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The $50 Saddle Fix That Failed · Equestrian Tea Time

• 0:00
  Isabeau: So yes, I put out a call for product reviews.
• 0:03
  Isabeau: Um, you have the Chevrolet Soft Equestrian Seat Pad.
• 0:07
  Isabeau: Well, we can just start with uh you telling everybody who you are and what your involvement with uh horses is.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well I'm Linda Roth.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in Brookline, New Hampshire, and I have a background in horses, mainly um trail riding.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm always looking for things to make it more comfortable in the saddle.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: I specifically like long trail rides and I like very active trail rides, and all of my horses have been pretty forward.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um done other kinds of riding as well, but that's kind of my main um thing, which is why I looked into um getting something that was going to make me feel comfortable.
• 0:53
  Isabeau: Gotcha.
• 0:54
  Isabeau: And is that is that on your saddle and I just never even noticed that it was there?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, actually, this is this is not like a favorable review.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that I mean over the years I've you know had many different horses, so I'm constantly having to change saddles, saddle styles until I got into the Wintex, which, you know, love them or you hate them.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: For me, they've always really worked because I can change the tree easily enough as the horse muscles and um I don't have to get a new saddle, and they can be re-stuffed and stuffed just like a wolf lock saddle.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's always worked for me now that I've kind of discovered it.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but at the time I had when I bought this thing, I had a Wintech 500, I think, which is just like a basic, you know, all-purpose saddle.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And but the seat is like super hard.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: It fit the horde horse great, fits me great.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Generally speaking, you know, if you're just putzing around a ring, it's fine.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, if I'm off with a group and we're gone for like three or four hours, you know, I'm dying.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I had gotten the cashell um and a couple sort of like from all, you know, from consignment, you know, no names.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought nothing is really working.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, they stretch, right?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah the sheepskins I find I slide all over the place.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what ended up happening was I was out of work for like three or four months, um, about two years ago, because I had my full knee replaced.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm, you know, dreaming about getting back out there, getting back into a saddle.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm saying, well, you know, my knee is gonna be an issue, like rehabbing that, and the last thing I need is for my butt to hurt on top of that.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, spending way too much time online, I get a pop-up on Facebook for Chevrolet.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now, has anyone ever heard of Chevroux?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Probably not heard of that.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: The algorithm.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, they they make a really good case.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: The commercial is fantastic, and you know, I'm all excited, and I I get the thing.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so the problem is it's like it's like an air cell slash neoprene thing.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it actually stays on the saddle really well.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: It goes like way under the flaps, it's got a thin on the cantle.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I mean it stays on there really securely, but it's just very uncomfortable.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like it sets you up super high.
• 3:45
  Isabeau: Oh, and I felt like a helicopter on top, you know, like it was only about 50 bucks, so it wasn't a huge loss, but but the couple of times I've gotten things like this, the elastic stretched out over time, like it worked for a little while, but it didn't take long for the attachment system to just give way.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you didn't even ride anything too many times.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: I well, just around the just around the paddock.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yeah, oh, just okay.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna work around.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's actually, I mean, as far as quality goes, I would say it's pretty well made.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, you can pass around and then have other people try it too, and we can do a circle there.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like if we try it, everybody in your barn trying to do it.
• 4:29
  Isabeau: We could no, it's funny that you say that because I'm actually doing that um uh right now with the I ordered, we wanted to try to cut down on the bedding in our stalls because two of our horses are getting hawks oars.
• 4:41
  Isabeau: Yes, and my guy is 17-1, he's freaking huge, he won't lay down unless there's a ton of bedding.
• 4:46
  Isabeau: And I wanted to use a really team straw, but that takes up first of all, straw is now$13 a bell, and it fills up the dumpster in like three days if I put straw in the stall.
• 4:58
  Isabeau: So I was looking at the mattress systems, and I didn't want one of the permanent install ones because I wonder about it.
• 5:05
  Isabeau: The horse is standing on too squishy of a surface all day long, you know, and and the issue of installing them.
• 5:12
  Isabeau: So I ordered a pasture puff mattress, which is basically a horse-sized dog bed.
• 5:18
  Isabeau: Um, three thousand five hundred dollars.
• 5:21
  Isabeau: So I spent a lot more than you did.
• 5:23
  Isabeau: Um, we've got cameras in all stalls.
• 5:26
  Isabeau: I can I'll have to post some cool pictures with this.
• 5:29
  Isabeau: My big Dutch harness horse pulled it out of his stall.
• 5:33
  Isabeau: He spent two hours on the second morning from 5 a.m.
• 5:37
  Isabeau: to 7 a.m.
• 5:37
  Isabeau: pawing at it and picking up with his mouth and pulling it out the door because he has a stall a stole run.
• 5:43
  Isabeau: He he pulled it through the door, which was quite pretty funny.
• 5:46
  Isabeau: Uh, but is there any sort of a guarantee on this thing?
• 5:51
  Isabeau: Well, uh, they're guaranteed against wear and tear.
• 5:54
  Isabeau: So yes, and they're really made of very robust things.
• 5:57
  Isabeau: Like I'm sure he could beat beat that thing up for a long time.
• 6:00
  Isabeau: But what I want him to do, no, I mean, but you can't return it.
• 6:04
  Isabeau: You can't return it because he doesn't like it.
• 6:06
  Isabeau: You can't really return it, you know.
• 6:08
  Isabeau: I I um the the guy who owns the woman who owns the company is very nice.
• 6:13
  Isabeau: I wonder if I was really nice to her and if I begged, but I tried we've got six horses, so we were gonna try it with them all.
• 6:20
  Isabeau: Speaking of your try, try it around.
• 6:22
  Isabeau: So number two horse, I tried it with my thoroughbred.
• 6:26
  Isabeau: He's terrified of it, it won't go near it.
• 6:28
  Isabeau: I put it in his stall, I hold it up.
• 6:30
  Isabeau: He it crinkles, it makes it make noise.
• 6:34
  Isabeau: He stood outside in his run, terrified it wouldn't go in a stall, so that was two down.
• 6:39
  Isabeau: We tried it.
• 6:40
  Isabeau: The horse number three.
• 6:41
  Isabeau: We have an Appaloosa that started out on free release, and now he's just kind of ours.
• 6:48
  Isabeau: But he's an older guy and he's uh creaky and he took to the mattress.
• 6:52
  Isabeau: I've got a bunch of pictures the first night, you know.
• 6:55
  Isabeau: He was wandering around, he's like, This is this is this is weird, but he slept on it the first night, and uh he laid down a lot.
• 7:04
  Isabeau: But for the intended, for the intended horse, it's not gonna work.
• 7:08
  Isabeau: It didn't work for my big horse or my thoroughbred.
• 7:12
  Isabeau: So that at least we got one out of six.
• 7:15
  Isabeau: Now we've got a second paint horse who also is getting hawk rub, so we will try it with him, and we've got a mare.
• 7:23
  Isabeau: So the hope is if we put the mattress in the stall, we can then put just very minimal bedding.
• 7:28
  Isabeau: You know, the mattress takes up about half of the stall, so they can lay on the mattress half, and you put a little bit of bedding on the other half.
• 7:35
  Isabeau: So that is kind of the hope.
• 7:38
  Isabeau: I might try for my guy.
• 7:40
  Isabeau: There's a couple different companies that make different mattresses.
• 7:43
  Isabeau: Comfort stall makes a different kind of mattress, it's not as floppy, it's more like a gym mat.
• 7:49
  Isabeau: It's more like a piece of foam with a tight cover on it.
• 7:54
  Isabeau: They just don't make one in as big of a size.
• 7:56
  Isabeau: I had gone with the pasture puff because they have a super warm blood size one.
• 8:00
  Isabeau: So I might still try the comfort stall because we need to do something to try to cut down on our bedding use because we're using a ton of bedding, it's dusty as heck.
• 8:11
  Isabeau: We're going into winter here in New Hampshire, and um the barn's gonna be closed up soon, you know, and like literally, but like the dust, the entire inside of the barn is just coated with freaking dust.
• 8:23
  Isabeau: Um, and since we've got the runs in the stalls, the wind blows through and blows the bedding around.
• 8:29
  Isabeau: So if it's windy enough, we have to close the runs out.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Just says that you can that uh I've seen the ones that they're built into the stall, so you can't take them up.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: They're just like that.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is mad is that what you're talking about?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: A different kind.
• 8:44
  Isabeau: I've seen us.
• 8:46
  Isabeau: I've seen they do not drain, and they also the installation, even though you'll hear people say it's not that bad, it's a bit of a chore.
• 8:56
  Isabeau: You know, it's a big deal, it's gonna take you most of a day, you know, to get that whole thing to put it in one stall.
• 9:03
  Isabeau: Um, there's a couple of different systems, but none of them is easy, super easy to install.
• 9:10
  Isabeau: And also, once it's in, like that's gonna raise up the floor that much more, which is another way of saying making the ceiling that much lower.
• 9:19
  Isabeau: Lower.
• 9:19
  Isabeau: Um, also we have automatic waters in in in in the stalls.
• 9:25
  Isabeau: And if we ever had right now, we just got the typical mass on top of screenings.
• 9:30
  Isabeau: If we ever needed to go dig down uh into the automatic waters because they froze or something, if we install a permanent mattress on top, that's going to be a whole other issue if we ever had to excavate the waters out again.
• 9:42
  Isabeau: So I think just for that reason, I don't want to hard install anything because we are in New Hampshire, it does get to be, you know, 10 degrees below zero Fahrenheit sometimes.
• 9:54
  Isabeau: Um, if we ever have to dig out the pipes for those waters, the mattresses are gonna make it, we're gonna have to rip the whole mattress thing out, you know.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um now you've probably already tried this, but what about the pelleted bedding?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: What's your experience with pelleted bedding?
• 10:09
  Isabeau: I've used pelleted bedding, it's expensive, it's just sawdust that's squished together in a pellet.
• 10:16
  Isabeau: Um, considering what I need with padding, it doesn't help me because my my thoroughbred he he does a little walking in in there.
• 10:25
  Isabeau: And lucky's just so big, he just I would love to use straw if I had a if I had a field where I could spread straw, because I personally love straw.
• 10:35
  Isabeau: Um, but yeah, it takes a huge volume, and straw is very expensive now.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: So the the thing with the saddle seat cover.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I ended up just getting my new saddle, which kind of has a cushy seat already.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was my uh, you know, this was like my$50 fix, and then I ended up with, you know, a more expensive fix, but a more expensive fix.
• 10:57
  Isabeau: Yeah, no, no, the horses are just uh it's heinously expensive.
• 11:02
  Isabeau: I mean, I spent so much more money this year than I intended on.
• 11:05
  Isabeau: I bought two saddles and the mattress.
• 11:08
  Isabeau: I bought a saddle for a GG that was three thousand dollars.
• 11:12
  Isabeau: I got I did luck out on a saddle price for lucky because it's a 19-inch saddle, and I I'm guessing they had a hard time uh selling it, so I only paid$1,200 for that.
• 11:22
  Isabeau: And then the mattress was$3,500, and then I would really like to get an equivalent plate.
• 11:29
  Isabeau: Um I was because I have a vibration plate for myself and I love it, it is so nice.
• 11:36
  Isabeau: Um, and our horses in the winter, our guys spend so much time in the barn.
• 11:40
  Isabeau: Do you your horses are living outside in the winter?
• 11:42
  Isabeau: They're out on the paddock.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they have a run-in.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: They have a run-in.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like today, I just have the run-in full of shavings, which of course they use as their bathroom, which is annoying.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because on days like today, I put all their hay in there.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so you know, it's just open and then they can go in and out.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Same same with at night.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I only close them in, like I'll close one half of the run-in just to brace the wind, if it's like pelting snow and wind and you know, horrible like that.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: But they choose to stay out.
• 12:20
  Isabeau: They do.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:22
  Isabeau: So how is the desk?
• 12:25
  Isabeau: Yeah.
• 12:26
  Isabeau: Is how is the footing in the winter at your place?
• 12:28
  Isabeau: Are they on ice at all or does your your field drain?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, both of them are barefoot.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: So in my in my stall, I just it's it's it was there when we moved here.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we put down rubber mat over cement, which isn't ideal, but where you don't lock them in, you know.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I just use like a bag of shavings per 12 by 12 stall.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: So um and I don't bed heavily because I find that they use it more, you know.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, if they have to use it, you know, they're locked in, you bet heavily, but so I don't use it.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, so my footing, so I have um, so when we bought the property, it really wasn't a horse property at all.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so we had an excavation to take all the trees out and bury the stumps in one far-off area that we can't use.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then um we had um dunk truck loads full of coarse sand brought in for the turnout.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And before they brought that in, my husband, smarter guy that he is, put down drainage pipes.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um the way my property is, you haven't been here yet, but it's basically like pretty flat, and then it goes down like a little ways.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So the water naturally like flows through there.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: So this just makes it easier to divert.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so luckily I don't have mud or a huge buildup of um water.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um I do have one bridge that goes over uh where my two paddocks connect.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I either block that or I just put down sand or bedding, like dirty bedding on it.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, I mean, ice, it's not too bad, honestly, because in the winter they don't really travel that far.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like they have this whole, you know, I it doesn't matter where I put the hay, the walk to the hay, and then like one path, right?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like they don't they don't go everywhere.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like they make that one path and then they stay in that one path and it doesn't get too slippery.
