Saddle up, part one

It never fails: Every time someone publicly spends a lot of money on a model horse, someone else is sure to exclaim indignantly, "You could buy a real horse for that."

But really, you could buy a college education for that

It's true, but also irrelevant and completely meaningless. After all, every single one of these three dollar and nineteen cent stablemates costs more than Olive did. Heh.

Of course, with real horses, the purchase price is just the beginning. When we got Olive, I told Seth that every dollar we didn't spend buying her was going to go towards saddles. Partly this was because I have high saddle needs, but also, I'd seen that back. I knew it was going to be a saddle fitting nightmare.

Sure enough, none of the saddles I already owned fit her. I started looking for something - anything! - to get us going and came up with a lightly used Duett Companion.

I didn't love it, but it fit Olive, and sometimes something really is better than nothing.

In the eight months since then, Olive has gotten less fat and more fit. Her topline has changed significantly, and the Duett is fitting a little less well.

I'd just started thinking about what I wanted to do next, when fate intervened in the form of Therese. She recently purchased Thunder for her daughter, Claire, and had booked an appointment with a Western saddle fitter. She asked if I wanted to split the cost, and of course, I said yes.

Before the appointment, I took lots of pictures of Olive and sent them to the saddle fitter with a description of what kind of riding I do and what kind of saddle I wanted.

Finally, the big day arrived.

Danna came with a whole bunch of saddles.

I really wanted some of them to fit.

This one so much.

I lost count somewhere along the way, but I know we put every single saddle in this picture on Olive. It was a long, hot and often frustrating day.

When it was all said and done, we'd identified two saddles that fit Olive really well.

That doesn't sound like a lot, but it was two more saddles than fit Thunder. Ugh. Sorry, Therese.

By this point it was over one hundred degrees, and everyone - humans and horses - was hot, cranky and exhausted. Instead of riding in the two good saddles, I made arrangements with Danna to keep them for a few more days. After all those months in the Duett, it was really important to me to get something that both of us liked this time.