I have an older Eamor that is too wide for my mare. In the last couple of weeks I have been trying to
re-educate myself on western saddle fit. I have had some training as an english fitter and thought the info would cross over.
However, there seems to be 2 streams of thought regarding placement of the saddle. Back when the earth was green ‘everyone’ seemed to agree you placed the saddle up on the whither and pulled it back until it ‘sat’ in place. There was a sweet spot where the saddle seemed to hug the horse even if it didn’t fit quite right.
I recently had someone out who has recently training as a western fitter, and herself wins in the reining/roping world. She would pull the saddle about 4 inches further up and have the front panel on the shoulder.
This didn’t seem right to me but…she is very good with words and listening to her explain how this freed the shoulder (she said my placement impeded the shoulder because the shoulder wasn’t free to roll under the saddle) (and was also the reason my mare has lost muscling) an also wouldn’t interfere with the hip. She did get me wondering and so I started looking online and whew that got confusing because people are placing the saddle in several places.
Could you Coth’ers please recommend a video or site where I can get good information.
If there was a qualified western fitter in the area I would go to that person, which is what I tried to do but ended up just causing me to doubt myself.
If I can upload pics I will start a new thread with said mare and saddle, or should I just do it on this thread?
