Stupendous Stübben!

1/8/2013

Aw, Santa, you are my hero! You remember my letter to Santa? Well, he came through. I got every single thing on my list, and then some! It took the combination of Christmas and my birthday to get it done, and I think the big guy passed some of the work around, but all in all, I am one lucky girl.

The first thing I asked for was a Dover gift card; I got TWO of them from RM, my barn owner. One was for Speedy G and the other for Sydney. I know both boys really needed a rider who looked her best so I used them to buy two new Kerrits Ventilator shirts, which was the second item on my list. So score and double score.

Hubby took care of items number three and four: a pair of Tough Rider Breeches and the Andis Freedom Cord clippers. Love them both!

The final item on my list was a Stübben bridle, but really, who was going to spring for that? Santa got some serious help. As you already know, my mom stepped up to the plate and sent it for my birthday. How cool is that?

I called Margaret Young, the Stübben distributor in this area and asked her advice on softening and conditioning the leather. Surprisingly, she said the best way to soften the leather was to get it warm by leaving it in a vehicle on a sunny day. I started the warming process that way, but once it got dark, I brought it back into the house and placed it under a heating pad. Every so often I reapplied Passier's Lederbalsam, but I did turn it off before bed. By the next morning, the leather was soft and warm (I reheated briefly) and ready to try on Speedy.

Click on photos for captions and to enlarge.

I was really pleased with how nicely this particular model fit Speedy. I have purchased at least five other bridles trying to find one that fit correctly. Most dressage horses have much thicker and longer heads than does the refined Speedy pony. The Stübben 1700 has very thin cheek straps as well as a slimmer browband and caveson. You'll also see that I chose no flash. After looking at the photo, I see that I need to drop the left cheek piece down a hole. But other than that, this bridle finally fits and looks quite lovely. Thank you, Mom!

I love Instagram!

lytha

1/7/2013 11:54:38 pm

in germany it is impossible to find a bridle without a flash or a crank. that is one sharp bridle on speedy g! i miss cleaning and oiling leather. i have one article of leather - a halter (ok and a crupper piece) and this week i cleaned and oiled it and now it's smelling up the room so nicely. oh, i also took it completely apart and for fun, forced my husband to reassemble it. *evil grin* biothane is great, but i sure miss the task of cleaning leather.

Karen

1/8/2013 10:34:17 am

Lytha! It is so good from you. :0)

I HATE to clean leather, but LOL about having your husband put it back together. That's pretty hard. I ALWAYS buckle at least one thing on wrong.

AareneX link

1/8/2013 02:35:14 am

Speedy, you are a handsome fella!

I agree with lytha: biothane is more useful for my life, but the smell of leather is so...reassuring. Fortunately, my saddle is leather so it spends a lot of time in the house getting cleaned and oiled after I ride it (again) in the pouring rain.

I have the opposite problem with bridle fitting, BTW. Most biothane bridles are made for dainty little arab heads, and the Dragon can barely get an ear into one of those. I finally found a biothane company (American Trail Gear) that really does make stuff to-measure. They called me to make sure the measurements were correct: are you SURE her head is that big? Yep. It really is!

1/8/2013 10:36:44 am

The thing I miss MOST about endurance is always having lots of tack that FITS because you're right; endurance tack is made for ARABS. :0) Dressage tack is made for BIG guys, not petite Arabs!

Lauren link

1/8/2013 05:07:54 am

He looks fabulous! I had never heard of warming the leather, but that's a great trick. I bet it would work to soften different bridles besides just Stubben... I'll have to try it out sometime!

1/8/2013 10:37:57 am

I was a bit worried about warming it, too. But it sure worked! And since I live in the capitol of WARM (aka as freaking HOT), I'll be doing a lot of conditioning over the summer.

Comments are closed.

Not-So-Speedy Dressage