Saddle Fit Question for Naughty POA

[TheBrownHorse]

Hi all!

I’m venturing over from hunter/jumper land, and have a question about western saddle fit.

As I’m not familiar with western saddles I’m not sure how I can adjust this so it fits the horse better. I do some outside teaching/training work, and this client happens to ride western (though the horse’s issues stem from a lot of lack of confidence in the rider, the fact that he’s a POA and has her number, and, saddle fit).

I asked the owner to give me the DL on the horse, his habits, fears, “problems”. Like I said, so much of it is due to a green rider/handler and less to do with the horse, in fact, the darn POA is just so freaken smart, you just have to think faster than him!

So, I threw a rope halter on him and brought him to the arena. He walked around with me. Stopped when I stopped, turned when I turned, backed when I asked him to back. His ground work with me was totally fine. Apparently this was part of the problem (the ground work). With her, he won’t do anything. So my next set of questions during his eval was what was he like u/s.

I tied the leadrope like reins, and sat on him bareback. As soon as I sat on him I knew he was afraid of getting his shoulders pinched. I asked him to walk forward and he planted his feet. With some tricks and encouragement I got him moving forward mostly by me sitting on my tailbone/butt and relaxing my inner thigh completely, and asking him to turn and then back that up with impulsion to move forward (get his feet moving somehow, he’ll eventually move). After this discovery, I had him walk/jog/lope around, change directions, serpentines, diagonals. Horse was fine. Rider, well, she’s just green. We’re working on it.

I asked them to tack the horse up just like they usually would. I go to check the saddle fit and the saddle is WAY t0o wide, putting so much pressure on his shoulders and the back of the saddle is lifted so far up i can one if not both my arms under the back and reach the pomel.

I told them the saddle didn’t fit, and I’d rack my brains but that more than likely it’s time for a new saddle. Is there a temporary way, though, to fix this? Can I use an English riser with a Western saddle? Or how do I solve the problem of a too wide Western saddle?

Sorry this was so long! TIA!

[aktill]

POAs are smart…have one myself as my main mount.

You can shim or pad a too-wide saddle, but a better solution is a proper saddle. I’d try with a slightly too wide rig, but not a WAY too wide rig.

[cloudy18]

And does the angle of the bars match the horse? If not, then you can’t shim, because it’s going to dig in either at the bottom or the top of the bars. And if it has too much curve to the bars lengthwise, probably not able to shim. If things match up fairly decently but it’s just too wide, you might be able to temporarily shim. A Diamond Wool pad with the three removable pads along each side might be helpful.

[beau159]

If it’s WAY too wide, no amount of padding is going to fix it. As already pointed out, if the bar angle is completely wrong, you can’t change that with padding.

I’ve used shims to help a saddle that was a smidge too wide. But beyond that, if it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit!

[TheBrownHorse]

Thanks guys!

you pretty much solidified my fears- this saddle is just NOT going to work. I am so clueless about western saddle fit but certainly not new to it fitting english saddles. but I think it’s not just too wide, I think the bars are wrong and the saddle is cheap and not made well. I’m just going to have to ride him bareback till we can get a saddle to fit him. Which should be totally fine, seeing as we’re just working on moving off leg. Going forward. Stopping. Turning. Walk forward. Stop, turn, walk forward…lol. not a whole lot of heavy work.

Horse also needs a lot of desensitization work so there’s a fair amount of ground work we can do while waiting for a proper fitting saddle. Which I hope the owners are down to investigate, otherwise my services are moot.