Yay for blog hops! This time Hand Gallop asked: What’s the origin of your horse’s show name and barn name?
Even though I don’t talk about Sadie much here since she’s leased out, I’ll cover both ponies.
I bred Sadie myself, so I picked her names from the beginning. Her sire is the stallion Westporte so I knew I wanted something with West. The finalists were Westbound and West Hollywood but I really prefer one word names, so Westbound won out. For a barn name I picked out a few, depending on sex. If it was a colt it was going to be Bodie, no questions asked. If it was a filly it was either going to be Stella or Sadie. I picked Bodie because it’s a gold-mining ghost town in Cali and you can’t get more “western” that that. Stella was a character from the series Rough Rider Weekly, and Sadie was the nickname of Wyatt Earp’s wife. Obviously I had way too much time to think about names while I was waiting for her to be born. Once she was here Stella didn’t really seem to fit her, so Sadie it was.
Sadie’s sire in a top hat. You’re welcome.
Henry was a little trickier. His registered name is He’salmostsweet, because he was born the day before Valentine’s Day. When I bought him his barn name was Jerry. I have nothing against all the Jerry’s in the world but I just don’t think it’s a good name for a horse, so for the first day or so his name was NotJerry. I thought there was something about his eyes that made him seem like a sweet old soul, so I looked through old fashioned men’s names and really liked Henry. I was going to tie that into a show name of Fairlane (like Henry Ford, Ford Fairlane… SO is a big classic car nut) but there were so many crazy circumstances that fell into place juuuust right when I bought him that Happenstance seemed more appropriate. It’s a more popular name but it fits the whole situation so well I just couldn’t pass it up.
Yeah, I know… I’m crazy. But sometimes it works out.
I’ve had my Mondoni Kingston boots for a while now, and I’ve been abusing the heck out of them. They were kind of a medium brown color to start with
But as they’ve worn they’ve faded a little in some spots, and my super powerful Texas-fueled sweat had left a slightly darker coloration in other spots. They looked great right after I polished them, but with the way I abuse boots they wouldn’t look great for long. So I decided to dye them a dark brown, hoping that would a) even the color back out a bit, and b) make them a little easier to keep looking nice.
Supplies:
Fiebing’s leather die (I used Chocolate)
Gloves
wool dauber
polish
I have some Resolene coming that I will use as a top finish, but I haven’t done that yet and you really don’t HAVE to do it if you don’t want to. It just acts as a nice water resistant top coat.
If your boots have a top coat or thick finish, you probably want to use deglazer on them first. Mine did not, so I skipped that part. Instead i just wiped them down with a rag that had a little bit of Dawn dish soap on it, then a plain wet rag to clean off any residue. Then I let them dry thoroughly (I put mine in front a space heater because I’m impatient).
After that I went to work. There’s really no technique or science to this… you just basically paint them with dye. I did two coats just to help cover everything more evenly. Yes, I still managed to get dye all over myself despite the gloves. Luckily it washes off pretty well with soap and water if you do it immediately.
Then I let them dry again, put a light coat of polish on top, and voila! Chocolate brown boots.
Before:
After:
This was so much easier than I imagined it to be in my head, and really gave new life to my boots. I’m super happy with the color too!
I noticed this weekend that my dressage saddle could really use a touch up… it’s got some rubs and scrapes on the front of the flaps and cantle that just aren’t really improved with conditioner. So I bought some black dye and will tackle that next. That one will probably require deglazer and will definitely require Resolene, so it’s a bit more of a project, but I’m curious (and brazen) enough to try it out.
Now I keep looking around for more things to dye. I’ve got most of a bottle of chocolate dye left!
Whether you think it’s ugly or awesome, you really gotta see this. I have never in my life seen a bridle that was so meticulously designed. From top to bottom, it is definitely worthy of the term “engineered”. Gotta hand it to those Swedes.
Please stop taking my picture
First let’s talk features, then I’ll give some opinions. Fair warning: all I had to take pictures with was my crappy old iPhone, which seems to think that the only place in my house with suitable lighting is the guest bathroom, so it looks a little shinier and darker here than it really is. I’ll have nice pictures by the time I post a full review.
Crown: The crown looks really wide and padded, and well… it is. But it doesn’t swallow the head like I imagined it might. The padding is nice and thick and soft, I can see how the horse would find it very comfortable. The cutout design around the ears sits perfectly on Henry, you pull the bridle on and it settles nicely into place as if it was molded for his head. He’s got very sensitive skin and gets rubs even from his padded leather halter, so I personally am a fan of this feature.
Browband: I was really skeptical of the “swoopy” design of the browband, but luckily it actually looks pretty good on Henry. The swoop isn’t very severe, and the way it sits on his forehead is very ergonomic… once it was on him I understood why they designed it that way. It also has snaps on both sides so that you can easily remove it. They sell lots of fancy browbands so in theory you could switch back and forth if you wanted. The snaps are very easy to fasten/unfasten but hold really well. Super cool feature, I’ve never seen anything like it.
Cheeks/nose: The cheeks are curved and shaped to pass around the bones of the face. I love the fancy stitching and the padding, those details help give it the look and feel of a high dollar bridle. The noseband is the same general idea of the Micklem as far as not having any straps running over top of the teeth. The rolled parts and the flat part across the nose are easy to bend and mold to the horse’s particular nose shape.
Noseband strap: This basically looks like your standard bottom strap from a crank noseband, except instead of “cranking” it has a metal snap on the side for easier and quicker on/off. If you don’t like the snap you can remove it. I like that there is a roller buckle and plenty of padding under the jaw. I did change some things around on this, configuration wise, which I’ll talk about in a minute.
“Flash” strap: The strap that runs around the mouth under the bit is pretty straightforward. I really like that it buckles directly underneath the chin, instead of to one side or the other. It seems much less likely to pinch and also makes it a lot harder to over-tighten the flash. An interesting thing I noticed with the buckle here, as pictured above, is that instead of being sewn down like all the other buckles, this one has screws.
Cheekpiece/rein elastic: This is a feature I wasn’t expecting, and I didn’t even notice it until I put a bit on the bridle. In the hook ends of the cheekpieces and the reins there are little elastic inserts… two layers of heavy duty elastic that are sewn and glued together. The bit nestles on the elastic. I pulled on it REALLY freakin hard before I realized what it was, so I have to say it seems sturdy. And yet again I find myself saying that I’ve never seen anything quite like this. They do say that you can easily cut the elastic strips out or have a saddler remove them if you don’t like them, but my initial impression is that on my very sensitive fussy horse I kinda liked the feel. It seemed a little bit softer. We’ll see as time goes on, but for now it stays.
Reins: These are all of my favorite things rolled into one. They’re thin, they’re soft, they’re rubber lined, and they have stops. If you want GRIP, these are your reins. And since they’re so thin and soft, they feel really nice in your hands. No more bulky stiff rubber or web reins.
Rein stops: My bridle came with regular leather rein stops but since I don’t use a running martingale on Henry and probably never will, I took them off. However, PS of Sweden did send me a free pair of their snap-on stops, which are awesome. I’ll keep these in my trunk just in case I ever do need them. Gone are the days of trying to pull those damn rubber stops over rubber reins or buckles. Snap on, snap off. And so much prettier than rubber.
As far as design goes, this bridle hits it out of the park. For as cool as it looked online it’s way cooler in person. I got Cob size, which probably would not fit a horse any bigger than Henry… he’s on the lowest hole of the noseband.
There were a couple things I changed around.
pic from PS of Sweden website
First, the snap on the noseband was facing outward. I’m one of those people who cringes all the way to the depths of my soul when I see a full cheek bit without keepers, so it’s not much of a stretch to imagine that I just couldn’t let the snap stay facing out. My luck, the horse would rub it’s face on something and snap his face to it. So – I flipped it around to where the opening of the snap is facing inward, which I think is easier to fasten anyway. I also switched the whole chin strap around so that the snap is on the left, since that’s the side I bridle from.
pic from PS of Sweden website
Also, the excess flap of leather on the noseband kinda got in the way of the cheekpiece a little when I was riding, so I took a keeper that was originally in the bottom middle of the chin strap and moved it to the end so that the flap would stay tucked as close to the face as possible.
There are a couple of things I’m not 100% in love with, if I’m being really picky, but I’ll touch on those in the full review after I use it for a while. My first impression is that this is a really COOL bridle, very innovative and beautifully executed.
I figure it’s probably time to upgrade from my 15 year old brushing boots. After much internet research I think I’m down to the Majyk Boyd Martin boots or the Premier Equine boots.
Input on either? Is there another brand I should give a serious look at? Would like to stay under $200 for the full set. Horse is pretty typical medium TB build, if anything his cannons are a bit on the shorter side.
More about that next week. For now, on to the blog hop.
Blog Shoes and Boat Shoes asked: What are some quirks, naughty or nice, that your horse has and do you love or hate them?
Everyone knows that my horse is a weirdo. Eccentric doesn’t really begin to cover it. He’s never really particularly naughty (although he isn’t shy to express his opinion, so if he’s bored he’ll paw a little or if you’ve done something to irritate him he might pretend nip at you) but he’s an oddball. He’s plays with his tongue/mouth obsessively, pretty much all the time.
He’s not a very touchy feel lovey dovey type of horse, but he is highly food motivated. Give him plenty of treats and you’re golden. No treats and he’s a little bit like a grumpy old school horse. I don’t mind any of that, I just keep the treats flowing. Love via bribery is still love.
Otherwise he’s just your typical sensitive horse. Treat him fairly and he’s perfect. Treat him unfairly and he will certainly tell you how he feels about that. Hmmm… that actually makes him sound like a mare… 😉
breedrideevent.com 