I do like them. Both Tanza and Sadie tend to get a bit of saddle sliding forward. Sadie especially will have saddle on her neck. I had to do some extra shimming on the front of my saddle pads when the saddle stopped creeping up on the withers as much as they both are short backed and a bit rump high I guess. In neither case is the cinch keeping the saddle completely off the shoulder, but both horses seem pretty comfy and both have laid back shoulders where a saddle would hardly be on the wither at all if it was completely back from the point of the shoulder.
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Rode Tanza at a charity ride last weekend and got dunked
It was not the most productive conditioning weekend. Better than my normal at home riding has been but not as much good work as I had hoped for.
Saturday I showed up and they were all brrrr, not wanting to ride but the mom and daughter that had picked out the trails did saddle up and ride with me. Daughter got cold and was taking a break and mom rode out to catch up to the others who were doing a slow ride so we could ride together to check out other trail and ask the ditch rider to open a locked gate. I should have gone with her to catch them but passed because of not wanting to hold her up while I got mounted. Ugh for being old and fat.
After talking to the ditch rider when we went out together we barely rode any farther so it was probably less than 10 miles total that I did on Tanza. Better than 4 or 5 at home but not the 12-15 I had hoped to get in.
I woke up real early on Sunday and went back for the organized event to ride the 25. That was going fairly well until about 8 or 9 miles in they went in the lake where it was a nice shoreline. Tanza did want to join in getting a drink and got brave and stepped in the water. But there were tree branches right at the water line and after he had stepped over he had a "SOMETHING touched my leg" moment and went leaping into the lake. I came off on the second leaping stride and had a moment of panic when water was not just the 18 inches or less I expected and my face went under as I was yelling whoa for Tanza. It was only 30 inches so I was able to just scramble to my feet and wade out but in less than 60F weather with a good breeze the ride leader said I would get hypothermia if I rode on so I ended up getting a ride back to the base camp area in a Blazer to get my trailer and hauling Tanza home. I had a dry Tshirt and polar fleece vest and blankets and someone lent me a wool serape cape so I was not too cold back at camp.
The best thing out of that day was buying an endurance saddle that I think will fit Lady very well at the silent auction they had to raise extra money for the Hope Held by a Horse charity.
I've been using the Wintec on Sadie this spring and liking it. I think the narrow tree saddle I bought actually will fit Lady even better than the Wintec did so now I can send her to Golden with a good saddle and keep both the Wintec and my treeless in case I want to swap back to it at home. I could have sent Lady with no saddle or the barrel saddle K has using on Lady but the barrel saddle doesn't fit Lady real well, requires an extra thick pad to not hit her withers + she might use it on Razz this summer when Lady is gone. And I'm more comfortable with them not just using the bareback pad or a makeshift saddle on Lady, a well fitting saddle will be safer for her and anyone riding her.
The work week was a bear with lots of morning meetings + raining on Monday so my only weekday morning ride was a quick 3 miles on Sadie on Friday. I am getting over being wowed by the new guys' smarts. That is a good thing overall but there is always the letdown as I realize the person I had put on a pedestal has great plenty of faults and is not going to have any brilliant solutions to difficult problems that I just couldn't see because of not being as smart.
I am pecking away on doing some 'estate planning' They rolled out a new app at work to show off our great benefits and it did give me a shortcut to seeing what my work insurance was. It is enough that I can skip buying another policy so that is nice. I think I can set up the accidental death policy benefit to go to DL who agreed to be the 'god parent' for Lady and Sadie and that will cover most of the costs of caring for them if I die in a car crash or break my neck coming off a horse. I need to think about how much of retirement benefit to give to the siblings vs charity.
Saturday I showed up and they were all brrrr, not wanting to ride but the mom and daughter that had picked out the trails did saddle up and ride with me. Daughter got cold and was taking a break and mom rode out to catch up to the others who were doing a slow ride so we could ride together to check out other trail and ask the ditch rider to open a locked gate. I should have gone with her to catch them but passed because of not wanting to hold her up while I got mounted. Ugh for being old and fat.
After talking to the ditch rider when we went out together we barely rode any farther so it was probably less than 10 miles total that I did on Tanza. Better than 4 or 5 at home but not the 12-15 I had hoped to get in.
