This
excerpt is taken from the book “Saddle Fitting “ by Kay Humphries a simple
no nonsense guide to correctly fitting a saddle published
through Allen Photographic Guides.
White
Saddle Cloth Test -
This
is the easiest and cheapest test you can do and one of the best ways to assess
fit.
NEVER
buy any saddle that you have not taken home and done this test with first. The
dynamics of your saddle will of change once your weight is applied to it and
the only way to really asses fit is when it is weighted and the horse is in
motion.
Ride
for at least half an hour, more if possible using only a thin white saddle cloth
(or a pale colour) under the trial saddle. Take
enough time to get a good dirt impression from the saddle panels, and then
examine your dirt marks carefully. Most good saddleries will carry some
test saddles so you can take them home and even most owners will allow you a
trial of second hand saddles.
After
all they don’t want you to return them later either.
Sometimes placing a material saddle cover over the saddle will protect it
from any marks or damage whilst you trial it.
What
you are trying to establish is if the saddle panels are wide enough and disperse
weight throughout their entire length, and if they mirror in reverse the shape
of your horse's back. It doesn't matter what type of saddle you choose,
English, Stock, Western whatever........... it must pass this test to avoid
pressure points.
The
saddlecloth imprint will tell you a great deal about the way your saddle fits
once your weight is added to it. Spread it out on the ground next to your
upturned saddle and look at them both carefully and ask yourself these
questions.
Is
the imprint even throughout all the areas of the panels?
If
the imprint is symmetrical and even, you know that your weight is being
distributed evenly throughout the entire panel which disperses the pressure over
the greatest area. If the imprint of the panels is in patches, then your
saddle does not fit. Dark areas are where the saddle is bridging and there is
heavy pressure.
The
light areas are not receiving any weight at all. This creates immense
pressure in the dark areas. Dark patches only in the front panels of the saddle
indicate that the saddle is receiving all the pressure there and is pivoting off
this area and probably moving from side to side at the back causing friction and
heat.
Dark
areas on one side only? Maybe you are carrying an injury and are sitting
with your weight more on one hip, maybe there is atrophy of the other side of
your horse's back. Maybe there is
asymmetrical muscle development due to a clubby hoof.
Dark
areas at the back of the panels (often evident with Australian stock saddles)
show that all your weight and the consequent pressure to the horses is to the
back of the saddle and you are not being centred properly. These saddles are
designed to sit you at the back of the saddle with your feet forward and have
fairly rigid construction through the pommel which unless they are an exact fit
will act like a nut cracker on the withers area.
Check
the saddle thoroughly underneath:
There
should be no hard spots in the padding and definitely no nasties like bolts or
fittings pushing through which would be driven into his back.
These can lay just below the surface and not be seen by the naked eye.
Use your hands and press deeply over the entire padding.
Sometimes
stuffing will compact and roll up into hard solid rolls which are hard to detect
with your hands but your horse will certainly feel them when you sit on the
saddle.
Saddles
should also be symmetrical, take the time to really compare one side to the
other, look along the channel to see if it is straight.
The
channel
up the centre of the saddle should be wide and high. It should not narrow
towards the back as the horse's spinous processes are smaller there than near
the withers. It must be wide enough never to touch the spinal processes or
trap the muscles that attach there when the horse flexes sideways.
Panels
themselves should be wide sitting just above the shelf of ribs. There
should be no places where the panels have bowed and pushed in towards the spine
and no sharp edges where the leather has folded as the stuffing has compressed
and become sharp. It is almost
impossible to detect a broken tree unless the saddle is dismantled by a saddler
so often these go unnoticed expect by the horse!
Next
place check for dynamic fit – place your saddle on the horse without a
saddlecloth.
o
Place
the saddle on the horse where you would normally put it but don’t do up the
girth. Put one hand on the centre of
the deepest part of the saddle to stop it moving.
o
Put
your other hand as if you were
offering to shake hands with someone (it will have to be your left hand if you
are facing the near side of the horse).
o
Pass
your left hand into the pommel at the withers, deep into the channel, right up
to your thumb ( till it won’t go any further ).
Still keep your hand in that handshake position so your fingers lay flat
against the horse’s shoulder.
o
Stiffen
your fingers and then pass your hand down under the front panels towards the
horse’s foreleg. Keep your hand firmly jammed in as far as it will go but also
continue to keep your fingers flat against the horse’s shoulder.
o
Slide
it right down from top till it emerges out of the saddle at the bottom.
o
If
the saddle fits well you should feel a little resistance at the top of the
panels, but you should be able to smoothly run hand straight downwards with only
a small amount of force. If you find
your hand is jammed at the top of the panels by pressure from the tree and you
need to use some force to slide it down, then this is not the saddle for your
horse as once you add your weight to it, it will surely drive itself into the
horse’s withers in the places where your hand became stuck.
