@LookinForSpace no heavy western saddles here. I think my heaviest saddle is 10lbs with endurance stirrups. I was riding in a flex tree hyperi endurance saddle. He had lots of shoulder movement in but it ended up bridging. I am currently trialing a ghost saddle which is technically treeless but has very supportive panels that are adjustable to allow for lots of shoulder movement and bridging. We ride with a skito that has the heavy rider inserts for additional protection and spinal clearance. The few times we have rode in it with the help of the rep he has felt great and like he could really use his back. I check for back soreness religiously and he has never come up back sore and I am wondering if itās just taking him a bit to recover from the feeling of the bridging saddle he had prior.
I am planning on doing some hoof xrays and consulting with a farrier that has been highly recommended.
If all his boxes check clear overall I will look and see if I can find a dressage trainer. Since you are right, we are low level enough, hopefully they can overlook the odd foot movement and help me with his back lifting and collection, making sure I ask for the right things. YouTube can only teach you so much and there is nothing like instant feedback and correction.
Those are good reasons to pick a breed! And I agree with looking for either a dressage trainer or good all around western trainer. Donāt be scared of the western pros, if thatās what is in your area. They actually teach a lot of the same basics to their horses as the dressage people. Sometimes it is better to have competent eyes on the ground and just tweak the details to suit you later.
Iāll say this as an aside - treeless (yes, even Ghost) saddles donāt distribute weight as well as a treed one. Some horses prefer the heavier western style (though you can get them pretty light these days) because the tree and wide weight bearing surface spread everything out and create remarkable lateral stability. Common for KS horses. Just something to think about if you go down the saddle fit path again - he may like a treed endurance or even dressage saddle. Or something like the RP/EQ saddles. You never know until you try, but just donāt be afraid of (well fitted) treed saddle.
I wish you luck, no matter what. You sound like a very conscientious owner!
@fivestrideline Thank you. We have been riding primarily in a treed saddle that was said to fit great, but didnāt. The ghost I have only had maybe 4 rides in so far, but I can tell the difference on how much better he is engaging his back. It looks much more lifted, but the teeth chomping is persistent. My vet is going to look at the saddle fit tomorrow as well, so hopefully something will come out of it.
I have one horse who will nervous chomp when in dressage or hunt seat saddles, who does not in the western saddle. I think it is the weight distribution of it - even though some say that isnāt the case.
You said he was trotty? Did the gaited horse trainer have you tense his back to get the gait? It may be that he is working too much in gait for his level of strength - be sure that you are doing a lot of work in a strengthening position to counteract the tension that needs to happen for a trotty horse to gait.
I agree with finding a good western or dressage trainer.
You sound like a lovely, caring owner. Iām sure you will get to the bottom of it.
I suppose there is more tension in the back. She worked with me on bringing his head up a bit so that his shoulders can be free and he can step under himself. I come from a western background and always worked on that lower headset. But that doesnāt work well for gaited horses. But you could be right in that he is tensing through his back to come in to his gait. Maybe he just looks like he is picking himself up nicely but itās more of a false collection. 
He does primarily trot on the lunge, as many gaited horses do and we work on stretching forward and working through the back.
What strengthening positions do you recommend doing? We do a lot of walking and lateral work. I would love to work on his canter but have been heavily discouraged to do so until he has learned to extend his gait. I had brushed that off and started canter work but now I canāt get him to figure out how to extend at the gait without breaking into the canter, so I have taken several steps back over the last few months to only do walk and gait. Which I am sure adds to his frustration with me.
A trotty horse needs what Lee Ziegler calls Essential Tension in the back to gait. Bring head up, put some tension through the back, and then youāll get the gait. It isnāt bad, per se, but itās what a trotty horse needs to do in order to get gait. A pacey horse needs to put their heads down and round their backs to get to gait since their backs are typically too tense and inverted.
