Is your horse refusing to obey its rider’s aids? If your mount normally cooperates wholeheartedly, but is starting to disobey and resist, your saddle might be the problem.
Saddles are used to distribute a rider’s weight evenly over the horse’s back. If the weight is poorly distributed, back pain or injury may result. The animal will modify its natural posture in order to protect itself, thereby triggering a chain reaction that will eventually affect the horse’s entire body as well as that of the rider’s.
Here are a few tips to help prevent this situation from occurring. They apply to both English and Western saddles.
Examine your saddle
- Try bending the saddle to ensure that the tree is not broken;
- Make sure that the saddle does not have any irregular surfaces and that the padding is intact; even through a thick saddle pad, your horse will feel the slightest imperfection, such as a lump or nail.
Place the saddle on the horse’s back WITHOUT a saddle pad
- Slide the saddle along the horse’s back until it stops at its natural resting place, according to the horse’s conformation. Repeat this action until you feel that the saddle consistently stops in the same place, well behind the scapula. The saddle must not interfere with the horse’s withers.
Check the size of the saddle – the size of the saddle is normally determined by the size of the tree. NEVER use a saddle that is too small.
- The shorter the distance is between the horse’s shoulder blades and the more prominent its withers are, the narrower the tree needs to be.
- The greater the distance is between the horse’s shoulder blades or the wider its back is, the wider the tree needs to be.
Channel size and clearance – The space underneath the length of the saddle should be large enough to completely clear the spine and the connective tissue, and the channel should rest on the long back muscle, the longissimus dorsi.
Verify wither clearance - You should be able to move two or three fingers between the withers and the pommel. If the clearance is greater than this, there is a risk that the saddle is too small, and vice versa.
Verify the length - The saddle should not go beyond the animal’s last rib.
Perform the hand test - Press down in the middle of the saddle to hold it in place with your hand. Insert your other hand between the saddle and horse at the pommel level, with your palm facing away from the horse. Slide your hand along the length of the saddle until the end. You should feel light resistance, but not more than that. If the saddle’s pressure is not uniform in some areas, consult an expert and, most importantly, using a thicker saddle pad to compensate for a poor fitting saddle is generally not a wise solution. Although it is possible to come to an acceptable compromise in some situations, it is always best to ask an experienced instructor, a qualified saddlery or saddler to examine the fit.
Finally, be attentive to your horse – if you have any reason to believe it is in pain, have your saddle examined and talk to a veterinarian. Equine massage is an excellent way to relieve muscle tension, and it will also help your horse return to its normal posture after it has been using compensatory movements in order to avoid pain. |
