Saturday, December 5, 2015

My Baby needs new things

While bringing your new horse home right before Thanksgiving might not get you much in the way of good weather, it is an excellent time to shop for new horse stuff!  Woohoo spending more money!



via GIPHY
Very little of Fawkes' stuff works for Odin. I could get by with it for awhile but Odin is just that much taller/larger/longer that he would need many of his own things. So courtesy of Black Friday sales, here is a tally of what I picked up for the new kid in town.

Blankets!
This was an urgent situation although the lovely people I board with were nice enough to lend me some in the meantime.  My rules of blankets are waterproof (outside horse), 1000D or higher to try and survive a few seasons, and front clips because buckles in the cold sucks.

Schneiders was having a kick ass sale and I picked up a waterproof sheet, medium weight blanket, and hood for $170. There were SO. MANY. COLORS. to choose from. And since Odin is a really dark bay, practically black, he can wear any color.  Naturally I went for the bright orange.


Here modeling the medium weight, the sheet and hood are matching


Smartpak was having their 15% off sale so I picked up the Navy/Hunter Deluxe turnout in heavy weight and another matching hood: https://img.smartpak.com/product/300x300/17376_Navy.jpg  I think hood prices are a ripoff since they are like 2/3 of the price of the blanket but I figured I might as well get the matching one here.  I actually ordered this one first before the Schneiders sale or I might have just picked up another one of theirs, but total was still pretty good at $180.  

Boots!

As is probably the case with many still growing, out of shape horses...or some horses just in general...Odin interferes pretty significantly.   So I don't get on him without some leg protection. And because white boots make us fancy: 

Man I feel lucky with this horse, look at that trot already
Riding Warehouse had their 20% off sale so for $50 I was able to get a full set of Woof Wear sport brushing boots.  Now we will be extra fancy!

Bridle!  
Ok I guess I mostly only purchased things that started with the letter B.  Fawkes was a true cob and while his bridle mostly fit Odin, the noseband was too short and the cheek pieces were on the last hole.  Which led me to believe my new guy was a horse size.  So in ideal world, I was looking for a decent quality bridle, horse size, monocrown, and in a light color.  I know some people don't like the light chestnut coloring but I think it looks amazing on the dark horses.  

Everywhere with great sales only had darker colors available.  My searching uncovered that Red Barn bridles come in this (terribly named) color called Conker that would be perfect for Odin.  And Ebay had a brand new Red Barn Sovereign bridle in Conker for $90, which is about 1/3 of normal retail.  Only downside?  It was a cob.  Online reviews definitely varied for this brand but were largely positive and stated that the bridles ran large.  For that deal I decided to take the chance.  Plus the ebay store had a return policy.  Odin and I got lucky



I absolutely love this color on him.  And I am glad it is a cob, I am not sure a horse size would even work.  The noseband is only two holes down from the top and the cheekpieces are a hole or two tighter than center.   It did come with matching laced reins which I didn't have on today.  I will give them a try tomorrow but I love my rubber reins so I might be willing to have the color mismatch there.  

And the bridle was ridiculously soft right out of the box.  It isn't a monocrown but otherwise I am happy with my purchase so far.  I will make sure to see how it breaks in/holds up.  

I have started working on getting his mane under control.  And I am indeed wearing a
powderpuff football shirt from when I was a highschool senior a long, long time ago.  
There is still at least one other thing (halter) coming and possibly a few other things I will get once my bank account recovers from this whole experience, but I believe we have all the essentials now.  Luckily my saddle/half pad/girth collection was able to fit Odin as is.  Shopping was kind of fun, but now I need to rebuild my horse savings for awhile!


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