This is a pretty good primer from Lee Ziegler on the trotty horse, https://gaitedmorganhorses.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Lee-Ziegler-ConvertTheTrot.pdf
And this one helps explain it more too: https://gaitedmorgansassociation.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/CollectionandtheGaitedHorse.pdf
This is good - youāll also likely want to do things like cavaletti/logs if youāve got them, and alternate periods of gait with periods of good stretch. Think about a yoga practitioner - when you do poses in a ventroflexed position, you always counter it going the other way.
When you gaited him - how many steps are you doing at a time? What my gaited horse trainer told me is to really only get a few steps and praise, and then extend that a few steps more etc. etc. Iām sorry if I missed this in your posts. But essentially - 1-2 steps, then praise. Then extend that to 3-4 steps and so on until they are able to gait longer. It takes awhile to build the strength for gait in those positions.
https://majesticrider.com/820310-ways-to-fix-the-trotty-gaited-horse.html This is also pretty good and should help understand the progression a bit 
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Lol - once the Bad Luck Horse Gods find you, it seems to take a while to ditch them and get the Good Luck Horse Gods on your side again. I for sure know that as do many others.
I have an EQ Tribute Dressage saddle in search of a new home 
would be glad to PM you the link to where I have it consigned. Make me an offer!! I got it for one of my horses that had back/neck issues - it was the only saddle he liked, literally.
Thank you. All 3 articles have definitely given me some food for thought, especially my collection ambition.
I suppose I need to dive into this a little further, as hollowing out is not something I can see as sustainable or healthy. So the question would be how do you build a strong back while gaiting a lot if keeping gait means a certain degree of hollowing out. My riding life revolves around endurance riding, so eventually he will have to travel miles in this position and that brings it back full circle. If he is traveling hollowed when gaiting, it could cause him a lot of back problems which could be why he now is frustrated and chomps his teeth?!
I have increased his gait slowly. He has a very nice forward walk and we have been chipping away at the gaiting thing for about a year now. At first just a few steps at a time. The clinic was in October of 2023 and heās made a complete 180 on the gait, he doesnāt fall in to the trot often anymore, only if I push too much, but he does enjoy the ease of cantering, so itās something we are working with. He keeps a steady 7mph gait with only minimal help from me. He is not pacey, his gait is more of a fox trot/corto. We are at a point where we have started intervals of 2 minutes gaiting and 4 minutes walking. However, I have pulled back from that and moved back to the arena to praise when he gaits relaxed a few steps, maybe up the length of our arena. If we ride for 40 minutes, we have maybe a total of 10 minutes in there gaiting. The rest is walk.
We work over poles frequently. Walking over them under saddle. He has a tendency to want to jump everything once he gets faster, so I do not ask him to gait over more than one pole at a time. Heās not a good jumper and I canāt imagine that it feels good for him either. We do groundwork over poles and ground driving.
He engages nicely and I can tell he enjoys the work overall. Heās never been not happy to see me, heās easy to catch, we call him our golden retriever in horse form.
We have done 3 endurance intro rides the first one he was happy, second one he did his teeth chomping, third one (I tried a friendās bob marshal) he was happy and only chomped when 2 horses were passing him and I wouldnāt allow him to charge after themā¦ which lasted maybe 30 seconds and then back to happy and relaxed. He has come in with perfect heart rate recoveries (always in the low 40s), and all As for gaits, impulsion, back and attitude. Great gut sounds etc during our vet checks. He has never turned his nose up to food regardless where we are, and he will drink at any given opportunity. I tried the Bob marshal at home and on a regular trail ride and he was back to teeth chomping. The only difference was that he had a massage about 1 week before the ride.
Thatās interesting and certainly worth chasing down.
If he is ventroflexing too much, instead of maintaining a level back when gaiting, it could make him a little more sore, yes. If heās tipping over from the fox trot into more of a Corto, then he would be edging a bit too far onto the ventroflex. I found a really good link somewhere (Iāll be darned if I could find it right now, but Iāll keep looking) on the back position - but as you head toward a rack it goes ventroflexed, but a fox trot can be in a neutral back position. So youāre probably right there on that edge and possibly that makes him a little tight.
