Isn’t saddle shopping awful? Just awful. Unless you have an unlimited budget, it’s so hard to find THE one.
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I propose Cinderella tack swaps, but I am not sure how to make it a thing.
Sometimes, my ideas and reality are at odds. (Especially when it comes to home remodeling.)
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What is Elmo’s saddle and size?
What is a cinderella tack swap? I’ve never heard of it! There is a tack sale in a couple weeks I plan to go to, although I’m not sure I expect to find what I’m looking for.
@starsandsun Elmo’s is a Stubben 1894, 31cm 17.5" with a point billet, larger rear gusset, and a short flap for me. After a long and painful game of used saddle roulette I gave up and ordered him a special saddle for his special shape at the end of 2021. I’m betting that an off-the-rack 1894 with a slightly narrower tree would probably do just fine for Bo (and Cooper), but due to all the farm improvement projects (like building a barn + hay storage for these beasts), my budget just isn’t that big right now. I’m sure there are a variety of used saddles that would work, I just need to find them!
The saddle that fits him nicely but is a big NO from me is a medium tree Kieffer Freestyle. I am not usually so picky when it comes to saddles, but there is something about the shape of the seat on the Kieffer that is very, very wrong for my conformation 
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Stubben is having a Summer Sale on their website, for 25% off. Also, under used saddles, there are several 1894s listed, in various sizes. Don’t know if the discount code applies to used saddles.
Well, a couple decades plus ago, a group of us would get together and do a trail ride and cookout yearly.
We would all bring whatever extra saddle/saddles we had and allow whoever was looking to try them there. Other tack would show up, too. Sometimes saddles were just traded, sometimes they were bought. It worked well for us, and this sometimes would happen at the local schooling shows back in the day.
We called it a Cinderella tack swap. No tack shops to speak of in the area. No (gasp!) Craigslist back then. Just a thrifty nickel.
The trend died off as local club management went from bad to worse and people stopped showing up.
I wish shipping saddles were cheaper, I bet we all have a saddle that is perfect for someone else. And at tack room bargain prices, too!
I realize there are plenty of used saddle sources now, but amongst trusted comrades I feel we could all give each other good deals.
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I used a compounding pharmacy in KY for flavored Bute for my Poison Detector TB.
He’d eat the peppermint powder right from my hand.
They also offered molasses & orange flavors.
Vet sends the script, you order directly & they ship to you.
This was nearly 15yrs ago, but I can try looking up the place if you’re interested.
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Thank you @Jarpur and @starsandsun, I will just need to save up a little bit more if I want another 1894. And it would probably be best to enlist a fitter to get things right, I will need to have her out to check Elmo’s new saddle once it arrives anyway. I suppose it is no rush for Bo, he doesn’t care one way or another as long as the food train keeps rolling. 
Speaking of which, he continues to hassle me. He’s eating - still not as much as I’d like, but he looks good so I’m not worrying - but his appetites for certain things go up and down. For days he will be hardly interested in his cube mash, asking for more senior. Then his appetite will swing the other way, and he’ll keep asking me for more cubes at every meal. It’s a little exhausting, trying to guess 3-4 times a day which meal he will want to eat, dumping out rotten buckets of uneaten cubes, listening to him plead with me at feeding times because what I have delivered is not what he wants. Some days he begs me to give him alfalfa (which he cannot chew in the least). I give him half a flake, and he wads most of it but I’m sure he is able to pick out some of the leaves. And other days, he asks for none of the above, I wants something else please, but I have to tell him sorry - that’s what’s for dinner. Eat it or don’t, there is nothing else in the kitchen.
He is a happy boy but man, he is demanding sometimes 
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Pretending to eat his little chunk of alfalfa for breakfast. 
I know it look like maybe you can see a hint of rib, but if I run my hands over it there is a light layer of fat there. I think his weight is pretty ideal right now, it’s just extra topline muscle we’re lacking. No surprise for a senior who doesn’t do a lot of work.
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He looks PERFECT!
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I agree. This is how I like my horses. The shine in his coat is very telling too!
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How do you think he’d handle really finely cut up alfalfa? I have taken Standlee compressed alfalfa flakes and used an electric hedge trimmer to finely slice them up so the stem pieces are really short. I tried a leaf shredder first, but for me the hedge trimmer route gives a more consistent tiny pieces result.
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He looks great!!! What an amazing job you have done getting him to glow!
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I have not tried chopping up alfalfa flakes myself, no. A while back we tried the bagged chopped alfalfa but many of the pieces were still too big and hard for him, there was a lot of waste. I have wondered if soaking the already chopped hay would make it soft enough, but haven’t tried it yet (and then we’re still on the clock with it going rancid).
I also tried shaking out a whole flake and giving him just the leaves and small bits, no coarser stems. He was offended. I think he likes pulling the flake apart and picking out the best bits. At least it gives him something to do!
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Many years ago, I had an elderly horse who had eight teeth removed at the age of 31. A friend (who is a a government veterinarian, not someone in private practice), suggested that I feed him what some animals at zoos receive, which was a kind of chaffage/haylage, and she brought me a bale. The main thing I recollect about it is that, once opened, it had to be fed within a certain number of days.
Remembering that caused me to consult google, and I came across this product:
From what I remember about where you’re located, it looks as though there are a couple of dealers not all that terribly far from you.
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How DARE you trifle with his mealtime hobby!
Horses!
My TB let me know, in no uncertain terms, if I served meals late.
He’d snatch the flake of hay before I could put it down & give me eloquent side-eye that plainly said:
Good Help, so hard to find! This is going in your Permanent Record! 
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Yankee Pony says I am getting another ‘demerit’ whenever I am late…
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I think it sounds like Bo has trained his kitchen staff to perfection.
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he looks wonderful. I doubt he will be able to develop an athletic topline before next year, if he can get in a regular routine of distance walking work. A miracle has been done here.
I also wonder what kind of scar tissue exists inside his bowel loops given his “rocky” start
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