You
should be able to see daylight all the way along his spine and the front near
the withers should give good clearance and not touch his withers even when your
weight is in the saddle and a thick saddle blanket is under it.
Once mounted put your hand under the pommel and feel to be sure that the
saddle still is well off the top of the spinous processes of the withers.
The
saddle should sit level on the horse’s back and the deepest part of the seat
should be half way between the pommel and the cantle so the tree can disperse
the weigh evenly along its length. If the back is lower than the front or
vice versa then your weight will be forced towards the lower portion and the
panels will not bare weight evenly.
Don’t
be tempted to adjust a saddle that is not level by placing wedge pads under the
rear or front of it, as these tend to move around and cause more problems than
they cure. Saddles that need
constant adjusting just don’t fit...give up on them and get one that does.
Next
do up the girth and check to see if the saddle is still sitting correctly.
Is it still level?
Does
it now appear to want to lift up at rear and dig into the horse's shoulders?
If
your saddle will not stay forward without a very tight girth, or you have to
anchor your saddle forward with a tight breastplate (which is then damaging your
horses shoulder muscles) your saddle is too far forward. Usually the
saddle moves back to the correct position, leave it there! Cruppers also should
be unnecessary.
Never
stretch your horses front legs out to pull the skin from under the girth.
Horses do not have a shoulder joint like ours and to them this is an extreme
stretch and when done to a cold or sore horse may cause a muscle tear. In
fact never stretch cold horses.
By
now you may be thinking, oh dear, I will never find the right saddle and feel
panic setting in. It is often a frightening thing for horse owners to
acknowledge that their favourite saddle has actually been causing problems.
Be
patient and be prepared to try a few saddles.
Once you have an understanding of what your saddle is doing to your horse
it makes it possible for you to make informed choices about your next saddle.
Saddlery owners today are usually more than happy to assist you to find what you
need, after all happy customers are their best advertisements
All
saddles will have some impact on your horses back, how much depends on what
saddle you choose but regardless of its outward appearance the mechanics of any
saddle are exactly the same. Many horses never reach their full potential
because training has become a punishment.
|
Common
behaviours that our horses’ will exhibit
if they have ill fitting saddles: If
your horse is exhibiting some of the following then suspect that you have
an advanced saddle fit problem already. First
of all does your horse snarl and lay back his ears when he sees you coming
with your favourite saddle? You may love it, he hates it and it
telling you so as it makes his time with you a punishment. Does
your horse's back have areas of white hair, or if he is a grey, areas that
don't seem to get wet when you hose him? White hair indicates damage
from pressure, usually ongoing and done months ago. Pressure or
friction has actually damaged the hair follicles causing them to grow back
without pigment. Much the same as freeze branding does. Areas
that don't seem to sweat are also caused by severe trauma killing the
sweat glands. This
damage is often evident under where the stirrup bars exert force in the
hollow at the wither. Riding instructors often say that standing in the
stirrups lifts your weight off the back. This is a myth, this
practice does not "take your weight off the horse's back"
and unless you have actually learned how to levitate above the horse it
just concentrates your weight onto the two points where the stirrup bars
attach to the saddle, driving the tree into his back at those points. Even
sweat marks are not a good indication of saddle fit as often areas of
earlier damage will not sweat even after the muscles have returned to
normal. Only the white saddle cloth/dirt map test mentioned
below will give true indications of fit once your weight is added. Does
your horse have high head carriage or an over developed ewe-neck?
The reasons for this are mentioned earlier in these notes.
This is always a warning sign of serious problems. Does
your horse exhibit head tossing or want to reef the reins out of your
hands and stretch his neck downwards? This
is caused by the horse wanting to relieve the pain from the saddle. By
stretching his neck forwards it stretches the ligaments of his neck and
back and gives temporary relief to tight muscles. Much the same as we
are want to do when we are tight between the shoulder blades. Does
your horse resent girth tightening and 'blow up'? Riders
still seem to dismiss this as just horse behaviour and I have even seen
horses abused and kneed in the stomach for supposedly "blowing
up" when the girth is tightened. This is one of those nasty old
wives tales (or should I say bad horse manager's tales). Horses
never fake discomfort. They are also not capable of holding their
breath deliberately, as this is not a concept they have. What is actually
happening is that they anticipate are about to be hurt and become tense.
