The saddle I bought last year is comfortable for me but in a way that makes my bad habits/tightness/weakness even worse. I should have videoed my trial rides.
So no riding for para riders? No riding if you have scoliosis and don’t quite fit para parameters? No riding if you have one leg shorter than the other? And on and on.
None of us are perfect. Some of us will always remain less perfect than others. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ride. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ride until we (and our horses) and as close to perfect straightness as we can be.
Dynamic exercise, with equipment that has room built in to allow for as much correction as possible is going to be a much more enjoyable way to get there (and possibly more productive) than being miserable not riding because someone told us we/our horse/both are “too” crooked.
This tendency in saddle fitters lately is making me very, very sad. HELP people enjoy their sport, ffs.
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Haven’t listened yet but makes me wonder about not fitting to the crooked horse. If you have a badly asymmetric horse do you just not ride? Or ride with a saddle that doesn’t fit the difference?
Fellow boarder has an asymmetric horse coming back from an injury an she is shimming with pads. But the horse is always going to be more asymmetric than average. So she is pondering when and how to have the saddle fit.
The person I work with (apprentice Master Saddler, I think she is getting close to MS) will flock to my horse by symmetrically, and then have me use shims for the difference. She said if the horse kept the same asymmetry over time, she would consider flocking asymmetrically. However, both of my horses keep changing, ever closer to being even, but not quite there yet. On one it’s been five years and she is fairly close, but still not there. I would think that achieving the same in non-ridden work would also have taken years, while she was obviously capable of improving through (mainly) riding.
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Yes there is sometimes and I have commented on it on her page before.
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I asked an genuine question once, but she (must have) taken it as critical and I got a rude non answer back. And I really was curious about the answer! I see her be helpful for others but like I said she obviously thought my question was critical. It was about brands selling half pads with their saddles I think.
This! Same as fitting a horse that is lacking muscle/weight. You get the longitudinal tree shape right, fit a bit wide and then pad it up so you can remove the thickness of pads as the horse gains muscle either side of the spine. The padding allows for expansion and frequent, easy adjustment as the horse fills out. A saddle fitted perfectly to the underdeveloped horse will stifle development. You just can’t get the adjustment and soft, malleable fit that allows for expansion/development that you can with pads.
FWIW, I hate half pads and my goal is always to eventually end up riding with one thin pad, but the whole arsenal comes out for underdeveloped horses.
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Yes it was similar for me because I said a photo is just a moment in time and not possible to use for judging.
I do like her insight though, just not a fan of attacking riders online.
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Same.
I really feel there is a new trend going around of feel good horsemanship with a strong side of unnecessary judgement. I’m not really for it because there’s a difference between disagreeing with somebody and how they do things versus actual abuse. Because according to some people we should not be riding horses at all…
Anyways I do appreciate the resources available. And I’m all for science!
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Nonsense.
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Just because some people are paralyzed, doesn’t mean most people shouldn’t work hard to be as good as they can be in the saddle. That’s ridiculous.
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yes, that seems to be what several theaters are discovering that they cannot consistently try to use the saddle to compensate for the unskillful Ness of riders. They cannot come refit your saddle ever3p days.
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What sort of Straightness training is your friend pursuing?
I just completed a year long course on Straightness training it in hand. But several different people are teaching these methods out there. What methods has she looked into?
Nonsense to you too!
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Please note that para riders are not necessarily paralyzed and I said nothing about paralysis.
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WTF? Unintelligible. What do theaters have to do with saddle fitting or crooked horses or crooked riders?
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The point of my post was making a statement against fitters who tell people they mustn’t ride their horses because of some crookedness in one or both and that the only way to repair said real or imagined dire crookedness is to not ride until having completed some ridiculous “program” a la C Leilani or some such.
The overall point is that nobody is perfect, no horse is perfect, and we should do our best to ride as straight as possible, to make our horses as straight as possible and to frickin’ enjoy riding. That’s why we do this ridiculous sport! (I may be a little crusty having witnessed some extreme negativity towards horses and riders by a saddle fitter telling perfectly able riders on perfectly sound horses that they are ruining their horses and must stop riding for x months in order to repair the “damage.” Crusty might not be a strong enough word 
)
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I haven’t listened to the whole thing but do you know more about the saddle fitters certification in saddle fitting?
I know she got into it from a historical background which is very interesting. Maybe I missed it, I did check her website and could not find anything about any actual certifications in saddle fitting.
It doesn’t mean there is none but I just can’t find it. Before I take anybody’s opinion too seriously I like to know where their knowledge is coming from so I like to seek that out. Maybe I need to listen to it longer or again.
This screenshot makes no sense at all. What on earth do the blocks have to do with the length of the panels and tree? Sitting in the middle of the tree does nothing for a tree that’s too long for the back of the horse.
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I shot her an email inquiring about her certification. We’ll see what happens.
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I appreciate that! Historical looking at saddles is a pretty interesting topic, regardless.
About straightness training etc
We deal with multiple horse professionals.
They are each at their best when commenting on what they’ve actually been educated to do
When your saddle fitter decides to freelance as a coach, or your farrier as a nutritionist, or your body workers as a farrier or your coach as a vet, double check every thing they say. They might be right. They might be partly right. They might be BSC about something, or have pet hobby horses, or be only partly informed. And they might be lying or just making stuff up out of self interest
Like “the tree in our brand of saddle can never fit this horse so I’m going to blame the horses fitness.”
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Yes! I bang my head into the wall when farriers become vets. Can the ego just shoe the foot and not come up with an opinion to be disected and heard??
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WeLL, I think it has more to do with how recent the information is.
Some professionals are constantly updating their knowledge and looking critically at what they’ve learned in the past. It’s become more and more apparent how holistic the entire mechanism is. So it isn’t just shoe the foot… Everything affects everything. The more you attempt to isolate anyone part of the whole and treat as if that part is separate, the more problems you get.
Crooked movement in the horse affects how the hoof grows and vice versa.
Plenty of professionals haven’t learned a single new thing since they graduated their certification program. I would take the opinion of someone with a different certification and update information.
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I was doing half pad research…
I also don’t want to be the one to tell her that her beloved Mattes half pads have POLYESTER in them between the sheepskin and the topside of the pad.
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