One perhaps dumb question - are you traveling the same trails at home normally? Could he be bored and angsty?
I think of a couple different issues that may be at play here. First, I am with you. I allow my own insecurities and my own anxiety to invent problems that prevent me from reaching my horse goals. I have to intentionally continue to push myself past myself! lol I get it.
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Iād suggest an exam by a performance vet who specializes in lameness. You mention the swamp of Georgia. I am in Valdosta. I could probably give you some suggestions if you are within a couple hour radius of me. A truly skilled vet can pinpoint where these behaviors may be originating from and devise solutions to remedy them (Gastrogard, joint injections, maintenance protocols, nutritional suggestions, etc) They can also evaluate the feet with X-rays to see if changes need to be made there, and most will even work with your farrier via phone or email to communicate what they see.
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Saddle fit. I feel like horse people are overwhelmed with saddle fit because, well, it can be extremely complicated. There are also many different schools of saddle fit thought which further complicate this issue. I personally worked with one saddle fitter who was willing to share with me what she knew, which has been so helpful to me over the years. I am a firm believer in matching the right pad-horse-saddle which can be challenging to get the perfect fit. I am also a firm believer in that pads cannot truly fix ill-fitting saddles. How are your sweat patterns? Even? If you are concerned with your weight, Iād suggest treed saddles, as they spread the weight far more evenly, protecting the spine. There are also pads like the CSI with panels built in to help a āslightlyā not quite right saddle fit. These again attempt to spread weight more evenly. Treeless saddles and Flex styled saddles, in my personal opinion, put too much concentrated strain on the spine.
So those are two approaches Iād suggest. You canāt possiblyāI mean, I guess you couldāexplore every aspect of health. A scoping to check for ulcers costs several hundred, a round of comprehensive x-rays (feet, knees, hocks, stifles, back) cost over $1000, etc.) Iād start with that lameness exam from a top vet/expert, and then Iād go from there with the rest. But, to me, saddle fit for future soundness is an equally important top priority.
Let me know if I can help with vet/farrier suggestions if we are near one another.
I found it:
Really good article. If he is moving through the fox trot into the corto, he might be moving ventroflexed and less round (you can see that the paso gaits are listed on the left).
You have the vet tomorrow I believe, correct? One step at a time. Have your appointment and rule out physical issues including teeth and back pain. Iād include stifles for a TWH but not sure thatās as much of an issue for your horse. A chiropractic visit is always a good check off too- canāt recall if you did that.
Since you are farther away from being able to do regular lessons, I think itās worth investing in 60-90 days training with one of the gaited horse professionals you cited to get your horse established in his gait. He needs to know it and then you need to do a few visits and learn to feel it and put him there and hold it. They can help evaluate proper bit and saddle for you as well.
Short of that, I think you will continue to be frustrated on your own with a young gaited horse who isnāt set in his gait. This is where so many people end up frustrated and their horse not moving correctly.
A final thought is that his chomping may be a response to your own anxiety and insecurity about him and your confidence with him. Horses can sense soooo much. Not a dig on you because BTDT tooā¦but chomping can be an anxiety issue too. As such maybe even a gut supplement or a trial course of ulcer guard is worth trying.
You have brought up your weight time and again. A 15 hand horse with a decent build shouldnāt be a concern unless a rider is very heavy and unbalanced or if the horse is showing that they are hurting or sore when or after riding.
No saddle is going to make up for either of those problems and while weight is a very sensitive issue today it is still something we need to factor in when choosing a suitable horse.
Weight and fitness is 100% something you can work to change while you sort out the issues that have come up and search for a saddle that best suits the horse and rule out possible pain issues.
Not intending to be unfeeling just trying to navigate a difficult subject that many of us have experienced one way or another.
