What do you buy the lame horse who has nothing?

During this time with my un-rideable horse, I apparently had great faith in his healing abilities, because I bought him a new saddle.

Actually, two new saddles.

I got a Dover ProRide dressage saddle, which was a fascinating saddle~ it will figure prominently in a later tale. It was actually a great saddle for the price, looked good for a synthetic, and was comfortable except on the warmest days, where the seat did that non-breathing burn your skin sort of thing; tactile wise it was not hot, but... Good thing I didn't school dressage for very long on any given day.

It arrived via UPS, and I hustled up to fit it to him. He had lost a little muscling along his topline, but not much as he really hadn't developed all that much yet in his training. The saddle seemed to fit pretty well, no bridging or rocking, and I very briefly climbed aboard to make sure that I liked the seat.

It pitched me slightly forward, but due to Cappy's butt-high confirmation, I think that was rather an inevitability in any saddle.

You can admire both his downhill phsyique and his big right knee in this photo.

Oh, and slightly short neck. But he can reach the grass, so...

Meanwhile, I had sat in an Ainsley ProNational Cross Country saddle at a different local tack store, and I was in love. I dropped off my old saddle (that had never done Cappy any favors) to sell and gazed enviously at the Ainsley. $1,400... out of my price range. Enh, it was a 17" as well, and I would probably do better in a 17.5... but it was such a nice saddle. I decided since I was out on the east side of town, I might as well drive to the other big H/J tack store and see what saddles they had.

They had a 17.5" Ainsley ProNational Cross Country. On SALE for $800, as the new model had come out.

SOLD!!

As often, not the actual saddle in question,

but this is the model.

Image stolen from the interwebs.