Saddle Up - Part 9

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7
Part 8

When I picked up my Freedom Holistic SemiFlex dressage saddle from the tack store I was surprised how light it was. I was happy about that too, because that meant there would be less leather and padding between me and my horse. Besides being light, it was beautiful.

I went immediately to the barn to try it out. I tacked up, and got on Kaswyn. After riding in the UltraFlex for 6 weeks, this saddle felt like heaven. It really felt like it had been made just for me, and I was extremely happy. Until I asked Kaswyn to trot.

He tensed his neck, raised it up, and was pretty resistant for the first few strides. He settled down a little after that, so I rode for about 20 minutes, trying trot and canter in both directions. Regardless of what Kaswyn thought, I was loving it. However it was clear that he was not as comfortable in the SemiFlex as he was the UltraFlex.

Well shit.

When I had Kaswyn all put away (and my new saddle cleaned and conditioned with Leather Therapy- not oiled because I was warned not to oil it), I called the gal from the saddle company. My concern was that my horse had gotten used to the UltraFlex and now this SemiFlex was going to hurt his back. We had come so far that I didn't want to go backwards, and I certainly didn't want to hurt him. She assured me that the Semi-Flex would not harm his back in any way, but that some horses do prefer one saddle over the other. She thought what was happening with Kaswyn was that he had gotten used to a saddle that was very flexible, and that because the SemiFlex doesn't move as much he might have thought that it was the old saddle and was anticipating pain. She said that the saddle would be stiff for a few weeks, but that it would loosen up and wouldn't hurt him in the process. She told me to ride in it for about three weeks. If Kaswyn still objected to the saddle then she thought I should have one of the saddle fitting ladies come out and look at it just to make sure it was fitted properly to him.

Then she said "If the saddle fits correctly and he still doesn't like it, you might just have to get an UltraFlex instead." Like I can afford a second custom saddle that I don't like riding in to begin with, especially when I'm still trying to sell my Cobra? Fat chance.

Speaking of which, the Cobra did not sell as a consignment the first go round at the tack store. So I took it home and tried eBay and some other tack classifieds. Still nothing. Then I got a call from the tack store saying that they might have someone who wants the Cobra, but at half my asking price. I told them that I really didn't want to go that low, but I brought it in to the store again. I thought that maybe this potential buyer would see it in person and somehow come up with more money.

Well that didn't happen, so I put it up for consignment again. And waited.

To sum up, I had a custom saddle that I loved but my horse didn't seem to like, and an old saddle that I couldn't sell. Things weren't looking too spiffy.

Part 10