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Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Breeches hint

I saw Farley a total of 15 times in the month of January.  She was ridden 4x. 

Considering I saw her 6x in December (rode once), 6x in November (rode once), 3x in October (rode twice) I'm actually quite pleased. 

With the days getting longer and the weather holding, I'm going to try and do even better in February.  This block has a lot less 8a-5pm days which should help!  (I have to leave my house at 6:15am to make it to school by 8, and I get home ~7p if I get off at 5).  When my LD is scheduled will depend on what kind of riding I get done this month - which will greatly depend on the weather holding. 

When I joined USDF, I was pleasantly surprised with their organization magazine - the USDF "Connection".  It is really well written and has a number of interesting articles each month.  In one of the last magazines I received (I'm not renewing my membership since I'm not showing) they had an excellent article on breeches.  They covered fit, materials, full seats versus half seats, and whether you should invest in leather. 

At this point in my equestrian life, most hose magazine articles are predictable and decidedly non-helpful - which is why I make whole posts out of mocking them.  This article made a couple of points that I had never seen before!

One of the most helpful had to do with getting the right size - specifically that if you have a long femur, you might be more comfortable in a pair of "talls" than regular or shorts - even if you have short legs.   

I've never even considered trying on "talls" - I have very short legs, even for my height.  BUT, I have a long femur.  It can be difficult for me to find a saddle that fits my leg well because of this, and it's impossible for me to get a pair of breeches where the patches sit well on my leg that aren't too big around the waist. 

From now on, if the waist band, hip and butt fit - I'll try the talls before moving up a size! 

3 comments:

  1. But what if you're conformationally challenged? Do they tell you how to know if your femurs are longer than normal? I think I have a long torso but that's the limit of my insights.

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  2. LOL -you are so funny.

    I think I started to suspect it when I figured out my femur is the same length as Matt's - who is pushing 6 foot. Female femur's are longer proportionally as compared to their lower leg anyways - but then I started looking at pictures and other people and realized that my legs are short because I have short calves. AND when I bought lap swimming suits, they go by torso size and I had to wear a fairly long one. So then I asked my riding instructor whether I had a long femer, because I was having trouble keeping my knee behind the roll on a fairly forward flap and she said, yes, it was a bit long.

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  3. I have been obsessing over the sliiiightly inadequate upper-leg length in my winter breeches ever since I read this post. Aggravating now, but I will keep it in mind when I find myself shopping next!

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