My life in saddles

Hi everyone!  Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday, I had nothing to say really! 

 

Today, I'm going to show you my life in saddles!  As a horsey girl, saddles are a symbol of my equine life and I've had a few in my time; not one for every year, and I've almost certainly missed a few, but here's a short account of saddles in my life so far.

 

2000 - At this time, I had a Safari Colt saddle for riding our donkeys in.  It was a treeless little synthetic thing which was light enough to lift with one finger!  It had a little handle at the front instead of a pommel for little hands to hold on to if your noble steed decided to spook at something. 

 

2007 - My sister and I got our first pony, Sweep, in 2007, and with him, a horribly uncomfortable 1960s gymkhana saddle in a rather ugly tan colour.  It was nigh on painful to sit on (it had hard leather sections which dug into your thighs - ouch!) and we were told by the saddler that it would probably be better hanging on a pub wall than on a pony! 

 

Late 2007 - Jolly, my little black pony, was bought in late 2007 and came with a bridle (which she later swapped with Sweepie's bridle) but no saddle.  We bought a beautiful dark brown Olney saddle which was really comfortable and a real relief after the tan monstrosity!  Sadly, she doesn't fit it anymore - more about that later.  In late 2007, we also took Sweepie's old saddle (AKA the tan monstrosity!!) to a good trader in tack, riding wear and stuff where you can swap things that you want to get rid of for other items of roughly equal value.  Great!  It joined a saddle mountain in the back room there and we bought a good GFS black general purpose saddle, which was an absolute blessing!

 

Late 2009 - My Connemara, Merlin came with a big squashy Ideal which didn't really fit him - something had to be done.

 

2010 - It came to our attention that Jolly's Olney was sadly not fitting her anymore, so a black Wow saddle was purchased and customised to fit her with a foregirth which has worked wonders as any other saddles just slide straight up her neck as she has minimal shoulders and hates cruppers!  Merlin also received a treeless Dream saddle to replace his Ideal which was incredibly comfy :)  It was only temporary though, until we could find him a Wow of his own.

 

2011 - Merlin's Dream saddle was replaced by a second-hand 'green' Wow saddle with a suede seat.  I call it 'green' as the suede and leather, which were originally brown, had faded to sludge green.  Again, we intended to get him a new one which would be completely customised to fit him.

 

2012 - At Badminton, we visited the Wow stand and were given a 10% off voucher - the perfect excuse to finally get Merlin his ideal saddle!  It arrived later that year, in a lovely shade of deep red with black outlining.  It's so comfy - I love it!  And even better, it can be altered to fit Merlin's changing shape throughout the seasons.  Brilliant!