On Floating and the Wintec Pro Contourbloc

On Wednesday the vet was coming out to the barn for spring shots, so I was at the barn early to turn Jez out and get a ride in before the vet arrived at 3:00 pm.

Jez didn't care that she was going out by herself. I set her free and watched her walk down the fence line, looking towards the field but making no move to take off running. I went back to her stall and brought out her leftover hay from breakfast. By then she was at the very far corner of the paddock. When I called her, though, she turned her head to look, and when I threw the hay out into the paddock, she turned around and came trotting! That was one happy trot.

"HAY!!"

So cute! She settled right down to scarf.

Lily, in the meantime, had been moved to Gratitude's stall so she wouldn't freak at the idea of being left indoors while everyone else went out. Her and Murmur have bonded-Murmur will nicker for Lily when she sees her. I love that big English TB mare. She's built like your typical English horse, with the big feet and thick legs, and is super sweet. Her mom will be able to finally start riding next month. Murmur suffered 2 different soft tissue injuries to the tendons in one of her front legs, and has been on stall rest for the past 6 months. 

Lily seemed really happy to see me, and came willingly. I had set up her hay cubes in a wash stall, and proceeded to groom and tack up while she ate. 

The new saddle finally arrived. I searched to the ends of eBay for weeks and then chewed my nails with indecision when I found 2 really good deals on 2 very different Wintec Pros. I went with a Wintec Pro because I knew the tree shape would fit Lily-Judy's saddle back in South FL fit her to a T. 

Both of the saddles I found were the newer models. One of them was the regular Wintec Pro with the gullet system and a new insert system that they just came out with that allows for further customizing. This one was over the budget, though still a really good deal on an almost new saddle, it was the right seat size at 17, and it was flocked. (I hate Cair.) 

Wintec Pro

The second saddle was the Wintec Pro Contourbloc, which I have not heard much about and I had never seen in person. I LOVED the idea of a giant knee block, the seat was 17.5, it was also flocked, and it was brand spanking new-still had the tags attached. The starting price was ridiculously low as it was a new seller. I looked over her reviews, and she had really good ratings as a buyer. 

Wintec Pro Contourbloc

I poured over photos and reviews of both saddles on the internet. Both of them had mixed reviews, which Wintecs will often have. I knew I liked the saddles, I just wanted to see what the overall view was regarding rider position with these newer models. Since I couldn't find much on the Contourbloc specifically, I looked up reviews of the Bates Innova, which has similar blocks to the Contourbloc, and people raved over the one with the smaller blocks, which are the same size as the Wintec Contourbloc's. I even looked up photos of both saddles. I knew how the regular Wintec Pro looked, but not the Contourbloc, and I was very pleased with the latter when I found a photo of one with stirrups attached-the stirrup bars are set further back than on the regular Wintec Pro, which forces your body into the correct alignment, like my Alta Escuela. The stirrup bars on the regular Wintec Pro would have put me into more of a chair seat, which you can actually see in old photos of me riding in Judy's saddle back in FL.

So I chose the Contourbloc, and won the auction. 

The saddle arrived within 3 days. It was horribly packaged, with no cushioning, but thankfully it arrived unscathed. I had already tried it on Lily the day it arrived, and checked what gullet size she would need. She was in-between the regular (black) gullet and the medium-wide (blue) gullet with the saddle against her bare back. Back home, I rummaged through my bins of horsey stuff, but of all of the spare gullets I have (yes, I have random Wintec gullets from when I used to own the All Purpose 250...), I did not have a blue gullet. So I had to order it, and it finally arrived Tuesday of this week. I switched out the gullets, and here we were. 

I had noticed some bridging when trying the saddle on Lily with the medium gullet in, but this pretty much vanished when fitted with the medium-wide, as it allowed the front of the saddle to fit lower on her withers. The saddle sits really nicely above her spine-I can see the entire length of her back when peeking through one end or the other of the gullet. Wintec has widened their channel with the newer models. The panels are not as wide as I'd like, but she was comfortable in them before, so I don't think that will be a problem now. She's a small horse after all.

Lily had started really making faces with the Alta Escuela, which had really started to worry me. I have always assumed there is a saddle weight issue there-remember the cowboy? He rode her in Western saddles, which are heavier. The Alta Escuela is easily 25 lbs. She has never complained about lighter English saddles, just the Alta Escuela and back when I was saddle-less and riding her Western, too. She'd kind of tense up when I went to put it on her back, but she'd relax as I continued with the process of tacking her up.

 She'd just recently started complaining more about the Alta Escuela, however, tensing up more when I went to place it on her back, then fidgeting the entire time I was trying to do up the girth, which had me starting to believe that it was really getting uncomfortable with her weight loss. She wouldn't tell me it hurt- I kept poking and prodding her back to see and could not elicit a flinch- but she behaved like it bothered her. 

So with the Contourbloc, she did not fidget at all and didn't give me dirty looks when I did up the girth.

I took her outside and lunged her prior to getting on, because I wanted her to get a feel for the saddle without me on her back, and also because if she was going to have any fits about not getting turned out first thing, I preferred she do it before I got on!

She was happy and relaxed, and seemed comfortable. So I hopped on, and we had a really, really good ride. Lily was asking to stretch at the trot, which she had not done in awhile, and felt up and underneath me at the canter, not strung out and hollowed like she had been feeling recently. I think she approved of the saddle.

