Chaos

No, that's not Alex dressed up for Halloween, but wouldn't that be awesome?? 

It's been a long time since I posted...guilty :-/ Things have been totally crazy around here.

The saddle fitter was able to come early (10/10/13) and... Even after a near gutting of the excessive flocking, Alex has grown out of my saddle.  Yes, apparently I've fed and worked my horse so well that he's gained quite the topline.  The newly repaired County Stabilizer XTR Medium no longer fits my beast of a horse... insert swear word here [......]

This was proven further by sitting in a saddle with a 1/2 larger tree size and feeling Alex bounce along almost to the point of bouncing me out of the saddle.  We did try a demo Innovation for a few days, but unfortunately it had standard flaps and my knees poked over the front of the flap! 

SO, after much searching without finding... yesterday I ordered a brand new County Stabilizer XTR.  Basically, the same saddle I currently have, 17.5 with a Low Forward Flap just a 1/2 size larger tree...

Have I mentioned that I have the best husband ever??  Honestly, I wish I could have found something used, I really do, but I am so excited to be getting a new saddle, I've never had a new saddle... like ever in my whole life (29 years) of riding.  Then, I feel guilty, because it's a lot of money :-/  Then I'm excited again :-)

Other than that, not much else has been going on, Alex spent about two weeks being absolutely brilliant (like we hacked around a different part of the farm and he was totally chill by himself).  Then with the weather change in the last week, he's turned into an idiot.  For example, the second ride of the fall in the scary indoor, Alex did a lot of bolting at every little noise.  One such bolting went straight sideways into the concrete wall, smashing my leg and dragging it along the wall for two strides.  Thankfully he missed smashing my knee and scared himself enough that he'll probably never do it again, but damn does my leg hurt.  I rode last night, after lunging out as much of the crazies as possible, my leg was mostly fine until we started cantering when it hurt so bad I had to stop.

Today was pedicure day and I was exhausted.  We'll be back at it tomorrow. 

P.S.  I'm totally slacking at the 2-Point Challenge...