Chance left today, Pete left on Monday, and Jewel is scheduled to leave tomorrow...I enjoyed working with each of them, but at the same time it will be nice to have a bit lighter work load for a little while!

With the big show this weekend, I decided to head to the tack shops to see if I could find a proper dressage coat and dress boots to fit me. I have held off buying these items, and have been showing in my blue pin stripe hunt coat, and my 20 year old second hand field boots, but it seemed time to step up and buy the right outfit for showing Dexter.

At Before You Ride I found a decent black hunt coat with horse head buttons...two buttons are missing, but I can replace them if it means saving a few bucks. The jacket is machine washable which was a major plus. I am not so sure about the velvet collar though...

All the dress boots at Before You Ride looked to be made for small people...the boots came up about 15 cm short of my knee, so no luck there for boots.

On I went to Tudor Tack, where I found a possible used saddle for Diesel, and I tried on some new dress boots. The economy brands were my first choice...but alas, they do not come in my size. Even the talls were too short, and the narrows too wide...wide enough I could fit my arm in the boot. So I decided to ask about the Ariats, and low and behold they had a pair in both my foot size and Narrow/Tall! I tried them on, and although still a little loose in the ankle and calf, they fit well enough, and the only other option would be the Konigs which start at $1300! Not likely to be in my budget anytime soon! I got the Hunter version of the dress boots, so they don't have the steel shank, but the steel shank version adds another $300 or so to the price, and these ones seems stiff enough.

So the boots came home with me. I tried them out on Gjelt, who was the only horse I had left to ride today. The boots are so different from my dress boots! Even just standing in them they feel odd; they are built so that the heel is naturally a tiny bit down, so when standing in them,the boots push the knees forward...definately not meant for walking! Riding in them was way more different than I expected too...the boot is so stiff, and the ankle so supportive, that my weight was held more evenly in my foot, rather than pressing down into my heel like in my feild boots. It complete changed the way my leg hung, and helped me to put my leg into a more dressagey position.

Another definate bonus is the these boots have ZIPPER!

So now I am not sure if I should go ahead and show in these boots, or go with my old Field boots...I won't get a chance to ride Dexter in the boots to practice, as I plan to give him tomorrow off, and I show early Friday AM....

But, now to the point of my story...now that I have dress boots, I can now understand how much they will help support my ankle and leg position so perhaps developing my dressage seat would have been easier if i had the boots earlier. I see this often with students, particularly beginners. They want to save money, so ride in any old boot with a heel. One day they splurge and get proper boots and/or half chaps and suddenly their leg position is so much easier to hold and things start to fall into place. Perhaps things would have been easier had they bought the right equipment sooner....

Karen