moving forwards.. it’s not going to be easy, but as my mum always said, where there’s a will there’s away! And I will definitely find that way!
Stay tuned and I shall keep you all up to date on how we move forwards J I’ve included some pictures that show the muscle wastage from the badly fitting Bates to how he looks now with the Prestige that has helped to his back recover from the damage!
Until next time.. enjoy!