I woke up real early on Sunday and went back for the organized event to ride the 25. That was going fairly well until about 8 or 9 miles in they went in the lake where it was a nice shoreline. Tanza did want to join in getting a drink and got brave and stepped in the water. But there were tree branches right at the water line and after he had stepped over he had a "SOMETHING touched my leg" moment and went leaping into the lake. I came off on the second leaping stride and had a moment of panic when water was not just the 18 inches or less I expected and my face went under as I was yelling whoa for Tanza. It was only 30 inches so I was able to just scramble to my feet and wade out but in less than 60F weather with a good breeze the ride leader said I would get hypothermia if I rode on so I ended up getting a ride back to the base camp area in a Blazer to get my trailer and hauling Tanza home. I had a dry Tshirt and polar fleece vest and blankets and someone lent me a wool serape cape so I was not too cold back at camp.
The best thing out of that day was buying an endurance saddle that I think will fit Lady very well at the silent auction they had to raise extra money for the Hope Held by a Horse charity.
I've been using the Wintec on Sadie this spring and liking it. I think the narrow tree saddle I bought actually will fit Lady even better than the Wintec did so now I can send her to Golden with a good saddle and keep both the Wintec and my treeless in case I want to swap back to it at home. I could have sent Lady with no saddle or the barrel saddle K has using on Lady but the barrel saddle doesn't fit Lady real well, requires an extra thick pad to not hit her withers + she might use it on Razz this summer when Lady is gone. And I'm more comfortable with them not just using the bareback pad or a makeshift saddle on Lady, a well fitting saddle will be safer for her and anyone riding her.
The work week was a bear with lots of morning meetings + raining on Monday so my only weekday morning ride was a quick 3 miles on Sadie on Friday. I am getting over being wowed by the new guys' smarts. That is a good thing overall but there is always the letdown as I realize the person I had put on a pedestal has great plenty of faults and is not going to have any brilliant solutions to difficult problems that I just couldn't see because of not being as smart.
I am pecking away on doing some 'estate planning' They rolled out a new app at work to show off our great benefits and it did give me a shortcut to seeing what my work insurance was. It is enough that I can skip buying another policy so that is nice. I think I can set up the accidental death policy benefit to go to DL who agreed to be the 'god parent' for Lady and Sadie and that will cover most of the costs of caring for them if I die in a car crash or break my neck coming off a horse. I need to think about how much of retirement benefit to give to the siblings vs charity.
Friday, May 6, 2016
Sigh, Apparently I'm an outlier
Well what else is new. But I was pissed that SI is planning to feature Bruce/Catilyn Jenner "nude except for his medal and the flag" on an upcoming issue. My first thought was merely "oh great the attention whore and more push for calling body dysmorphia a new civil right that has to be pushed" but then I went "wait, what, they are going to use Old Glory to cover xis genitalia ?!?" That is so disrespectful to the the flag, using it to drape anyone's bare genitalia. I'm guessing here, but they aren't an x-rated publication and the olympic medal is probably too small to cover anything.
I want to start a campaign to insist that this flag had better be the rainbow flag, transgender flag (yes apparently there is a special flag for that) Olympic rings flag, state of California flag but no how no way should Old Glory be used. But I don't know where to start and I posted it on a horse BB board that a veteran and veterans wife read and no reaction. Posted it on a conservative politics blog and some "ewww" reaction about the 67 year old almost nude regardless and or because of whatever hormone and surgical attacks on natural biology and only one response that understood the disrespect to the flag was the focus of my outrage.
I've never even been much of a flag waver type, but the SI plan pisses me off royally. But I'm terribly sad and discouraged that apparently everyone else thinks its just noise in our slide into Nero style Roman decadence.
I want to start a campaign to insist that this flag had better be the rainbow flag, transgender flag (yes apparently there is a special flag for that) Olympic rings flag, state of California flag but no how no way should Old Glory be used. But I don't know where to start and I posted it on a horse BB board that a veteran and veterans wife read and no reaction. Posted it on a conservative politics blog and some "ewww" reaction about the 67 year old almost nude regardless and or because of whatever hormone and surgical attacks on natural biology and only one response that understood the disrespect to the flag was the focus of my outrage.
I've never even been much of a flag waver type, but the SI plan pisses me off royally. But I'm terribly sad and discouraged that apparently everyone else thinks its just noise in our slide into Nero style Roman decadence.
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