Oh look! My new to me FreeJump Pro stirrups came in the mail. I need to try these out!
Ugh. That color makes my eyes bleed. Can I spray paint them? Is that tacky? Probably no worse than mixing royal blue with navy.
Hmmm…how do these go on? Why isn’t there a R or L on them? Even my headphones have that and who knew they were side specific. There is a flat edge and a rounded one. It looks like it slopes towards the heel when put on like this but then the colored arm is on the inside. Maybe that is a good thing since it’s ugly anyway. I don’t know.
5 minutes of internal debate later
Screw it. This looks right. I’m trying it.
Huh. These things are really sticky. I have to pick my foot up to adjust it. Why do I move my feet so much? Is is just because now I can’t that I have to? Or am I always this fidgety with my feet? Oh great. Another riding issue to fix. I’ll be 100 before I’m a decent rider at this rate.
Walking around getting the feel. H’Appy is feeling fantastic and is listening super well.
Let’s trot. And really I mean trot. Not canter. Or gallop. Or slam to a halt.
30 seconds later.
Holy mother of God why is someone stabbing my peroneals (outside ankle tendons) with a hot poker? Make it stop. Canter. Yes let’s canter.
Two laps of canter later
Nope. Nope nope nope. I’m crippled. I’ll never walk again.
Hobbles up to the barn to untack.
Maybe it’s the length. Maybe I need to lengthen them. I’ll try that tomorrow. If my feet don’t fall off first. Maybe it isn’t a stirrup issue. Is it the saddle? Did I spend all that money and need to resell it? I don’t want to sell it. But what else could it be? It’s the saddle. Shit. How am I going to tell Dusty I’m selling the saddle and getting a new one? What would I even get? Happy loves this saddle. Oh man. I should have just eaten my body weight in Mac’n cheese and chocolate for Valentine’s Day instead of rising. Damn.
Posts photo to Instagram and FB about the new stirrups.
Oh. Someone commented. Hmmm…oh fuck. I put them on wrong. Huh. Maybe I don’t need a new saddle after all. Just a brain transplant.
Thanks Amanda for letting me know I put them on wrong. I was on the verge of listing the saddle for sale, so I owe you one.
The Roaming Rider 
HAHAHAHA an honest mistake. You aren’t the first and definitely won’t be the last. Oh and yes, you can spray paint them, I know people that have done it. 😉
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Good because that blue color is atrocious. They need to put a R. Or an arrow. Maybe when bought new they come with directions. I got my second hand.
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They might have come with directions, I remember a little brochure type thing in the box with mine but I didn’t read any of it. Trial and error! 😂
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LOL. This may have made my day.
But mine did come with a Right and Left on each stirrup….
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I swear there isn’t on mine. Maybe the blinding bright blue is hiding it. Or maybe the previous owner scratched them out to fuck with my mind.
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I am fairly certain that it is on the solid branch. I hate to take mine on and off with every ride so I look at it all the time.
Because you can still put them on the wrong side with the safety branch to the outside. It is super uncomfortable that way too !
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It is. I’m really big letters too. I’m dumb.
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😂 lol ! At least it’s an amusing mistake ?!
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haha whoops!! those are miiiiighty fancy tho 😉 i may or may not have recently pressured/coerced my riding buddy to buy an orange pair when she was at the Waredaca Classic 3Day last fall haha. they looked kinda dusty and the box was beat up, so i’m guessing they had gone unsold for quite a while, and the guy was very willing to negotiate on price. hope you love them now that you’ve got them on right!
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I’d have loved to get an orange pair but I’m too cheap to buy new and these were a heck of a deal. Spray paint is going to be my friend.
I’m hoping I like them a lot better once I switch them around because wow are they painful when put on wrong.
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This was hilarious.
I hope that they work the other way round. Some stirrups kill my ankles.
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I hope so too. I bought them to mimic my endurance ones that are slightly angled with a wide foot bed. If it I can resell them likely for what I bought them for since I got them used.
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Omg your honesty is amazing, cause we’ve all done something like this!
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I felt pretty stupid when informed they were on wrong but also relieved because my mind had gone there and there was no rescuing it at that point.
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So why did you decide on free jump specifically? There are so many stirrup companies out there that make a nicer looking product (since you think they are ugly lol – I think all their products are hideous personally)
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I originally wanted the composite reflex stirrups because those are pretty but after talking to a bunch of people and getting my hands on them I didn’t like how light weight they were. Nothing else in my price range checked all the boxes I was after and when I saw these pop up at a good used price I snatched them. The color bothers me but I can fix that with some paint if I decide to keep them. At the price I got them for I should be able to resell them without taking a hit too so it seemed a win win proposition.
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Yeah I don’t mean to sound like an absolute curmudgeon over the irons and thank you for answering my question. I’m not a fan of plastic or composite stirrups at all and I realize it all does boil down to personal preference. I’ve been riding in the same fillis irons since I bought my saddle (my lexmark) they are heavy, they easily add 5 lbs to my saddle overall, but I can always find them if I lose an iron, and they lay flat when I do no stirrup work! MDC makes a lot of different iron configurations that if I were shopping today that is definitely where I would look first.
I’d honestly just resell them and find something more to your liking right out of the box versus trying to “fix” them.
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Cosmetics don’t matter to me. A solid safety rating, comfort and usability do. The ugly blue color can be changed if I want and is simple to do. The reason I didn’t like them was due to the fact that I put them on wrong and had severe ankle pain. If that still happens once put on correctly then I’ll resell them. If they are comfortable and secure while adding safety that my current irons lack, I will keep them no matter the cosmetics
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I like the blue!
Glad you managed not to sell the saddle though. I saw the picture and thought “oh dear, I know what’s happened here”.
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As a shade of blue it is ok. It doesn’t match my navy theme though and I’m not even a fan of navy but it is the only color that match Mr. Orange.
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That’s fair. Navy is my life.
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