I got a horse, now what? update 1-22-11

[Wynette]

Awe! He looks sweet! Give him a rub on the nose for me!

 

[twentynine]

Quote:
RP

The type of advice I need, is help trying to make a wise purchase. I have no problem with a synthetic saddle. What I get hung up on is they are so dang many of them out there. How do you judge --- "what is a good saddle?" I looked at the ebay link. Yes! It is very affordable. Comes with headstall and reins + free pad! And really my wife does no plan on any extended riding excursions. Saddle the horse, couple trips around the farm and back to the barn, couple miles, maybe an hour, two days later, do it again.


Thank you for the advise.

 

[rodriguezpoultry]

First, you gotta know your horse. Is it Quarter horse build or Cobb build? I went semi-qh bars instead of full qh-bars instead of full.

I bought a Star-One synthetic saddle. It's light-weight, keeps your butt in the saddle and doesn't move too much. It hasn't broken yet, but the "silver" on it is green now, so don't expect it to maintain it's shine. The stirrup straps are REALLY long, so you're gonna have to go and get those adjusted (extra leather to help keep the holes from ripping from use). Other than that, it's been a really good saddle. Like I said though, if you're in it for a bit, you're gonna be feeling the bars.


Wintec is one of the best synthetic saddles out there. But price was a major issue for me. I wanted a saddle I could get off of the stand, throw on the horse and ride off with, not one that needed to be babied. If I wanted a baby-up saddle, I'd have bought a show saddle or a used leather one.

Try looking in your local ads such as craigslist...I bought mine off of Ebay. $115 for everything minus the saddle pad. I wanted a thicker pad between the saddle and Max.

 

[~*Sweet Cheeks*~]

When I got my first horse, I stopped in at a tack shop that sells Crates saddles. They had the bare wood trees that they brought out and put on Kitty's back to see what size tree she needed and then you go in and sit on the saddles with the correct tree to find out your seat size.

I did buy a Crates saddle but man did that thing weigh a ton. I ended up buying a synthetic for the times I just wanted to show up at the barn and ride a little in the arena.

My trainer LOVED the Crates saddle and I ended up trading her $1000.00 worth of lessons for it.

 

[duckluck]

Quote:
That *is* a really cool story!

Someone asked how much for the chopper and someone else asked why people always ask that...if you've ever gotten slammed for an ambulance bill, you know why. $800 to go 12 miles to a people hospital in an simple ambulance begs the question of a chopper, for sure. And this was no simple SAR mission either.

Yes, I think it is a pretty natural question. People also may be thinking "what would I do if I could not afford it?" Which is just what I was thinking. Honestly, we were loading the gun night before, in case they decided not to come, or the cost was so high we could not do it.
I'm so glad we did not have to do that!
I was pretty sure they would come, my idea was that they do not often get to do something this cool - and I was right - the teams really seemed to enjoy being able to help do something so unusual and great.
Here is the pilot talking to Chloe after the rescue. He came to see her because he never saw her during the lift - since she was right below him, he was directed by the guy in the back.
[URL]https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/30736_dscf0499.jpg[/url]

That's great how that all worked out!

 

[Skyesrocket]

I like the synthetic saddles. They are lightweight, you can just hose them off and they dry pretty quick. They also seem to be more giving when it comes to fitting one to a horse. In fact a friend has my synthetic at her stables and it seems to be the "go to" saddle over there. It gets a lot of use.

 

[twentynine]

Have update but no time to post.

Seems as if everything is working out, with out me getting my stress envolved.

 

[ducks4you]

Great to hear that!! Everbody's rooting for you!!

 

[~*Sweet Cheeks*~]

Got the latest 'Soul of the Horse Blog' and thought I'd share it.

http://thesoulofahorse.com/blog/

 

[Cara]

With saddles you get what you pay for. It's better to spend your money on a good quality used one than a crappy new one. Synthetic saddles are lighter, but that also makes them weaker. Obviously you're not going to run out and rope cattle all day with him, but you know the saying 'buy cheap buy twice'. Equally, synthetic saddles do not breathe well. Would you wear synthetic boots? Poorly made/ill fitting tack is one of my pet peeves, if you're going to do something as dangerous as ride a horse you don't want your tack to let you down or cause the horse discomfort.

It does sound like he wanted to sell you a piece of crap, but $150 for a full set of tack is very cheap.