This causes them to tighten all their abdominal and thorax muscles, giving
the impression that they are holding their breath. When they relax after
the girth is tightened they appear to deflate! Much as we do when the
dentist steps back from the chair and announces "finished" and
we sink back down more comfortably into the chair Is
your horse cold backed and sometimes bucks when first mounted? This
is usually because the muscles of his back have become shortened and are
in a very contracted and reactive state. The application of your
weight causes the panels under the saddle to press into these tight sore
muscles and the muscle will then cramp. Sometimes horses will even
buckle at the knees when mounted trying to get down and away from this
painful pressure. Does
your horse start his ride (or workout) calmly but become agitated and jog
and fidget as the ride proceeds? Horses
who become unsettled the longer you work them usually find that this is
the only way they can cope with their sore backs. These are usually
the type of horse who is too polite to buck but is reaching the end of his
tether! Is
his back hot or tender to the touch, or have raised areas when the saddle
is removed? These
are friction burns. Saddles that don't fit tend to pivot from the girth
points. Moving from side to side causing great heat and skin damage. Often
owners are told that they can help by placing a thick saddle pad under an
ill fitting saddle. Actually what you are doing is forcing more bulk
into an already too small space. Just like buying shoes that are too
small and then wearing them with hiking socks! Does
your horse resist flexing to one or both sides, or not want to pick up his
canter leads one way? Horses
often resist flexing because the saddle panels are too close to his spinal
processes. The part of his spine you can feel along his
back is just the top of long spinal processes, which rise up from his
vertebrae. Many
muscles and ligaments have attachments to these processes and they do
actually move quite a lot under the saddle.
It is important that saddles with a channel down the centre don’t
trap these processes and prevent movement and that saddles without any
channels such as Western style saddles have very thick soft pads under
them and that they are never used on thin horses who have atrophied backs
or they will place a lot of pressure on the spinal processes once the
rider's weight is pressing the saddle down. Remember
these types of saddles were originally designed to be able to rope and
anchor a full grown bull to the saddle horn. They are unyielding and solid
and their girthing system was designed so that they would never pull
sideways around the horse. They were purpose built for working stock and
not meant for casual trail riding. A
word about “girthy” or “cold backed” horses. The
girth presses on the pectoral muscles under the chest and against his
sides where the serratus muscles lay over the ribs.
Both these muscles are thin and easily made sore.
The pectoral muscles bring his legs backward with every stride so
every stride causes discomfort if they are damaged. Pear shaped
horses have all this force concentrated on a small area of pectoral muscle
directly under their belly. Girths need to be as wide as possible
and in a neoprene sleeve so as not to crush these muscles. The
fashion at the moment is for long girth points, which extend below the
saddle. These cause areas of
direct pressure against the horse's side where the thin serratus muscles
lay. Be sure to buy a wide
girth with plenty of material behind the buckle to protect the horse’s
sides. Just as wide panels spread the forces so do wide girths. Western
style cynch setups are also responsible for a lot of damage to the
serratus muscles and the steel rings can cause circular areas of muscle
atrophy if these girths are done up too tightly.
Their very design allows for a huge amount of leverage and owners
should be aware of this. Sometimes
girthyness may be due to nerve dysfunction to the girth area creating
altered impulses. This may be
from damage to the stay apparatus muscles of the forehand from long term
hoof problems or spinal trauma that needs investigation by a veterinary
chiropractor. Don’t
do up your girth when you are sitting in the saddle. This gives you way too much leverage force from above. Check tightness by
passing your fingers under the front section between the horses legs.
Not just behind the elbow where there is a natural hollow or you will get
a false impression of the tightness. If
your girth needs to be very tight to keep the saddle from slipping then
your saddle doesn't fit properly. If you saddle fits
well then the girth should be almost unnecessary unless the horse shies. Avoid
pulling the saddle sideways around the horse when you mount.
When this happens the girth also may pull the pectoral muscles
sideways and upwards. Some horses become so frightened of this pain they
will not stand still for mounting. Putting a girth sleeve over the girth
will prevent this as then the girth moves in the sleeve and doesn’t pull
directly against the horse’s sides. |
References:
Equethy
Workshops – Equine Massage Therapy Course Notes.
Saddle
fit as Art & Science by Eliza McGraw
Imagine
your horses back as a Bow – Dr. Gail Williams PhD
Find
that Perfect Saddle – Endurance World Magazine article - Chrisann Ware
Who’s
built best to ride? Dr. Deb Bennett PhD
Free
to Move A Saddle Fit Video – by Freehorse Productions -
Caroline Hamilton, Danni Symmonds & Chrisann Ware – graphics by
Vikki Morgan who generously allowed me to use some of them them to illustrate
this article
