In which Ro gets spunky

20 November 2010 3 Comments

My inner hunter princess may be under attack from a nascent dressage queen.

I’ve been riding Ro in a Wintec bridle. It fits her, but my inner hunter princess nearly died of embarrassment when I rode in the clinic last month with it. Not that a single person commented on it. It’s just, you know, the whole idea of it. It’s like nails on chalkboards for me. For schooling, sure. For shows and clinics, absolutely not.

So I was determined to buy a leather bridle before the schooling show, if only to give myself an excuse to go shopping.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a black bridle with a thin noseband and hook and stud ends? I mean, really. What the hell is wrong in dressage fashion land? All the bridles look like someone is trying to imitate the Nazgul horses form Lord of the Rings, with as much padding and metal do-dads on them as they can possibly get. It’s awful. I’d rather use the Wintec.

However, after much searching and debating and wondering just how hard it would be to dye a hunter-style bridle black, I finally came across a rolled black bridle in cob size.

And here my inner hunter princess had a moment of existential crisis: when the choices are a Wintec, a Nazgul bridle, or rolled leather, just what do you choose?

And my nascent inner dressage queen knocked out my momentarily-paralyzed inner hunter princess and ordered the rolled bridle.

It’s going to look a heck of a lot better on Ro than a Nazgul bridle, and it’s leather. I’m still bemused that there is a dressage queen in me somewhere. Who knew?

Fast forward to today. The bridle arrived. I took it out to the barn.

Ro took one look at the bridle and went and hid in her run. Brilliant—if her stall is empty, she must be gone! I might as well go home and give it all up as a lost cause, right?

But what I know and what Ro forgets is that she has the patience of a gnat. After twenty seconds, she peeked in to see if I was buying it. When she realized I wasn’t, she came over to see if the bridle might actually be a cookie.

I put it on and discovered what “cob size” actually means: Arab-sized cheek pieces, horse-sized noseband, and pony-sized throat latch. Really? What sort of Frankenstein horses are bridle makers using as their models, anyway?

Despite the odd sizing, it’ll work well enough for now.

I took it off, and Ro nearly dropped dead with shock when she realized she wasn’t going to have to go work tonight. While she ate her dinner, I conditioned the bridle to help get rid of that new bridle stiffness.

As soon as Ro realized stuff was being put on the tack locker—which is right in front of her stall and in easy reach—she stopped eating to check things out. The next thing I knew, she was running off to her run again—with the browband in her mouth.

I went and retrieved it and put her bridle back together. Either she approves of the bridle and wants to keep it for herself, or she hates it and wants to bury it where no one will ever find it again. Or my leather conditioner is tasty.

As I was wiping the dirt off the browband, she snuck behind me and tried to steal the noseband.

I’m guessing the conditioner is tasty.

The alternative—that Ro is somehow connected to the Tweedle Mob—is truly frightening.

Horses and Riding, Horses I Have Known, Ro