New tack shop

We have a lot of horsey shops around here and Saturday was the opening of a long-awaited tack shop called (translated) "The Horse Crazy." Cool name huh? It's the closest one yet, about .5 mile away with not a single traffic signal between us.

Isabel works there (she's the neighbor girl who farmsits for us) and brought me a mug of coffee as I browsed the very expensive items with my husband. They also had champagne and bratwurst. The place was packed, we had to park way down the street. Everyone is excited about a fancy new tack shop! I saw some pony party people all with mugs in hand, but they were in such an intense conversation I just waved at them. Isabel will be working just a couple hours on Saturdays at Horse Crazy as she's in the middle of her vocational studies. It was really nice to talk to her again, and I told her to keep her eyes open for Arabians for sale.

We met the owner named Uwe and he asked if I was the one who emailed him a while back asking if they knew any horses for sale. He knew who I was just cuz it's a small town and I'm the only American. (This photo is taken from the newspaper from an article about Equitana vendors.)

He was happy to talk to us both in English in German about their products. I was interested in the Mountain Horse (from Sweden) brand parka (Legacy model) but they were only selling the ones with lining. They are really nice and supposedly waterproof for 10 years.

Although they have snaps in the back which open up and let you drape the back of the coat over your saddle, it doesn't seem like it would actually cover much. Compare Aarene's new raincoat which comes halfway down her thigh, hers will cover your butt and saddle while riding, but I'm not sure about the Mountain Horse Legacy.

Price: 289Euros (398$!!) - no way on Earth, but they are seeing if they can get a non-lined one for me. I really like Aarene's Muddy Creek jacket even without the indispensable pit zippers, but we'll see what they come up with at Horse Crazy.

As we were "shopping" (touching the fancy expensive stuff I'd never be wealthy enough to buy), I came across a bunch of argyle socks which are so popular with riders now.

The sign said 3 for 12E, and I told my husband in English, "These are the ugliest trend in riding I've seen in years" before I realized the girl behind him was wearing them.

Oops. Good thing I wasn't talking German. I explained to my man that we used to wear tall socks over our breeches UNDER our show boots to keep the breeches from riding up. At some point the people switched to paddock boots and kept the tall socks. Do you have this trend in your area? The online catalog images I've stolen here don't portray how tacky they look in RL.

Here's a mare for sale I'm inquiring about and the kid riding her is wearing them.

I see them on ladies at the grocery store often. They're really cute socks, but over breeches looks tacky to me. I hope it's not a worldwide phenomenon. To protect our calves from English leathers we used to wear tall boots, then half chaps, and now socks?

I see a new bay mare for sale (shown above) and I wrote her owner asking for a pic of her standing so I can see her legs and hooves. I got back 4 photos showing hooves only. Very nice, but not precisely what I asked to see. I asked again, we'll see if he can deliver. I don't really know how to say "conformation photo" in German, and I don't know if sellers really know what this means.


Many sellers seem to be pretty ignorant. Example: This is advertised as a purebred Arabian.