Sidesaddle Clinic

Over the weekend a barn mate and I went to a sidesaddle clinic an hour south of us. Opie and Daisy spent all morning hanging out on the trailer like complete rock stars, snacking on their hay nets and getting on and off for water breaks, grazing breaks, and saddle fitting with zero fuss.

The morning we learned about the saddles while we got all the horses in the clinic fitted for their own. Opie of course got the unicorn saddle that fit him perfectly, which of course also had to be the jankiest saddle out of all of them. It was missing a bunch of pieces and literally falling apart.

We had lunch, got a talk about the history of sidesaddle, and then got all the horses tacked up to ride.

Their mounting block was shoved in the corner against their white tape fence so it was like going into a chute. Opie was not here for it and was getting light in the front end. Since he'd been absolute Satan the previous two days and I know how nutty he can get, it did not inspire me with confidence. I had one of the lady's walk us around a couple laps while I sat astride until I felt like he going to be sane.

We then walked a couple more laps by ourselves before I stopped and swung my leg over. It was dreadful. The saddle didn't fit me at all, even after they shimmed my body left right and sideways. Plus the girth never really got all the way tight so any time we did more than walk a straight line it started sliding left and I'd have to beast it back over to center.

We did some trotting, but it sent us so far left that I couldn't hold it long. My barn mate turned out to be a sidesaddle savant though and was doing w/t/c with zero issues. Her saddle was also way more legit lol.

While it was way harder than I thought it was going to be, and I was kind of frustrated with how horribly the saddle worked for me, it was definitely a really cool clinic. And now I can cross that off my list, say I did it, and move on.