Mara practices being a Seattle trail horse

Finally some great weather! It's pouring rain! I couldn't be happier to get to test my saddle on a real ride in a downpour. First it was a delightful, horizontal spray on my sweaty face, then it came pounding down harder and harder, soaking us through. The only downside was, yah, brand new saddle, soaking wet on its first real test ride.


I took the Garmin so I could see my track afterwards, and average speed and fastest (although today was a mostly walking ride).

Mara was balky in areas she'd never been, but if she was good and after some circling decided to give forward a try, after 20 meters or so I'd hop off and start jogging. I did a LOT of jogging down hills today and speed walking down technical, stony trails. It was great. I wasn't angry at her - I knew that the rain was a challenge for her. It may have been her first time ever out under saddle in a downpour, and the woods do sound and behave differently in thick rain. She was very upset about certain plants that couldn't take the water and were lying down on their sides, such as ferns. I talked to her the entire time, doing that crazy lady talk. Whenever I trotted, I did the 1-2-3, onetwo, 1-2-3, onetwo - that is my new rhythm for switching diagonals. The SS makes it sooooo easy to switch, I decided I will try to ride patterns of left diagonal, right diagonal, always.

I also just sat back and enjoyed the feeling of sitting the trot in that saddle. It is awesome, it encourages sitting, even.

And GUESS WHAT. I got on my horse for the first time without assistance. That saddle does NOT ROLL at all. I almost cried, I was so happy. I honestly thought I'd never be able to get on this horse without aid. OK now that I know it, I still will try to find aids (hillsides, etc) cuz I don't want to warp my new saddle or new horse. I'm no lightweight, so I shouldn't be climbing up from the ground anyway. BUT I CAN, thank God, I can: )

Mara never avoids the rain, like Baasha and Bellis. She is always standing there next to the open barn, in the pouring rain, happily. The donkey knows she'll melt, so she does not let a drop fall on her.

I knew riding her in the rain would be refreshing and not abysmal, like it was for Baasha.

I told myself today I would just ride where I felt comfortable, and walk the rest. I need to expand our comfort zone.

I love this loop. It's called the Bayer Busch loop, cuz the company Bayer has a business nearby. It is a beautiful loop by the watershed, with white swans feeding (Mara had never seen swans ducking for food before) and fishermen camped out along the water. Lots of good climbing and descending, and a perfect 3 hour loop.

By the end she was, well, kind of tired I guess. Her head was lower than normal. She had stopped that non-stop snorting in anxiety that she kept up the first few hours.

The funny thing was at the trailhead, coming home. She looked through the trees, to the field - that grassy slope I've been blogging about getting down for the past few weeks, and she froze. She thought, "The sheep were there yesterday!" and she wouldn't do it. Rather than put my heels on her and start something, I just waited. I watched her weigh her options. I can stand here, or go back down the trail for more trail riding, or I can just ....go home, past those sheep. She started to whirl but changed her mind. She took a hesitant couple of steps. I was almost smiling cuz I knew she was gonna decide she was already late for dinner, and it was up to her to just be brave and go home. Finally she moved forward. At that point I did laugh out loud.

When we got home I pressed her up to our house so I could ring the doorbell. It took a while, she didn't know why I wanted her so close to the house. She's not a trail horse yet. Finally I rang it and my man stuck his head out into the rain. I said, "Please, please take a picture of me and Mara on our first real outing in the rain!" and he did.

We look so pathetic, but honestly, I prefer being soaking wet in refreshing rain, than yesterday, the burning sun on my skin.

I had tried to shim my saddle, based on lots more videos I found about SS fitting, but even though I used only the thinnest shim, and bevelled it with my scissors and rasp to make a gradual slope, I could feel where it ended even through the fitting cushions. So, I honestly don't know about shimming this saddle. It seems my horse is exactly wide enough for it with no help (not too narrow like most horses). I don't feel any gaps.

*UPDATE* Dave sent me a cryptic email telling me how to use the loin templates and I was right - she needs no shimming in the back. He also told me to move my pads closer together in the back and the front based on the photos I've posted here. So now I just have to figure out the front. And middle.

I did set the stirrups in the forward-most posistion - the "Oh Crap" position, I will call it now. It helps for this difficult time. Also, since I could only see the tip of my toe at any time, I know my leg was properly under me and not in a chair-position.


I can only show you my sweat pattern - very bad - from today as an indicator. The entire first half of her back had the waffle-weave pattern driven in, and was completely dry, whereas the back half of her bearing area was wet evenly. WTH.

Any help would be appreciated.

Here is a video my man made of us in the rain.

And our stats for the 3 hours:

Lytha-Tour, 18.8.13:
12.28km (7.6 miles)
moving av. 5.2 km/h (3.2 mph)
max speed 16.6 km/h (10.6 mph)


P.S. My husband was kind of upset when he saw how soaked I was when I came in the house - he said, "Should I call Dr Knopf right now and make you an appointment? You just got over a week being bed-ridden with a virus, and you're soaking wet." I said, "I had a way better time than when it's sunny out!" But it's true, I was stuck in my bed 4 days last week, violently ill and will never, ever take the antibiotic Azithromycin again. Apparently I react badly to it.

P.P.S. If you're curious about where the trailheads of doom are - if you look at the track, at the lower left there is a little loop, indicating I went one way on the way out, and another on the way back. The top of that loop is the scary shepherd's house with the sheepdogs on cables between trees and the chicken coop of doom. The bottom of that loop is the scary grassy slope where the neighbors have curtains on bushes and more chickens flapping and squaking, and sheep. Once we get past either of those two trailheads, we're good.