The Worst Experimenter

For someone who studied experimental psychology, you'd think I'd be a better experimenter! But I made a mistake this week. 

Feeling really good!

Those neck muscles, we have so much to do but
I'm glad to see him using muscles he hasn't in
a long time! 

I've been trying to figure out why TC's been muscle wasting for a while now. Things are definitely getting better, he seemed to be getting a bit better since moving to the ranch and I committed to riding in working gaits for the last month trying to help him build up the strength. Then last week I tried riding him a liiiitle bit more collected and everything fell apart. So better since the move (and why, no idea), but definitely not back to where he was. 

Kate and I were chatting on Thursday while I was over at her barn and she offered me her saddle to try. It'd make sense if his saddle was pinching him or ramming against his shoulder, can't have good posture with that issue. Kate's got a really unique saddle, it's a Pegasus Butterfly saddle, it has a tree with two hinges so it adjusts itself to fit almost any horse. We figured that it would fit him pretty well (it did, it was a beautiful fit) and if he went the same, then it was clearly not the saddle, but if he went better, I could look into either buying one or getting my saddle refit. 

Go pony!

Definitely could not control him a lot of the time

I rode in it on Friday and Saturday and WOW what a change in TC. He felt amazing. He felt like his old self! Super easy to connect and almost always up through his back and wither. I showed the videos to Kate and she noted that his shoulders were way more free too. He was SO excited too, he really felt great. 

By the time I got done with my ride Saturday, I was committed to buying one of those saddles. 

Then on Saturday night, I remembered I made another change on Thursday night, I switched TC's supplements. Daaaamnit. 

I couldn't really sit the canter

Feeling great, finally

He's been getting smartpaks for a while now but one of his muscle wasting symptoms is also having kind of a trash coat (he's been treated for ulcers and since then, has been on an ulcer preventative and hasn't been in crazy hard work). I decided to swap his smartpaks out for Platinum Performance CJ to see how that goes. 

I've known a few horses to go a bit nuts on Platinum. He definitely has a lot more energy on it, and I can't imagine that'd be from the saddle. So is his posture better because of the energy? Or is it unrelated and his posture is better due to the saddle? 

Remembering why I called him baby Totilas when
he was younger lol

He felt like his beach ball self in the canter

I don't want to pull him from the Platinum, obviously, but I can try riding him in my own saddle again and see what that looks like. Buying a new saddle is definitely in the cards, but if for some reason he just wanted to be on Platinum, that'd be easy! 

If he doesn't feel as good in my saddle, I'll go snag Kate's saddle for my Tuesday ride (her day off), and order TC his own saddle. 

As much as I don't necessarily want to buy a new saddle right now, it'd actually be cool to have a saddle that fits basically every horse. That means that TC and my new horse can share a saddle. I rode Sunny in Kate's saddle last weekend and it fit him beautifully. I could ride Rico in it too (they have a special pad that fits it to sway back horses). 

So really, either way it's a win!