Happy New Year, and welcome back! I hope you all had the chance to spend some time with family and friends and your horses over the holidays and wish you all a very happy, healthy and successful 2016.
One of the questions I am often asked by my female clients especially is ‘Can wide horses cause my hips to hurt?’ The answer is yes – but there is an easy solution. Too many times the concept of twist of the saddle is misunderstood. It is defined in saddler terms as being that part of the tree that the rider feels between the inner upper thighs. As such, the twist is absolutely instrumental in combatting the feel of being ‘pulled apart’ at the hips. You can have a very narrowly built horse and still have this feeling – if you are riding in a saddle which has a twist that is simply too wide for the rider’s conformation.
The tree shape and design is critical in determining the final fit of the saddle to both horse and rider – everything else is just ‘fluff.’ As such, the bottom of the tree should be made to accommodate the needs of the horse, including panel shape and length, gullet width, and tree point position. Crucial for the rider will be stirrup bar placement, the twist, the seat depth and the cantle height and position. Therefore, you can still have a tree built for a wider-backed horse while still accommodating the needs of the rider with a narrow twist, and thus avoiding that ‘pulled apart’ feeling that riding a gender inappropriate saddle on such a wide horse usually brings with it.
There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but most women will feel more comfortable riding with a…Read the full article here.
~ Jochen Schleese CMS, CSFT, CSE, courtesy of Saddlefit 4 Life
