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My mare, Mouse, is very short-backed and needed a
crupper to stop the saddle jamming her shoulders
on our numerous steep hills.

Unlike most of the stories I've seen here, she did
not settle to the crupper calmly and without incident.

The first time I put it on (adjusted not too tight),
she was fine so long as she knew it was me back there,
fiddling with it. Leading her while walking was also
fine, but as soon as we started trotting in hand (I
didn't have a round pen, so had to do this on a lunge
line) she tucked, felt the crupper and went ballistic.
She was bucking around so hard, making donkey noises,
that my husband inside the house came running out to
see what had happened. Had there been an obstacle in
the way - say a tree - I have no doubt she would have
bucked straight into it.

After more thought on the whole idea, I ended up
putting it on her, but leaving it really loose, so
it never engaged. I started off just reaching back,
rubbing her butt, then gently yanking on the crupper
every so often. Over the weeks, I gradually tightened
it little by little, until one day we were going down
a steep hill and I looked back and the crupper was doing
its job.

That's not to say I didn't have a few interesting
incidents with her later on - one such riding the
Tevis trail at night, stopping to get out a munchy
bar - reins in mouth, crop stuffed under my leg
while I tried to unwrap it. She heard the rustle
of the paper in the dark, scootled slightly, felt
the crupper and started crow hopping - luckily I
was able to reach back and tug on the crupper to
reassure her that it wasn't a lion leaping on her
butt.

I used a Zilco crupper, but had some problems with
the edge of the plastic that the tail piece fits
into rubbing hair out. Anyone else had that problem?
I ended up taping it with electrical tape, but it
was a bit sticky when it got warm.

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Lucy Chaplin Trumbull
elsietee AT foothill DOT net
Repotted english person in the Sierra foothills, California
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