Some people seem to not understand "negotiations"

I'm currently on a search for a Western saddle for Kieran, as I've mentioned before. I have found a Western saddle that actually fits him, so I don't have to go treeless. Unfortunately, that particular saddle belongs to a friend of mine (and I'm kicking myself because I'm the one who pointed it out to her, LOL). So I've been looking at similar ones online everywhere. Obsessively.

Also kicking myself because I saw exactly what I wanted on Ebay last week but dithered and while I was dithering, someone did Buy It Now and got it. Hah!

So since then, I've been in contact with various people regarding their saddles posted for sale. One person didn't want to use paypal (which makes me kinda nervous, what if I send payment and they never send the saddle? At least with paypal I might be able to get my money back).

Anyhow, someone else had the saddle listed for a bit more than I'd seen it elsewhere in my searches. I mean, obviously not as much as it would cost new, but more than I'd seen it listed for used. So I asked them if they were at all flexible on price and then they asked me how much lower, I quoted something closer to the price range I'd seen it sell for (a bit lower than I actually expected us to settle on) and they contacted me back with, "thanks but no thanks" and I'm sorta like, "what? no counteroffer?"

Was that silly of me to expect? They wanted $475 for the saddle (which is more than I really want to spend. I mean, I've seen older versions of the same brand of saddle go for $300 and less and the newer ones to go for about $400). I offered $400 including shipping, expecting maybe they'd go for $400 PLUS shipping. That sounded reasonable to me. Apparently not to them. No big deal, I'm not in any hurry and I'm willing to wait for the "right" saddle to show up. :)

Saddle Fit, Argh

Yeah, so the Western saddle in the last post definitely won't fit Kieran. Too tight over his shoulders. I mean, he rides okay in it, but I'm sure if I did anything long with him, it wouldn't work and as nice of a saddle as it is for the price I got it at, it's not worth making him sore just to have a Western saddle.

Anyway, no big deal, Christine wanted it so we worked something out and I am not out any money. But now I need to find a saddle. I was tempted to just buy a new Simco draft saddle but if it didn't work for some reason, I'm not sure I could sell it so easily and I definitely wouldn't be able to get my money back.

I think I might go back to my original idea of a treeless. I really like the look of the Barefoot Atlanta and I've ridden him in a treeless saddle before and did just fine.

My Dressage Pony

So I was looking up local schooling shows in the area and came across one later in the month that will be doing (among others) the USDF intro tests A&B. This, we can do. We are nowhere near read to do a test with cantering (ahahahahaha). So I mentioned it to my instructor and she was like, "oh yes, we can do this, I'll print out the tests and we can look at them tonight!".

So we did!

She called out the movements and had us do them (only went through each test once or twice fully, other than that it was just practicing the individual movements.) Discovered a few things:

1. Not only do I have to make my aids stronger than I should, the fact that Kieran is white in the barrel area and my feet and legs are not makes it that much more obvious.

2. We need to do a lot of work on actually round circles (we were especially flat on one side of the circle going a particular direction. Not sure if it's something about the ring, something about his fitness, or I just wasn't using enough inside leg).

3. We need to work on free walk. Typically it isn't something I do when I ride, really. And right now I still have to have some contact to the reins to keep him from drifting inward (not sure if he'd still drift inward if the ring was empty. He might've only been doing it because Christina was standing in there).

Anyway, with school classes for me being over (yay! Can't wait for the shiny "you graduated!" piece of paper!) I have quite a bit more free time on the weeknights so I should be able to actually get up there more than once or twice a week (God willing.) which is what I had intended to do in the first place but...life happened.

Also, last week I bought the pony a Western saddle. Still deciding if it actually fits proper. People online seem to generally agree they think it's too tight. People in real life think I should ride in it some more first to really be able to tell (sweat marks).

Here's what it looks like: