I haz a saddle!

The heat of the summer is officially here, and it needs to leave now. I've never done well in heat, and I can't see myself forcing my horse to work for me in the blistering heat, so we've been waiting until dark lately to do any groundwork.

And the other day, I let him see his old friend, Mr. Hose. Altivo didn't seem to care about the hose or the water spraying him- didn't seem to really like it, but he also didn't fuss about it. Then he turned his head toward me, and I aimed the hose at his mouth.

He's a mouthy horse to begin with, and letting him chew at the water stream coming out of the hose was heaven for him!! He followed the hose when I moved it, licking at the water and opening his mouth really wide....silly horsie!!

Oh, and the mail came!!! Lookie-

It's the Abetta draft saddle I talked about last blog- it's way comfy, and I put it on him without a cinch just to snap a picture. I'll put my cinch on it and snap a picture of it actually ON him....I put it on him last night and tightened it on- I made sure to go slowly and bit by bit like my teacher said, since yanking it tight the first time can make a horse sensitive to the cinching up process, and I want to make saddling up as happy as it could be with me. I bought a back cinch to help keep the saddle on him, since he's round like a barrel, and it didn't come with a back cinch connector strap. That's one of these:

It connects the front cinch with the back cinch so the back one doesn't slip back and work it's way into the horse's no no spot. That can cause them to become annoyed and think that bucking you off is a great idea.

Oh, and I went with the ESP saddle pad by Classic Equine- I got a great deal on eBay, and it's black and cream, which is nice and understated....though I totally wanna get one of these to go over it!!

The next thing is to find a pulling breast collar that fits him- but I was hoping to find a fleece lined leather one in black....but it seems that in the draft horse world you can't be too picky....I haven't managed to find what I'm looking for yet.

I can't wait for my next lesson- I actually have everything I need to tack him up and have him ready to ride when my teacher arrives! Whoo!!

And on the training note- kissing and tapping his leg now has a 50% chance of him lifting his foot for me....what a change from the day I got him- when the girl showing him told HorseFriend- "if you can lift his foot up I'll buy you a soda, he just won't do it"....HA!