Ugh, remember when we used baby pads? I thought I was so cool when I found them in navy and hunter Green. Folded back over the withers.
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All of this makes sense, and thanks for explaining.
What’s the deal w old-style fleece saddlepads, the kind w pockets for the flaps or straps for the billets? Still an OK/good choice for schooling and showing? I have a bunch taking up trunk space. I don’t see anyone at my barn using and I haven’t so much as spectated at a show or clinic in 20 years.
Gosh, I remember when the Medallion pocket pad was a huge hit.
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I remember the pocket pads, but never used one. Ever. Can’t see how they’d fit a contemporary saddle anyway, because most of the current saddles have blocks of some sort under the flap.
Speaking for myself and my barn buddies, at home we use a contoured colored quilted pad, then some sort of ortho half pad (I use an Acavallo) under our English saddles.
Good point about contemporary saddles. The pads fit my present (old, flat, close-contact) saddle, of course, but not likely the trial saddle arriving next week. They’re an asspain to launder, anyway. So they’ll become kitty beds.
Also in the pile of old fleece saddle pads: a foam rubber lollipop with its fleece cover. If I show it to kids at the barn today they’ll have no idea what it is.
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OMG. The Medallion Pocket Pad- that was the best thing ever. I’ve been trying not to feel old but now I do.
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The Medallion pad could have been a “Seinfeld” episode.
“Look! It has pockets!”
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I recently moved to a barn that doesn’t have jumps so I ship in for jump schools and my trainer told me it was smart that that barn doesn’t have jumps because there is no trainer and who knows what kind of foolish things people will do and hurt themselves. It’s a liability.
He also reminisced about having his kids ride with no stirrups for ten minutes and he won’t even think it today because people can’t ride like they used to and someone will get hurt. Americans generally want the made horse that they can ride twice a week and win at horse shows. There aren’t many training their own horses. Trainers don’t (can’t?) force people to ride daily and ride well and if they tell them to do something and the student gets hurt could it be classified as negligence?
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Okay but this just isn’t true. That’s painting with a VERY broad brush.
There have been a number of threads talking about how much harder it is for people to ride as much and in the same way as “we used to”. And maybe… 2% of it is people wanting to just ‘ride twice a week and win at horse shows’. Also, how are people supposed to train their own jumping horses with no access to jumps at home?
Rather than lamenting about how ‘no one wants to RIDE these days’, maybe your trainer should try to help their clients get stronger and more confident instead of putting them down.
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lol
ok
not sure this guy is the best use of your money if that’s the outlook he verbalizes to his clients
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We drop our stirrups every lesson, jump without stirrups, remove the stirrups from the saddle … no one over here complaining!
The last show I did, my barnmate and I had to work off over a 3’3” medal course, and the judge asked us to remove our stirrups; so fun!
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Uh, yeah- no jumps at home and trainer won’t have students ride without stirrups? Hunh?
The thing is that there is validity to both ends of this narrative: we don’t have the same sorts of setups we used to, with lots of open land and big strings of lesson horses and ponies to learn on, and we have overly-packed schedules for kids and adults so they just can’t ride all week long (one side).
But on the other side, the micromanaging model that developed in the 1980s-90s and the megashows that operate year round, with humpty billion rings starting at poles on the ground, etc. etc. - all of that mitigates against people developing all of the skills we used to get just by bombing around all day. The basic model was jumping whatever was in front of us (I have fond memories of jumping my friend’s 13hh POA over a 4’ yard furniture contraption), hatless, and often unsupervised. Yeah, all of that was kind of stupid and dangerous, but you got all sorts of lessons in how to ride, particularly since many of us rode just about anything, from rank to saintly, and had to figure it out.
I don’t think people WANT to be limited in their riding skills, and certainly no one wants to be fearful of jumping more than 2’, but you don’t know what you don’t know. If that is the training situation you (or your kids) are in, and all of the other big barns you see at shows seem to have the same model, well…it’s what is normal.
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I’m curious about the “no jumping without an instructor…” and the general assumption that insurance does not allow this. Professionals - does your insurance policy state this? I’m curious because I board at a general boarding facility, which also hosts events. Horses and riders fall in barrel races, roping events, and all kinds of other situations (I’m sure we all know this). Is jumping singled out in your insurance policy? Or is this your decision, as a result of some experiences with boarders? If I’m a boarder, and buy my own jumps, does that change the risk situation? For the record - I agree that it’s your facility and you can set whatever policy you want - totally agree with that perspective. 
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I still use my Navaho pads!
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Okay, let me thin the brushstroke. “American riders who want to be competitive in the upper levels.” There is a reason the thoroughbred isn’t popular. People don’t want to learn to train them right? Or do you think it’s something else?
And btw my trainer does make you stronger and will challenge you if you actually show that you want that.
The reason the TB isn’t popular at the upper levels anymore is that the courses have changed in technicality and breeding programs have shifted to more purpose-bred horses (whether dressage, hunters, jumpers, or racing). TBs aren’t the right pick for most upper level showjumping courses or top end hunters. They are lovely horses, but we’re not building courses to suit them or rewarding their movement and way of going in the hunters. That’s a topic for a whole other thread.
But plenty of people are still buying young WBs (or TBs) and making them up on their own or with the help of a trainer. During the height of Covid, people were buying up young, unstarted or barely started WBs in droves. The market was nuts. With so many people working from home, they had the time to actually ride and do more.
As the pandemic eased, some people have been able to keep a hybrid or remote schedule. A lot of others have had to go back to the office. It’s that crunch of hours that kills most people’s ability to train a young horse.
Young horses need time. Sometimes they come out and they’re perfect. Sometimes they come out and it’s like someone hit a reset button and they don’t know anything. If you’re an ammy with a job, a commute, a family, kids, etc. you might not have the luxury of unlimited time in which to let swift young horse have his moment and then start again when they’re ready. You may only have an hour at the barn.
It’s also worth pointing out that with land becoming an increasingly scarce resource, ma y farms are closing. People who work in a city may have an hour commute to the barn. That’s an additional strain on time.
I don’t think that most ammys are lazy. It’s not that they don’t want to put in the work. There just simply aren’t enough hours in the day for all the commitments most amateurs have on their plate.
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Everything @outside_leg said.
I do want to add to the TB thing though. The TB has not been the breed of choice at the top levels of H/J for a long time. Can a particular Thoroughbred have the traits needed to be competitive at the higher levels in hunters, jumpers or Eq? Yes. Is the breed as a whole being bred purposefully for what is needed in those modern rings? No.
And that has nothing to do with people not wanting to work for it or train their own horses.
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Nope, that ain’t it.
@PNWJumper and I both have/had Thoroughbreds who were competitive at the grand prix level within the last decade. If you search the forums, you’ll find plenty of posts where we talked about how the courses of today don’t suit the typical TB the way the courses of yesteryear did - they’re designed for a more purpose-bred animal.
In other words, what @outside_leg said.
Sneering at the lowly American amateur gets us nowhere as a sport and accomplishes exactly nothing, so I encourage you to think in a kinder manner toward the people you share the sport with.
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Miss my custom chaps from the 1990s from Leather and Spice.
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I was appalled to scroll through this thread after it got bumped up and find a 2 1/2 year-old typo in one of my responses.
So now I’ve corrected it, and I will be curious to see if I sleep better at night because somehow my subconscious knew the typo was floating around out there this whole time. Lol.
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Yeah, and most are not wool flocked so adjustability is limited.
