@hallie2 PM’ed you!
An update because I’ve been thinking about it - younger horse is no longer at my barn and I never managed to get him to stand on these. I have the real ones now (thank you hallie2!) and I loooove them for my older gelding. I’ve had little to no issues getting him to stand on them, stacking them, etc. Some days he doesn’t react much at all, other days it’s licking and chewing and swaying. A couple of times I actually got nervous because he almost fully fell asleep and looked like he was going to fall over lol.
Sometimes he’ll stand on them for a bit then step off, sometimes he’ll be reluctant to lift off them when I want to put them away. It just depends on the day - I can’t say I’ve seen a massive difference under saddle for the most part but figured if he relaxed on them and let me massage him while standing on them then I’m very happy with that. He’s a cribber and arthritic in many spots so he has a lot of muscle tension.
Until the past couple of days however, when I really started to appreciate having these. This horse bucks under saddle, and bucks HARD. It’s only in the winter time, mostly during one canter lead, and presumably because of stiffness in mostly his SI and a bit in his hocks that haven’t been resolved with injections. I’ve managed to avoid most of the bucking this winter so far, but the other day I got on and every time I cantered to the left he was bucking and kicking out hard. I put him on the sure foot pads afterwards, and he had huge releases-massive massive yawning, licking, chewing, falling asleep, swaying a bit. I coupled that with some stretches afterwards, and the next day under saddle he bucked once or twice and that was it! Typically when he starts bucking, it sticks around for every ride until the colder weather ends no matter what I try. I put him on them again after the second ride, and his reactions were still present but less so. This lines up with the notion that he was less tight the second day.
That’s just my anecdotal evidence - but I’m definitely going to keep using these through the winter, and do even more research into combos to try since I’ve mostly been picking the density and feet they’re used for intuitively thus far.
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