• 14:28
  Isabeau: Wow.
• 14:28
  Isabeau: So you basically made a proper trilot.
• 14:31
  Isabeau: You you made it so that it rained.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I didn't luckily Dave knew what he was doing, and that was like really, really smart.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, you know, yes, you do something, you've been at enough horse properties that you know from experience, like you know, what to do the next time and next time.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: But when you only have one place, it's like sometimes you find yourself redoing it.
• 14:52
  Isabeau: Yes.
• 14:53
  Isabeau: We haven't had to do that.
• 14:54
  Isabeau: Yeah, oh yes.
• 14:55
  Isabeau: Well, that's awesome, cool.
• 14:57
  Isabeau: Yeah, no, 10 points for him.
• 14:59
  Isabeau: Yeah, no, I've seen people, I've seen where they put a barn at a place that turned into a spring, you know, like there was water coming up in the floor of the stalls.
• 15:08
  Isabeau: Um, because yeah, they didn't account for whoever slapped that building up did not account for the movement of water across the property through throughout throughout the year.
• 15:17
  Isabeau: Yes, our property, even though it is naturally all sand, what winds up happening, depending upon the weather, and this is how it was the first winter, is we got a ton of snow, and then it gets warm and it melts a little bit, and it all gets nice, and and then at night it freezes.
• 15:36
  Isabeau: So, like it it re-ice rinks every night, and the property gets every day icier and icier and icier and icier.
• 15:44
  Isabeau: We are pulling out, it is an ice rink for months.
• 15:49
  Isabeau: It really sucks.
• 15:51
  Isabeau: Really wrong.
• 15:52
  Isabeau: We are living in the cramp-ons, you know, the pull-on spiky things.
• 15:57
  Isabeau: You can't you can't get out the front door to the mailbox without those things.
• 16:02
  Isabeau: And the horses, I put um cavalo boots and I put the studs on them, I put the the ice studs.
• 16:07
  Isabeau: It is so icy here.
• 16:09
  Isabeau: We lucked out this spring, it like one week, it was just 60 degrees, and everything melted.
• 16:16
  Isabeau: So if the weather's good, but it's we get terrible, and we've got wetlands on three sides.
• 16:23
  Isabeau: The uh we've got the road on one side, and the other three sides of the property are all wetlands.
• 16:29
  Isabeau: So, yes, we get we get we get the ice gets really bad, and it gets the point of where we just can't even turn the horses out anymore because it's just solid ice, it's solid ice, and that's and that's the need that's the need for better shavings that aren't dusty or less shaved.
• 16:44
  Isabeau: Yes, yes, no, because they will want they'll be inside a lot, and we have an indoor, which is nice, yeah.
• 16:50
  Isabeau: But um uh we all I mean, at the most we get them down there twice a day, which is exhausting when you're you know having to take all the horses out twice a day and do that kind of and how slippery is it getting from the barn to the indoor?
• 17:04
  Isabeau: Oh my god, it's hard just to keep a path getting from the barn to the indoor.
• 17:09
  Isabeau: We have some sand, we have a mountain of sand we saved actually when they did my cottage here.
• 17:14
  Isabeau: They redid the whole thing, they added onto it and they made a basement.
• 17:18
  Isabeau: So they dug out a very large pile of sand because the whole property is sand.
• 17:22
  Isabeau: So we saved a bunch of that and we respread it uh around.
• 17:27
  Isabeau: I got a dust-free footing, so we don't have to water it, which is amazing.
• 17:31
  Isabeau: Yes, so so nice to not have to.
• 17:34
  Isabeau: I I spent so many Januaries pouring water on the ground in the indoor, so to not have to do that.
• 17:41
  Isabeau: Well, nice to talk to you.
• 17:46
  Isabeau: If you ride, um, we're gonna plan to mount up at nine.
• 17:50
  Isabeau: Thanks for joining me.
• 17:50
  Isabeau: I really appreciate it.
• 17:52
  Isabeau: Very on my podcast.
• 17:54
  Isabeau: Yes.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: I am a big I am a big shopper.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm good, all right.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: If I find anything, I'll I'll try to come up with a positive review of something.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, all right.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Sound like fun.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: All right, okay, I'll catch you later.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy the day.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: You too.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.