Confidence Building and Saddle fit

We did some confidence building today while Poptart's back gets a rest.  Poptart has a history of being reactive to things such as sticks touching his legs on the trail, even on the last trail ride we practiced 'airs above the ground'. Poptart has an excellent move (someday I need a to get a video) where he leaps into the air with all 4 legs, levitates forward about 5 feet and lands, similar to a deer bound or a 'fraidy cat jump.  We did this on Friday while passing between 2 large (horse-eating) boulders meant to stop vehicles from accessing the trail, unfortunately a stick happened to lay between the boulders and had the audacity to touch his leg during his passage.  My riding buddy, Wendy, got a great view of our leap and I found, once again, Poptart is taking me with him when frightened.  Hence our practice... (we also practiced with dragging the hay net at a walk and trot, dragging pool noodles by the hind legs, hind-leg hobbling, and walking through the tires). Next time I will take him through the woods and work with larger branches.

Also, on Friday's ride I tried the Torsion Treeless saddle with a Woolback pad with ultracell inserts. I was very confident this would work for Poptart, as it has always worked well for my other horses, so I went for a full length training ride which hindsight was a mistake. The saddle with that padding was a terrible failure, Poptart was so very sore after that ride (see video). Thankfully he is already doing much better, almost back to normal.  I have worked on re-adjusting the shims on my ATH saddle and also have another trial saddle in transit.  We will get something to work out, hopefully in time for our first LD endurance ride at No Frills!