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Do you ride a weaker, greener horse with a lighter seat than normal?

Hiiiiii! Kind of a general question for you all - do you ever ride your weaker, new to dressage horses in a jump saddle instead of dressage to stay off their back since they might have weaker back muscles and not be able to carry someone in that deeper seat? Or do most dressage people just start right from the get go in a dressage saddle?

To me the obvious answer to this question would be like, in an ideal world you’ve built up their muscles and topline with a lot of ground work before you even sit on their back, but I feel like that still might be a different kind of strength than what a horse experiences with a rider on their back, and you do eventually have to get on and ride.

Or maybe they’re fine at the walk and trot, but then do you ever shorten your dressage stirrups to try to like do a little two point during canter work while they’re still building up fitness, or maybe just keep the canter work short until you feel like they should be strong enough to hold your seat in the canter?

How do you know if your seat might be too much for them to carry right now and when is the right time to start riding with a deeper seat? Or is it that if your seat aid is well-educated and well practiced enough, any weak, green horse should be just fine carrying it and if they can’t then you need to just keep your seat out of the saddle because it’s too sloppy or not fine-tuned enough as an aid?

I hope this isn’t a dumb question! :sweat_smile: LMK your thoughts!

I’m not sure that I can actually sit that well to make a difference. Lol. Charlotte Dujardin stated somewhere that she doesn’t work a sitting trot until the horse is 6 or so became she feels the horse’s back hasn’t developed enough strength for the sitting trot prior to that age. When I watch video of a high level trainer I know riding young horses in training, I’d say she does post the trot the vast majority of the time.

I might be wrong, but I think the canter depart is physically more difficult for a young horse than the actual canter itself.

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When my horse was green she didn’t like the posting, was happier with a sitting trot at slower trot speeds.

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Yes, I absolutely do, with the qualifications that I am an eventer, mostly ride TBs, and that I am a heavier rider. I start everything in my jump saddle and I typically start in a hunter half seat and get a feel for where they are before I sit on them even at the walk. I want them to be straight and forward (consistently in front of my leg) at the trot and canter before I really sit more than a stride or two at a time-- obviously sometimes you have to sit because you need your seat as an aid to survive but generally I try to keep that light feel until they are “going” and I’m not going to be bumping them along.

I don’t use my dressage saddle until they are able to do basically the requirements for training 3 and I trust that they are going to behave! So often at least the first few outings are in my jump saddle with my stirrups down a hole hole or two from jumping length but not where I would want them on a made dressage horse.

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I ride in a lighter seat, but not necessarily a different saddle. I bought a jumping/AP saddle to start my young horse in, but she did not appreciate the more forward balance, and I found I often needed to sit back/deep for a few moments to keep her going forward. She also gives me reason to appreciate the thigh blocks on my dressage saddle, but I do ride with as short of a stirrup as the saddle allows. I don’t sit the trot except if I need to really influence her for a couple strides when she has a sticky spot. This photo is a pretty good representation of the seat I use on her (she is 5, under saddle off and on for 11 months) vs. the deeper seat and more upright torso riding my ~2nd level horse.

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Same. Dressage saddle but definitely a light seat for a while. I stick to posting most of the time on 4 and 5 year olds. Most younger/greener/weaker horses will slow the trot and use the back and hind end less when you sit because they need to figure out how to carry you. That’s not what I want in training - I want the horse learning to use himself and his gaits to the fullest. Sitting can come later - partially determined by how supple the rider’s seat is. Same in canter - although most of them are ready for a full seat sooner in canter than trot.

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Same as above. I don’t change the saddle, however I change how I sit and even get out of the saddle for canter if that is what they need.

As above you don’t do sitting trot on a horse until the horse has the muscle and you are invited to sit.

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Thanks all!! and to clarify - I’m not even questioning whether to post the trot vs. sit, I def agree that a greener horse would not be ready for the sitting trot until a certain point in their training. I’m mostly just wondering about how common it is to use a jump saddle on a weaker horse specifically because of the seat a dressage saddle puts you in. (maybe this was a question for eventing forum lol)

But it seems like the consensus is definitely to use a lighter seat overall, but saddle preferences vary. So I guess my follow up question is, what are the specific negative effects of using too much seat on a horse that’s not ready for it? Also, how do you determine IF you are using too much seat or not?

This is definitely a good point!

If you can’t tell, I’m asking for myself :joy: my jump saddle is old and hard and needs to be reflocked, but life has gotten in the way and I’m probably going to have to put that off a little bit longer. In the meantime when I’m primarily riding in my dressage saddle, I just want to make sure that I’m not negatively influencing my horse’s movement and ability to build up strength and fitness if she’s still not strong enough carry my weight in that deeper dressage seat.

