Every time I buy a new saddle, I think, This is the last one, I’ll never need another. I should know better. Sooner or later, I always seem to need another saddle. It’s not because I’m a shopaholic who always has to have the latest and greatest. It’s because a well-fitted saddle should be comfortable for both the horse and the rider. When my riding abilities change, a saddle that was comfortable before may not be comfortable anymore. Or when I buy a new horse, my old, well-fitted saddle may not fit the new horse at all.

Until my recent experiences with Larry, I understood the importance of a well-fitted saddle, but not the complexity of fitting a saddle to both the horse and the rider.

When I bought Larry three years ago, I had been using a Ridgemount saddle which I had originally purchased for a long-backed, 17-hand Warmblood.

Larry is a dainty Thoroughbred, 15.3 hands, croup-high, with a very short back. I assumed that all I had to do was have my saddler adjust the flocking in the Ridgemount to fit Larry better, and all would be well. Before long, though, Larry’s back was sore. I felt like I was being left behind at the trot, always flinging myself uphill at the rising trot to catch up. It was like the saddle was positioning me too far back on Larry’s back.

A saddle is supposed to place the rider’s centre over the horse’s centre, around the thirteenth thoracic vertebra (T13). When the rider is centered, the horse carries the rider’s weight where the horse’s back is strongest. The horse is comfortable and balanced. Plainly this wasn’t happening with my Ridgemount.

Coincidentally, around this time my Ridgemount developed a loud squeak. My saddler told me this happens when rivets in the tree pop loose. The saddle had to go away for repair, and there wasn’t a saddle in the barn that fit Larry. I tried a demo Butet saddle that had been left for someone else to try, and loved it. The ‘sweet spot’ – the flat spot where the rider sits – was further forward on the Butet than the Ridgemount, so I thought this would fix my problem at the trot. The company rep took Larry’s measurements, and I ordered a Butet. I assumed a made-to-measure saddle would fit Larry for life.

But it’s never that easy. Within months, the saddle started to sit lower in front. I felt like I was sliding downhill on to the pommel. The foam panels had apparently compressed, essentially making the saddle wider in front. This caused it to slide forward on to Larry’s shoulders. Not good. One thing you don’t want is for the saddle to restrict movement in the horse’s shoulder. This causes pain in the wither area, which in turn creates a domino effect.

Pain in the wither causes the horse to brace his back.

This tension travels all the way down the spine to the sacro-iliac (SI) joints. The SI joints form a hinge that allows the horse to ‘sit’ and the hind legs to reach underneath the body. But when the horse braces his back due to pain, the hinge doesn’t work.

When the hinge doesn’t work, the legs can’t reach underneath the horse’s body. They are forced to work behind the horse. This puts strain on the leg joints, and the hind legs get sore. (Last year, Larry’s hind legs were so sore, I had to have his hocks injected.)

The horse ends up pulling himself along with his front legs rather than pushing with his hind legs. I’d been watching Larry do this on the lunge since early spring, but hadn’t clued in to what was happening.

Because foam panels can’t be repaired, only replaced at great expense, my saddler suggested that I try a shimmable half-pad to shore up up the front of the saddle. It worked for a while. Then the familiar feeling of sliding downhill came back. Larry started to get sore in the withers, then under the saddle.

But there’s more. One day, when my ride on Larry wasn’t going so well, and I decided to finish the session with some lungeing. I don’t usually lunge Larry with the saddle on. So on this day, as I watched him trot in a circle around me, I saw the saddle with fresh eyes. I thought, That saddle is huge on him! It seemed way too long for his short back.

Ideally the footprint of a saddle shouldn’t go past the last rib, which feeds into the spine at the eighteenth thoracic vertebra (T18). If the saddle is longer than this, it ends up resting on the lumbar vertebrae, where there is very little weight-bearing support. The pictures below show how far back my Butet was sitting.

 

There was an additional reason why a saddle with such a large footprint was bad news for Larry. He has kissing spine at T18, as well as T11-T12 as described in an earlier post. So another problem started to make sense: the fact that I couldn’t canter Larry because he would buck when I asked for a canter transition. He never bucked when he transitioned into canter on the lunge line. The difference: my weight bearing down on his T18 when I was riding him in the Butet.

This time, before I rushed out to replace the saddle, I did what I should have done last time: I consulted with my saddler. He suggested I look for an Amerigo Classic or Equipe dressage saddle. These saddles are built with less ‘in front’, and would have the best chance of positioning me properly on Larry’s back.

I was lucky enough to find a second-hand Amerigo at my favourite tack store, and it fit Larry beautifully. The first time I tried it on him, I received a compliment on how nicely Larry was stepping out. My saddler checked it out and gave me a thumbs-up.

Larry is a different horse with this new, well-fitted saddle. He doesn’t fuss at the beginning of each ride anymore. His gaits feel more fluid, and he canters now, no bucking, no drama. This Amerigo also happens to be a more comfortable saddle for me. I didn’t realize how ‘locked in’ I felt in my Butet; the sweet spot was so small that it gave me no room to move. At one point in my career, this would have given me a sense of security, but now it felt constricting. I’m not saying that my Butet is a badly-made saddle. It absolutely isn’t; it’s a beautifully constructed and balanced saddle. But it didn’t work for Larry. My Amerigo saddle – a well-fitted saddle both in design and in its adjustment to Larry’s back – has been a win-win.

I know better than to assume it’s my last saddle, though. For sure, something will happen…