Jen has had a couple of more rides this past month. She is very eager for her turn to get to play. Mandy tacked her up with no problems, other than her bracing and getting worried when girthing up. I suspect that will take a good long time to overcome the old "kick in the gut" girthing process. But we went slow, one hole at a time, with a lot of reassurances, and she never moved a foot.

The last time Mandy rode her, she saddled her up and just did a few laps of the paddock. I noticed that when Jen had to reach forward with a front leg to step over a big rock (we have a LOT of rocks in the paddock, big boulders, ledge, etc.) she would get a grumpy face and flip her nose. So I slid my hand under the saddle, and noted that the medium gullet was too tight for her in the Wintec, and that her shoulders were interfering. So the last time we took her out, I remeasured her for the gullet size, and she measured right on the wide side of medium wide, so I decided to put the wide gullet in the Wintec with the thicker fleece pad (I really hate changing that thing, "easy-change" is a misnomer and it takes quite a bit of grunting, slamming, and swearing to get it back together). I looked more objectively at Jen's back, and she has the same conformation as her sister, Lakota, which is not a good thing. She has those huge shoulders that rotate about 4 inches under the saddle, and the same weird long withers, short back and forward girth-groove (sigh). But I was hopeful this would work for her. So after saddling up, Mandy led Jen around a bit to make sure her mind was connected, and they did fine.

Mandy REALLY wanted to bring Jen out of the paddock the last time, so we did. Jen was worried, she is an extremely herdbound horse, so considering that she did quite well. We left the gate in stages, taking breaks, turning back from time to time. I think it helped that the other 3 didn't really care that she left (although they stood at the gate and screamed for Lakota when she was out).

We made it out to the yard, and checked it all out. She was nervous, I could feel it, but she was well-behaved and tried to be brave. The ducks were flapping around, as were chickens, the goats, the goose was playing it up, it was a lot to take in for a horse that hadn't been out of the paddock in a year, and had only been out two or three times in two years. Then I took Jen for a bit, and asked her to move her feet around me, and we meandered her and there and I asked for her attention. Then Mandy laughed this weird laugh that only 12 year olds can manage, which caused Jen to spook and teleport a little, so I knew then that she was quite tense as I had suspected, but was trying to stuff it down and be brave. So I slowed down then, and just spent some time standing and petting her, chatting with Mandy, and relaxing. And then Jen started to drop her head, blow, lick and chew, and relax. Her head was about at my waist level now. I decided that was enough emotional stuff for her today, so we slowly brought her back to the barn, stopping along the way to look at this or that.

Then Mandy hopped on her for a short bit in the paddock. Jen was a bit anxious about that, and she had a real grumpy face as we walked through the paddock. Then we stopped for a photo op. Jen didn't look real happy, and she kept biting at Mandy's foot.

So I decided that the saddle still wasn't fitting well, and asked her to hop off. After untacking and putting our gear away, I decided at the last minute to toss the Barefoot London treeless saddle on her, just to see how it looked. It looked OK on her, so then I asked Mandy to hop on. We went for another short walk, and I was really blown away by the difference in Jen.