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.