Good Luck Hubbybear!!!

First, good luck to my hubby. He is off today to run 54 miles up a mountain (well, half of it is up a mountain the other is back down) in a chilly 40 degrees and rain. Ick. But he has been training and looking forward to this race, so no weather is likely to keep him from making it. I think maybe a tornado or hurricaine would, but only maybe.

Second, I am waiting for a demo saddle to arrive. The fit won't be perfect. She has sold most of her demos or maybe she just never really has many, but she is sending me the one that is closest to what Gem would need. Thats one big con to this operation. Since there are so many choices and the saddles are built to order she doesn't have a great selection for demo purposes. I'm not sure but I think this is a one woman company fo the most part and keeping a bunch of demos around isn't possible. She wants Gem to try her medium tree and only has 1 medium demo to try. I'm more than  alittle nervous about that. She did say that this saddle has more lift to the loin and it may cause it to sit up off her back in the back. I've had that issue before with western saddles. But she insists it won't be because the width is too wide in front (if it is too wide in front it will tilt down up front thus lifint the back) but because this saddle was made with lift in the back. She has assured me that it won't mess up the overall fit to her shoulder, back and girth resting place. We will see.

I was amazed that she said Medium. Gem has always been a wide. Her Wintec was a medium wide and became too narrow. But...again she assured me not to be concerned. She has completely made up her own tree sizes. Meaning her narrow, medium and wide have no correlation what so ever to any other saddle. Why? Because she started out just doing custom saddles for each horse. You bought custom or you didn't buy. Over time she started to look at the molds and the trees she was making and was able to group them into 3 distinct piles. These she named narrow, medium and wide based on what she saw, but you can't compare them to any other saddle. This medium may end up wider or narrow or the same as my current wide.

So, we will see. In the meantime I am sitting on the sidelines for a bit. There is another pace this Sunday, but we won't be going. She has a big old spot on her right armpit from the girth rubbing and it has healed since I stopped riding a week ago. I want to keep it that way. Lets hope this saddle arrives in a hurry or I just might go insane without riding!