Grandeur Barock Bareback Pad Revisited

After spending a little more saddle time in the Grandeur Barock I wanted to share my new won experiences with you.

First of all, I still like it a lot. Much better than the Christ Iberica.

BUT, I also had to make a few modifications (of which most would not heve been possible with the Christ).

I had to move the stirrup attachement around a little. At first it was a little too far forward (and painfully pressing into my inner thigh), then I put it too far towards the back and now it's position is perfect (I think). And all the modifications were just a couple of centimeters!

On Crispin there still is a little pressure on the spine when I ride with stirrups. He doesn't seem to mind, but I can tell when I take the pad off, that there is a little pressure where there should be none.

Because of that, I tried to ride without stirrups most of the time. It works OK, I can post better than I could in the Christ but I don't *love* it and I don't feel all that safe and secure. I even thought about switching from the Grandeur Barock to the Grandeur Dressage, because the Dressage comes with knee rolls and for *me* that's what's missing on the Barock. That got me thinking. I do have velcro knee rolls on my Sommer dressage saddle AND there is some velcro on the Grandeur as well... ...so why not try and attach them to the Grandeur...?!

So, I tried and it works!

I feel so much more secure with the knee rolls and they help with posting without stirrups too.

BUT, for various reasons I want to be able to use stirrups with the Grandeur too. I thought about it and decided to get an additional pad to put under the Grandeur to raise the saddle just a bit more. I searched the web for western pads, pads for treeless saddles, grandeur pads with inlays and many more until I came across the pad Christ sells to go under their sheepskin saddles. It's called "SD Christ Champ", has pockets for 1.5cm foam inlays AND a sheepskin bottom. (Now, finally Crispin can have sheepskin on hus back again too!) The only question remaining:

Will it fit under the Grandeur?

It does! (And it fits under the Sommer as well!)

I have ridden with it twice and so far so good.

I also took a little video of me riding in the Grandeur. It's from a short ride and I butchered it down to 8 minutes. 

Happy Birthday Crispin!

Well, his birthday was on sunday but the weather hasn't been on my side since then and I only managed to take his annual birthday confo shots yesterday.

He's turned 7 on sunday. The changes from last year till now are (I think) less subtle than I'd expected. I think that his front end has changed, filled out during the last year and even though I told people that "No, he hasn't grown over the last year!" I think the pictures show that indeed he did!

It all makes sense now. During the last year I had issues getting him to move forward. He's not a naturally lazy horse but he couldn't move freely because his shoulders/front end blocked the movement comming from that big engine he's got in the back. Thing are much better now. So maybe it was the last bit of growing up that troubled him.

And of course I can't belive that we are already half way through our 5th year together! Time flies...

 Confo left:

 Confo right: