Cob Jockey

We've had some surprising twists in the "why is Connor NQR" and "is it the saddle" saga over the past few weeks, so buckle up!

In our mid-December lesson with CGP, he was extremely resistant to bending, wasn't forward, would not "follow his nose" around a circle, would not lift his back and was exceptionally tense in the mouth.  CGP was stunned at how much had changed in a month.  She palpated him (far more aggressively than my own palpation technique) and declared him "probably" back sore (although admitted other things can cause the appearance of back soreness), and gave me some stretching exercises to do with him, and also advised me to get a hold of my vet.

NQR but real cute!  PC: Austen

I wasn't 100% convinced he was back sore, but the idea was enough to make me email Eq Saddle Science and say I wanted to send the flapless back for now, as I was renting it weekly at the time (with all rental fees going toward the eventual purchase price of my custom saddle).  They convinced me to let them send me a Port Lewis Impression pad to prove whether the saddle was digging in anywhere.

PLI pads are clear plastic half-pads filled with fancy Play-Doh.  You ride in them for 20-30 minutes, and if your saddle is causing pressure points, you'll see them clearly because the Play-Doh will be thinner/let more light through in that area.

The Velcro isn't lined up properly here, plz ignore

Now, I 100% took this pad on the basis of "is this saddle making my horse sore?", but I have to admit I was curious to see whether there really were four circular indentations in his back because I'm just so skeptical of the Reactor Panels.  But I couldn't have been more surprised when I lifted the saddle off his back after a solid 40 minute ride and saw...nothing:


It was so smooth, so even, I was absolutely shocked.  There were just very faint indentations where the panels were.  The pressure was completely even all the way up and down the panel.


I hadn't intended to actually buy this pad, but in the end I did.  I want this data, for all of my saddles and all of my current and future horses.  No, it's not going to tell you EVERYTHING about the way a saddle fits, but it's a great starting point for information we normally have to guess at.  As the owner of a stoic horse, I'll take all the saddle fit data I can get, even if it means buying a half pad I'll probably use twice a year.

Resetting the pad by rolling it out

(PS - If anyone local would like to borrow it, I'm happy to let people borrow it for a small usage charge, since these do have a limited number of uses in their lifespan.)

No real areas of pressure to note, except where I sit real hard on my left seatbone (facepalm)

The good news is, it's not the saddle, but the bad news is, it's not the saddle.  Next...