New Saddle...welcome Voltaire BlueWing!

It's been a summer of saddle shopping, and we've done a complete 180 in saddle preferences in the last two months.  Now that it's finally over, I can happily say that I'm the owner of a 2018 Voltaire BlueWing saddle.

Well...the part of me that wants my horse to be comfortable and happy is happy.  The part of me that has to pay bills and actually sit in the new saddle is still grumbling.  Horse is happy because he doesn't have a credit card payment.

"DIS LOOK GOOD YES?"

I was told awhile ago that my beloved, perfect old school CWD was not working for Sig.  He's been going in Ashley's Voltaire Palm Beach all year, and just before I came back from Okinawa, I bought a 2014 Palm Beach.  It's well-used, and calfskin (not buffalo), so it's very well worn in.  I love the close feel it gives me and how comfy it was.  It seemed to fit him pretty well, and he didn't seem to object too much too it, so I accepted that we'd keep it for a bit (a year, two years, who knows) while I saved up for a newer version.  It was only meant to be a stop gap.

I had been on the lookout for a Voltaire BlueWing for a long time.  I've been interested in them since 2016 when I first heard about the marriage of the Tad Coffin SmartRide tree with the comfortable stylings of Voltaire.  I have a long and colorful history with Tad Coffin saddles....If you don't know, do read about that one time Tad came to the farm and we almost got in a fight:

That One Time Tad Came To The Farm and We Almost Got in a Fight

We didn't get in a fight, obviously, and I think the absolute world of Tad as a rider, horseman, and as a gentleman.  He is truly one of the most gifted riders I have ever had the privilege of watching.  I also applaud his work with saddle trees, and I believe it's a great and much needed innovation.  I just know for a fact that it does NOT meet the unscientific claims that these saddles/trees worked for EVERY horse.  No saddle can.  Soon didn't care for them (made his back extremely sore) and to this date, the TC is the only saddle in history to physically wound me.  It just wasn't for us.  I later had to ride some other training horses in the barn TC saddles, and I just pretended they were covered in tacks and I couldn't sit down.  It was an excellent way to work on strength/conditioning in two-point...

But that doesn't mean I'm not still very interested in the tree technology and how it might benefit some horses.  The BlueWing, with it's semi-flexible SmartRide tree, remained in the back of my mind and after learning my CWD was not working for Sig, I kept my eyes open.  I missed out on the chance to buy one last fall because I hesitated.  It was gone before I could snag it.  I regretted that and at the end of June I found the current BlueWing for sale online.  It is a 2018 model...I almost bought it that night, but with the move, having just bought new furniture, at the time I had a lengthy hotel bill...I didn't allow myself to.  I told myself that once I got the credit card paid off from all the various moving expenses, and if the saddle was still available, then I would ask about it.

And it was.  So I did.  And I bought it last weekend and took it on trial.  And I took many pictures of my horse wearing said saddle on trial.

"WHY YOU LIKE THIS"

Initially I thought the BlueWing would never work on him.  It just seemed so impossibly narrow when I pulled it out of the box.  But the panel foams are double thick and extra soft, so the front view is extremely deceiving.  I didn't feel any better about it after I sat it on him, because it seemed like it bridged terribly.  By that I don't mean it bridged a little bit and I tried to talk myself out of the bridging; I mean you could drive a Chevy 3500HD dually through the gap.

Beep beep

It really was bad enough that I almost took it off and put it back in my truck right then.  I was very close to never riding in it, it looked so terrible.  But then I took the advice of the internet (risky right?) and girthed it up lightly, with no pads.  The bridging did go away and it seemed like there was no longer any gap even with a little girth contact.  That made me feel slightly better, but still skeptical.  I hopped on.

  I thought the Palm Beach I had picked up earlier in June would be the answer, for now.  It seemed to have been okay for Sig, but until now I didn't realize how unhappy he really was in it.  The inconsistency in the bridle, the stiff-neck moments and diving, the general hesitation to really move over his back...I thought it might just be a lack of strength or greenness, or my bumbling attempts after a year out of the saddle.

....nope.  It was the saddle.  My bumbling is only a mild nuisance.

The first ride in the BlueWing it was glaringly obvious there was a massive difference, and that he was going noticeably softer and freer, and happier in the BlueWing.  This was repeated in the next four rides and confirmed over fences.  It was truly like I was on a completely different horse.  I have wanted to avoid the "mAjIkaAL saDDLe!!11!" appearance (can you see the Kool Aide stain on my shirt?), but this was definitely the better fit for Sig.  He immediately had a bigger, more swinging walk.  His walk/trot transitions were smoother and softer.  He offered to be forward and round, all I had to do was close my leg.  He wanted to stretch and go long/low.  The difference between him in the BlueWing and the Palm Beach could not be more obvious.  And I was absolutely thrilled with how he felt in the new saddle.  He just seemed so relaxed and happy.

In some ways, that makes me feel a million times better feeling how nicely he can go around, how soft and through, and how much more swing he has in his gaits when he's in the BlueWing.  It also makes me feel like a complete asshole for having him in the other saddle, even if it was only about a month and a half.  As for how it feels for me?  I'll like it better when it is broken in.  I feel pretty high off his back, but it got better and I felt more comfortable with each ride.  I think once it's not in the "obnoxious new saddle" phase, I'll be just as happy sitting in it as he is wearing it, but until then, I'll make due.  It's okay.  I will say I did enjoy how I felt jumping in it, that so far has been the most balanced jump school I've had since I got back from my hiatus.

So here I am, with a horse who loves his Voltaire BlueWing with the Tad Coffin SmartRide tree.  I had a good laugh about it.  At the end of the day, it is about making the horse comfortable and happy, and this saddle does that for Sig.  I am thrilled to have it.

The BlueWing came with the full swathe of "stuff" that Voltaire includes with it, none of which holds any interest for me.  It's marketing schtick is that it's the first "smart saddle," which means it has a lot of gadgets that come with it to track metrics of your ride.  How exactly it does this, I don't know.  I am terrified to use TVs that have more than one remote (I will sit in the dark silence alone) so don't expect me to want to dissect the thingy-mabobs that tell me how long I trotted to the left for.

Literally me

I'm sure that if you have a string of Grand Prix horses those metrics might be useful, but for me with a five year old baby horse cantering 2'3" courses, I'm not interested.  This was always about the tree and what it might be able to do for Sig.  Perhaps one day I'll put that stuff together and start using it to track my rides, but for now I just want to enjoy riding him in it.  I'm happy to report it's the right saddle for my horse, and now I can finally close this saddle shopping saga on a positive note.

I don't know what this does.

...or this

What is this even for

...in case anyone was wondering, yes, I still have the CWD.  I;m getting buried with that thing.  I'm hanging on to it because it really is my perfect saddle, and if nothing else maybe it'll fit a training horse and I can hop on in it on occasion.  For now it just has a friend.

Best friends