I don’t sit the trot with her and have been shortening my stirrups for the canter, but I do use my seat to rock back, slow down etc. I feel like it’s okay and definitely better to ride in a comfier saddle with a deeper seat rather than a hard, uncomfy saddle with my butt in the air, but someone has brought it up to me a couple times so I’m just questioning myself.

I’m basically just looking to justify my decision to NOT get the jump saddle reflocked right now lololol.

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You can half-seat in a dressage saddle. I do a lot of half-seat canter with greenies. Post into the depart and then stay off their back as we do big curved lines. And I make sure I post way out of the tack - I want them to move, not putter along. You can also do a more modified full-seat in a dressage saddle, keeping it light and mobile. I’m not sure how much difference a jump saddle vs. a dressage saddle would truly make for a weaker horse. The weight difference is negligible, and the most important part is who is sitting in the saddle and if they are helping or hindering the horse.

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Ah you summed it up perfectly!!! Thank you, v helpful.

I’m another one who uses more of the half-seat when they’re starting out and especially the younger/weaker they are; but, considering that I will often start/back them in a western saddle I don’t hesitate to do this in either/both my western saddle and/or my dressage saddle. I have a 4 year old right now who I backed last fall. He has spent many hours/miles on the trail. I’ve been alternating between my western and dressage saddle depending on the day, the group of horses I’m riding with, the weather, etc. I only really started schooling him in the dressage arena in the last few months and thus use my dressage saddle when doing so. He’s not strong enough for me to sit the trot (I post in my western saddle too) and I still use a half seat/two-point at the canter (don’t have to raise my stirrups). My focus right now is to simply build up his muscle and improve his balance into each rein equally.

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From memory alone, a dressage saddle has a different tree that distributes the weight more evenly.

I do everything in my dressage saddle. Trail ride. I have jumped in it as well.

What you don’t want to do is ‘ground’ your horse with your seat. Especially in sitting trot. Think ‘keep the bounce’.

Half seat as long as they need it, but in a dressage saddle.

I have read classical dressage authors advocate the half-seat/jumping position for green horses and horses with weak back.

Even in my state of pretty constant exhaustion from MS I have frequently gotten up in half-seat with lesson horses, many in their twenties, whose backs just did not feel “right” or strong enough for me to sit on. My current lesson horse’s back was not too bad in his mid-20s, but a dressage book by Sylvia Loch shamed me into getting off his back. She wrote that she kept up in two-point on EVERY horse she rode unless she knew its back was strong enough. She said on one horse she had to do it for months, then he had no problems when his back got strong enough to support her weight in a dressage saddle.

So I around a month ago I decided to do this on the sort of elderly horses I ride, one with arthritis and one with navicular (properly shod, is sound for WTC), elderly horse problems. I ride in a jumping saddle with a BOT/ThinLine Contender II pad. On a good day I can only manage doing two-point for 5 minutes. If I do two-point from the first step and keep up for 5 minutes their later movement improves. After riding my lesson horse with my first five minutes in 2-point for around a month, my riding teacher had me do a sitting trot on Wednesday, with my butt firmly in the saddle, vertical body. His back is finally beginning to be strong enough to cautiously sit down for a short while at his plodding Appendix-QH slow trot.

His sitting trot needs a LOT of work, not work on his part that much but work on my part to notice if his back starts stiffening and getting my butt out of the saddle when this happens.

When I get told to ride another horse I will probably start right off with 5 minutes of 2-point, it makes me quite tired but the results look like they are worth it.

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Agree with the consensus of being light in the tack, but only caution is to be careful not to lean too forward as you can weigh down their forehand and offset their balance the other way, too! I think the goal is to stay as neutral as possible as they find their balance. I ride with somewhat shorter stirrups on the babies in any saddle. Another key is to not tire them out. Even if I’m perfectly balanced, if they get tired, they fall apart and start cheating and lose the quality of the work.

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went for my second little ride today on young master standardbred. Leadline ride, best buddy being led beside him, coach walking backwards in front of him with leadrope and verbal encouragement. We went the length of the arena and turned and started back. After he took about eight wonderful steps almost confidently in a row, i hopped off and we all had a big party! He is such a little goon. The other one is still green and though stout and strong, he is still learning his trot and canter. Most all the work i have done aboard him so far has been at a walk, incl trails. We are just starting working on transitions. I give my whole weight to him but we do go very short distances…like half a 20m circle at the trot, or just one long side of the arena. That is about as far as we go right now.

little gooney guy has been fixated on me all day long. I did not go into their run-in barn to clean today because i just did not want to keep shoving him off of me. He thinks he belongs to me now and is craving MOREE more more. Maybe day after tomorrow i will hop up on him again

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I love reading about “baby steps”. My favorite part of riding, to tell the truth. When it goes well, you can almost see the lightbulb go on between their ears, and they relax into the balance… until tomorrow when they don’t remember any of it!

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