Saturday, January 13, 2007

you will sit in the correct position

is what the new saddle is telling me ... which is, of course, one of the things i wanted!

i do need to get a hot water bottle .. it was like a board when i first got on. of course it does have to mould to both of us....

i think i had it a bit far back.

and it definitely slipped as i got on (someone holds her head, but not many think to do it from the offside and hold the stirrup as well!!!)

stirrups too short in consequence of being put in the correct position, but too much hassle to sort out whilst onboard.

she wasn't wonderfully happy, but that was in her mouth - rather think she's unhappy at contact, which she always is, and of course as i was getting used to the saddle wasn't really working hard at getting myself right.

did a lot of walk work, just in the arena - there was a few going out for a hack, but to me it made more sense to get used to new saddle before hacking out on it, especially as there was 5 of them without me!

and we got the best of the day - i checked out the weather forecast at about 730 this morning, and it said it would be calm this morning but get gales again in the afternoon, and they were so right...

and we've had some wind damage - not much in the scale of things, but enough to warrant a call to the insurance company - the vent pipe for the drain has come away from the wall in the wind, there's a huge hole in the wall where the fixings came away ... ah well, that's what insurance is for. just pleased we had the new roof last year, don't think the old one would have survived...

2 comments:

Jean said...

Sounds like a good start with the saddle. Do you have a Professional Choice girth? They make a lot of difference with the slipping.

My Ansurs mold pretty quickly to the horse, I should think your saddle will do so as well as soon as you sort out just how and where to put it on Molly.

The Ansur should sit a bit back. Is that true of the Fhoenix? You need to place the saddle just a bit back of the horse's shoulder muscle. You will figure it out, and the people at EE seem to be very helpful with advice and assistance.

Good idea of not going out for a hack just yet. You need to feel a bit more certain in the new saddle.

Claire said...

the pro choice girth is awaited .. together with leathers, heather's stirrups, and a stephens cloth ....

i made do with my wintec dressage girth (bound to be a lot less slippy than the barefoot leather one!!!)

i expect it should be about where i put it - level when you look at it on the horse!

intend to ask local agent to come out though to be sure i've set it up properly (and one gets a bit of a lesson as well. ... she trained the irish olympic event team in dressage......!!!)