Bachelor #1

When you're saddle shopping and your friend has a saddle you can try while you wait for restrictions to be lifted so your fitter can come out with a mess of saddles, you just go for it and embrace the opportunity.

Our first eligible bachelor is my buddy's well-loved Custom, which she has been passively attempting to sell for a while now. It's been well-cared-for, flocked professionally, and is lovely and squishy and very fancy with its big blocks, and has the flatter tree we're looking for at this point in time.  It could definitely work, and would very nicely solve a problem for both of us if it did.

While the fit was not perfect when I first sat it on Dino's back, it wasn't so bad that I couldn't take it for a spin. It had good wither clearance, it felt comfortable along his shoulders, and the rear panels made acceptable contact. The panels bridged just ever so slightly in the center, but it wasn't so much a gap as just a small decrease in pressure when I ran my hand underneath them. Again, not perfect, but perhaps something that could be changed with flocking, so I hopped on to see how it felt. I was optimistic.

We both hated it. We hated it SO MUCH. Dino absolutely refused to go forward, lift his back, or go on the bit at all. The saddle pad shifted and pulled underneath it. I felt like the saddle pitched me forward and hit me in my seat when I posted the trot, and I could barely sit the gaits in it. I was arching my back to an extreme to try and stay upright, and the whole thing was just very uncomfortable. I gave it a good try just in case I needed to adjust to a deeper-seated, bigger-blocked saddle, but the sad truth was that the Custom was all wrong for both of us. A disappointment for everyone!

I gave it back to my friend (it's still for sale if anyone's looking!) and coordinated with my fitter to take a different saddle on loan for a while, and both Dino and I were grateful to get back into my no-frills Prestige. Next up, Bachelor #2!