In my experience saddles can be a major bugbear for a less experienced owner. And yet a good saddle makes a big difference.
On my search for a new horse I came across some truly awful saddles. Some horses were presented almost crippled in “a friends saddle I have borrowed”. For this reason, when trying a horse for sale, it is worth checking out the tack being used. Don’t reject a good horse due to poor-fitting tack.
I learnt about saddles by making mistakes. When I bought Shantie he came with all his tack. Great, I thought, therefore it’s bound to fit. I had a saddler to check the saddle anyway and she adjusted the flock behind the shoulders. A combination of additional pressure due to hard packed flock and bad riding led to some rather nasty saddle sores. Shantie still has the white hair scar patches to prove it.
I had the Balance people out to help. They showed me how to take wither patterns to monitor my horse’s shape. I rode bareback on a polypad for many years after that. It gave me a different perspective on saddles and why I needed one and therefore what was important to me about it.
People who say that bareback riding is cruel to the horse have never ridden bareback. It makes you very aware of your balance, and being truly let down and relaxed. However, you need a comfy backed horse that you can trust. You learn that a lot of the rider’s weight is supported on the thighs, and not on the seat bones as is commonly thought.
I only used a saddle for road hacking and jumping. I had an Albion GP that I bought new from a reputable saddler (fitted by him). Two years later another reputable saddler said it didn’t fit and it was causing my back problems. She fitted a wider GP with a prolite pad. She explained her philosophy, that the saddle needed to be wider than the horse, as well as needing padding (socks) like a good pair of walking boots. It worked for me but how much of this was down to an improvement in my balance and how much to the saddle is another question entirely.
Which leads me to another important finding. Good saddles don’t make up for unbalanced riding. Changing the saddle is a quick fix that will always fail in the long term if the rider is not sufficiently balanced and stable in the saddle. A good seat requires work, however, you can’t buy a good seat.
What is a good saddle?
I think that a good saddle fits you and the horse and does not block either in any way. It is conspicuous by its absence.
The choice is bewildering. Saddles differ in many ways:
-Different purposes – dressage, GP, jumping, endurance, Trec
-Different materials – leather, suede, synthetic
-Different panel stuffing – flock, gel, air, reactorpanel
-Different trees – wood, synthetic, sprung, adjustable, western, none (treeless)
-Different girthing systems – long tabs, short tabs.
It is difficult to work out what is a difference between features for marketing’s sake and those which are really useful.
I tried five saddlers when I first bought my Lusitano horse. None of them had a saddle that would fit him in stock. All of them wanted to convince me to order a made to measure new saddle. I resisted this, as a saddle belonging to the owner of the yard did fit Eric and I very well. It was a showing (working hunter) saddle so I ordered one from the supplier. “You send a template and he makes one to measure”.
Do you know I received and returned five saddles, none of which fitted! The last of these to arrive still didn’t fit. The yard owner said “if we use a thick numnah and a prolite wither pad etc etc it should just about fit”. I repeat, this was a brand new made to measure saddle. At the time I wasn’t in a fit state to make decisions about anything due to my nervous breakdown so I gave up trying and took my horse to France without a saddle.
For the horse the shape of the tree and the shape and bearing surface of the panels really matters. Horses, like humans, come in different shapes and sizes. Eric is flat through the back longitudinally (front to back) and not very wide latitudinally (side to side). Shantie is more concave longitudinally but broader laterally. The same saddle tree is unlikely to fit both.
Saddles also differ in terms of the amount of padding in the panels beneath the rider’s seat. I prefer a saddle that gives a close contact feel (ie less distance from the rider’s seat to the horse’s back). The Passier Grand Gilbert dressage saddle is a good example of the seating arrangement I prefer.
We riders also have different conformation. See Charles Harris’ “Fundamentals of Riding” (22) for a thorough exposition of the difference between the male and female conformation. Some riders prefer a deeper seat with huge knee rolls. Personally, I prefer a more open, flatter, seat with little knee roll. Some friends prefer a lot of padding on the seat. Personally, I prefer as little as possible; the closer I can sit to the horse the better. Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling (19) recommends Iberian saddles but they all look like they have masses of padding in the panels.
Girthing arrangements make a difference to saddle fitting too. Better girthing means less movement of the saddle (all things equal). The relative positioning of the horse’s centre of gravity and the girth groove affects the requirement for the positioning of the girth tabs. A horse with a girth groove well in front of the centre of gravity may need a point strap. Equally, a horse with conformation the other way around may benefit from a cantilever arrangement. A three point girthing system can give better stability than only two central girthing points. The girth itself also needs to be comfy. I really like the Wintec Elastic girths. They are strong but with some elasticity and easy to care for.
Leathers can make a big difference. I find that I prefer single thickness dressage leathers. The key to it all is comfort. If you’re not comfy you won’t relax and if your horse isn’t comfy either, because you aren’t, or the saddle doesn’t suit his contours, then he won’t relax.