Dover Tent Sale

I had the day off on Friday because my company likes to give us wellness days I think to make sure that we actually take days off (we get unlimited PTO but a lot of people don’t take that time, I am not that people lol but I appreciate the extra days here and there). For our other days, I have some things in mind, but this day off was unexpected. For me, that means ponies. 

Luckily this coincided with the local Dover Saddlery store's tent sale. I went with a long list, but figured that I'm also headed to Kentucky, have a pretty significant store credit at Smartpak, and can always find a 15% off coupon for RW, so I decided to limit myself to things at Dover that had a pretty significant discount. 

And that I did! They were having a 50% off sale on a ton of Dover brand items and then also a buy one get one for a lot of other items. For me, the items on the buy one get one didn't make sense for me to get two of OR weren't on my list, but I did find a bunch of stuff that was 50% off. 

It was hot so both horses got to go
up into the hills over the weekend

Knowing how my schedule is with two horses and a full time job where lunchtime is really the only time I can block off, I wanted to stock up on summer clothes. I have some very old Kastel Denmark sun shirts that really need to be tossed at this point and that's about it for summer tops that aren't tank tops or t-shirts. For breeches/tights, I have two pairs of tights that I like to wear and two pairs that I don't like to wear. On a related note, why don't all companies make giant wide waistbands?? I say this as someone who was emotionally scarred with low rise jeans as a youth so maybe I'm extra picky about how enormously high and wide I want my waistbands on tights. 

Dover had their own brand of sun shirts on 50% off sale and I tried them on and actually really liked them. The material felt better quality than Smartpak's piper sun shirt (I have one of those and it's falling apart, yikes) and thicker/less clingy than Kastel. By the way, I will say that I am not a picky person when it comes to riding clothes, just generally but especially now that I'm at the ranch where no one is going to see me. For 50% off, I decided to buy three of them in some really cute colors and see how they held up. 

Pony looking down on the valley

I also found some tights with nice waistbands! I found one pair of really cheap full seat tights and they ended up being my favorites of the ones I tried. I think with the 50% off deal, they ended up being like $25. I would have bought like five of them, but they were legit the only pair there. Such a bummer, they're super comfortable and insanely light weight. 

Instead, I found some others. My only qualm was that they were black, but they felt so airy and light that I ended up with two pairs with the hope that they wouldn't feel too hot in the summer. With the other pair I got and the two I have at home that I like to wear, that's three non-black tights, so I can try to wear the black ones on the weekends when I can ride earlier or on days where it's not *as* hot or when I know I'll be mostly trail riding. 

I'm glad we're getting some rain this week so that
the hills hopefully stay green for a bit longer!

Finally on my list was a girth for Sunny! I bought my niece her own saddle, which she refuses to ride in of course because she's two, but I didn't have a girth that fit it. I ended up with a 40" pony girth for half off as well. 

All in all, a really good trip to Dover for their sale! I walked away with three new pairs of tights, three new sun shirts, a new girth, and a free bucket and saving more than I spent. I'll definitely go next year and will know whether I want to stock up on more sun shirts or tights at the very least. 

After Dover, I headed down to the ranch, stopping for some popsicles to toss in the barn freezer along the way. TC and I enjoyed a really nice ride in the arena (despite him forgetting to take me with him during a leap, it was actually hilarious because I yelled "hey" at him as I felt myself falling and he flung himself under me to prevent the fall as if to say "whoops, sorry about that") and I rode Sunny down the road and back after he and I agreed it was too hot to do an arena ride by then. 

I think we're all set for summer at the ranch! Just need to stock up on more popsicles since the horses and I already went through a few of them over the weekend.