Well, I did get to ride with Sparky today and that was fun. First we had a hay snack together and then our moms got us all ready to go. Mom fussed a lot with my saddle today. Ever since I had problems with my saddle, she fusses with it because she doesn't want it to hurt me. We had awful problems with my saddle.
When I first came to live with her, she put a different saddle on me. It was a nice enough saddle and it felt okay at first but it wasn't long before it started pinching my shoulders. That makes it hard for a horse to move right. You can't really swing your shoulders forward and back which means you can't move your legs right. It feels like your body is getting squeezed. And when that happens, it makes other parts ache too. You can imagine. It's probably like that with people too, when you wear something that's too tight. Add a person sitting on top of you and it just gets worse.
So Mom brought a different saddle to put on me. That one was okay in the shoulders but it came down on my withers a little bit. I have high withers. Thoroughbreds are known for that. Mom put a special pad under the saddle to hold it up off my withers which helped that but the pad made it so it was tight in the shoulders! Mom didn't notice that right away. And it wasn't as tight as the first one had been so I wasn't that uncomfortable. But after a while I think my muscles grew because it got tighter and more squeezy. I tried to tell her it was bothering me but she just thought I was being bad. Well, I was bad a lot back then because I was still pretty young and green and didn't know much so I suppose it was hard to tell the difference between me being bad and me trying to tell her I was hurting.
Finally, I got really bad. I started swishing my tail and trying to buck and one day I reared with her on me! I didn't want to but my whole back hurt by that time. I was just so frustrated and she didn't seem to understand and I got mad! She was surprised and realized that something was wrong. She got off me and checked the saddle all over and that's when she realized I'd grown but the saddle hadn't. I know she felt bad. I did too but it was the only way I could think of to tell her. She didn't ride me for a while and she rubbed nice stuff on my back and just took me for walks until I felt better. Then she put another different saddle on me.
That saddle felt good. It fit me really well. The only problem was it didn't fit her. When we were just walking around the farm, it didn't matter but when we worked in an arena, I could feel that she was a little off balance in it. Well, that's not a lot better than having a saddle that doesn't fit the horse. If your rider isn't in balance, it throws you off too. It wasn't horribly bad - we could still work okay - but it probably wasn't easy for her to stay in rhythm with me like that. So one day she brought the saddle that we use now.
I liked that saddle as soon as she put it on me. It fit me so well and I had plenty of room at my withers and in my shoulders. The seat part of it felt nice too because it was a nice new saddle with lots of comfy padding so all my mom's weight was spread all over my back. That first day I felt like a brand new horse. I stepped right out and walked with big, long strides and I even cantered when Mom asked me to in the Rolling Arena even though we'd never cantered together. It didn't work very well; I wasn't really balanced at all and I was going too fast and when we got to the end of the arena, I didn't know what to do because I couldn't turn very well. But I felt so good I just wanted to try.
So that's the saddle we use now. Sparky has a saddle just like it and he loves it too. The best part is that our moms can change the size of them so if we grow through the shoulders, they can make them wider. That's a good idea especially for a young horse like me. My size changes all the time. That's why Mom is always checking my saddle. When she got the new one, she had a man come to the barn especially to check it and make sure it fit okay. He put it on my back and showed her how to check it herself so now every time she saddles me, she does that. I like it because it keeps me from hurting and having to be bad.
People don't realize sometimes how important it is to have a saddle that fits their horse. They think any old saddle will do. And if the horse is a very patient and well-behaved horse, it may not be able to tell its person otherwise. The only way we have to tell them is to show that we're in pain and to show that, we really HAVE to be bad. We move away when our person is putting the saddle on. Or we try to nip them or swish our tail. Once they're riding, we might refuse to go, or buck, or rear or just jig around and toss our head. There are lots of things we do to show we hurt but they're all things that we're not supposed to do when people are handling us. And a lot of people never figure out that it's because we hurt.
I'd just like to tell people to check their saddles carefully. And check them regularly because horses grow or gain or lose muscle and that makes their shape change. If you don't know how to check your saddle, ask someone to teach you, or call a person like my mom did. She called him the Saddle Fitter and I heard her tell Sparky's mom that it didn't even cost that much to have him come out. It sure was worth it though.
We had a nice ride today with Sparky and his mom. I showed him how well I can trot and Mom was happy with me. And when we walked home, I stepped right out and walked down the hill with the big, long walk that I know she likes. Then our moms let us roll in the Flat Arena and we had our dinner. It was a great day.
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