As for me, I love it. The cantle is higher than on older Wintec Pros, and I like the locked-in feeling of that combined with the giant blocks. The saddle places me in that ideal shoulder-hip-heel alignment, and I was able to sit up effortlessly. Because of the blocks, the 17.5" felt like the perfect size. Love the suede-like material, too! I had read in the reviews that people felt like this saddle had a wide twist. It has a narrow twist, but because of the blocks, your hips will feel like they get opened up. I actually did not mind this, as it serves to stretch out my wonky hip, and made my inner thigh muscles work harder. The Alta Escuela is more comfortable, but as a second saddle, I'm thrilled with this choice.

After our ride, Lily got to go out for a bit while Sally rode Jez, before all of the horses got brought in for the vet.

This was Jez's first ride since her bruise was discovered, and while she appears sound at liberty, she's still a little sore under saddle at the trot. It's very subtle when observed, but Sally could feel it. She had me get on just to confirm, and I felt it too. Jezebel was also being fairly clear that she was uncomfortable-she'd really want to trot, but as soon as she was trotting, she'd ask to slow back down to a walk. Very unlike her. Sally decided to give her the rest of the week off.

The vet arrived at 3:00 pm, right on time, and got to work vaccinating 40 horses. Dr. O, our previous vet, recently moved to Pennsylvania, and so Dr. S, the owner of the practice, had to hire another associate. Dr. R, the new vet, is young and recently out of school, but she has owned horses for years and seems to be very, very competent and knowledgeable. I'm also just partial to new doctors, because they tend to be more up to date on newer treatment protocols. This new doctor won a bazillion points with me because she got heart rates and temperatures on EVERY SINGLE horse in the barn. I had yet to see an equine vet do that on a vaccine appointment. They almost never do a complete physical, like you see done routinely on cats and dogs, unless the horse is suspected to be very sick.

Lily got her first round of spring shots. I had made an appointment for having her teeth floated as well on this day, so after everyone was done, I brought her out and put her in the wash stall for the vet. She was sedated, and within 5 minutes, her head had slowly dropped until her muzzle was almost even with the floor. Dr. R and her tech put the speculum in Lily's mouth and adjusted it, then the vet proceeded to inspect Lily's teeth. Her teeth were actually not bad, but Lily surprised all of us by groaning tremendously when the doctor had her hand halfway up Lily's mouth. She started laughing, "My, you have a huge gag reflex!!" My dramatic mare... The doctor actually let me feel Lily's teeth, so I could feel the sharp edges, which, like she said were really not too bad at all. The vet proceeded to float Lily's teeth with the drill while her tech held Lily's heavy head up.

This is the first time I've seen power tools used, and had always heard that manual tools are better. Watching this vet, I honestly can't tell you why the manual blade would be better. The blades I've seen used are huge, the same width as a hoof rasp, and I could never see how, especially on a small horse, they wouldn't end up cutting the tongue or the cheeks.

The vet had a small, flat circular float attached to the point of the unit. It had no sharp edges, and was about 2" in diameter at the most. This is all she used to float Lily's teeth. She did all of her teeth, and let me watch over her shoulder as she did it, so I can tell you that she truly got any and all sharp edges without overdoing it. She was even able to go all the way to the back of Lily's mouth, where, on the left side, there was one truly sharp corner on a back molar. The whole process took her 15 minutes, and she did a good job-I felt it myself!! I liked this, as it is less tiring for the horse's jaw muscles. Have you ever had to hold your mouth open for an hour for the dentist? I have. I tell you-it hurts for days!

After she was done, the speculum was removed. Dr. R took a look at Lily's front teeth, to make sure they were lining up correctly, and played with her jaw to make sure she was grinding properly. She was.

We then quickly moved her to her stall, before she really got sleepy from lack of stimulation. Dr. R helped me remove all of the hay from Lily's stall, and we piled it into a muck bucket outside. Lily went in obediently, head still hanging low, and proceeded to stare at the corner.

In general, animals on sedation crack me up. Sometimes you'll get one that hates it and gets really freaked out, which is not funny at all and you feel terrible for them. (Thankfully most sedatives are reversible.) But most of them just go with it. My favorite was a feline patient of ours back in FL who needed sedation for some minor procedure. He was an active but otherwise cooperative cat, and at the time I felt that sedation really wasn't needed for what we had to do, but the intern insisted. Well. As soon as the sedatives hit kitty, his pupils dilated, and he got this expression of "WOOOOW...." He was staring at everything in fascination, even turning around in my arms to look at the ceiling lights. I put him in his cage to chill, and he turned around and surprised me by gently grabbing my face between his front paws and drawing my face up to his so he could look at me more closely. I couldn't help it-I started laughing. He must have been getting some amazing visuals. The problem was when he became mouthy-he wanted to put everything in his mouth-the bedding, the cage door, our fingers...Not aggressively, it was more like he just wanted to feel things in his mouth. Weird kitty. At this point we ended up just waiting for the sedation to wear off before doing anything. "I told you he didn't need it!" I said to the intern. I think we used hydromorphone and midazolam on that kitty. Midazolam and diazepam (valium) can sometimes cause weird reactions like that in cats.

I went into the stall with Lily and scratched her poll and around her ears, which made her lazily tilt her head towards me. I gave her hugs and kisses, and chuckled at her as she stood with eyes closed. When I scratched her neck, she'd wiggle her lip, which was even with her bedding. It was the only part of her that would move!

I hung around for the next half hour or so, to make sure she'd recover okay from the sedative. By the time I was ready to leave, she would lift her head and turn her neck around to look at me when I walked in the stall, though she'd immediately turn around and let it hang. She got a kiss good-night, and I left for the day. Dr. R had said it should be okay to ride her the next day, as her mouth should not be sore.