Yes, but once you can, you can stick on just about anything. 
I started out saddle seat with an excellent instructor - she drilled correct equitation, no chair seat allowed! And she wasn’t above metaphorical torture. Posting with no stirrups in a flat saddle with the horse’s mane sprayed with showsheen … fun times! But now I get a lot of comments from dressage and western people about what a good seat I have. All thanks to my saddle seat instructor!
Your saddle seat instructor let you ride horses with mane. No fair!! 
Mine roached the manes. You had nothing to hold onto.
I love a cutback saddle, it’s like returning home. The newer saddles are so much easier to ride in. They aren’t slippery at all. I took a saddleseat lesson a few years ago and broke out my old Campbell saddle from the early 90’s. The trainer had a couple eq kids ride in it and it showed all their weaknesses. My leg was better. 
Yeah my horse has the manners and would honestly make a darling academy horse, in a couple years he could easily carry a 10 and under w/t kid.
This is true! I grew up riding and jumping bareback so I used to have a good sticky seat, but now I’m older and ahem fluffier and need to regain it. My cutback is a Barnsby Shively so I’m going to guess late 90s? Definitely not grippy but better than my first one which was a Whitman and that thing was slick slick slick.
My balance is still pretty good, but it is somewhat intimidating to think of riding caprioles in a satin suit in this saddle 
Is it cheating if I ride in my stickyseats?
Tha ks for starting this thread, and thanks to everyone who’s contributed. I grew up riding Saddle Seat, was in the business for a while, then moved to an office job in a hunter/jumper part of the country so I switched to hunters. I was so sad to not be around Saddle Seat that I cancelled all subscriptions to Saddlebred media.
Now, I’ve been horseless for a year and a half, have re-subscribed to Saddle Horse Report and am enjoying seeing all the horses. I was planning on finding a lesson barn, but every time one health issue gets corrected, another one pops up. SO, I’m working on being able to walk normally so I can see if I can get on a horse again.
One problem with this thread: ONLY 2 PICTURES. Please picture it up. 
Oh of course!!! The first is my 10 year old. By Charmed & Bewitched out of a Globetrotter mare. The second is my 8 year old, by The Pistol out of a Royal Return mare. Apparently I have a thing for plain bay wrappers
I love those ears!
Thank you! He’s a dear. You can’t really tell in this photo but he is TALL. Too tall for the grooming stall (which is what he’s sticking his head out of). I haven’t sticked him lately, but I’m going to guess he’s over 17.2 now, and his neck comes straight up out of those withers. I cannot reach his head when he giraffes, and I’m tall.
One of the reasons he doesn’t wear shoes is that he was such a goofball that he would literally spin in the pasture to gallop, tangle up his legs, and go down. He is FINALLY staying mostly on his feet even when he’s silly, so we’ve restarted him.
Them ears are perfect!!!
Why thank you; what lovely heads.
I follow Saddlebred Rescue on Tiktok and they just posted a short video of some of the rescues. Just their heads over the stall doors. The first guy looks like an older fellow (lots of grey on the face) wish I had the dough to adopt him, and a good place to keep him.
Anyway, a bunch of cute fellows there. One has what looks like a question mark with a long tail face marking and his name is … Who Dat
What a good boy!
Handsome! I have a soft spot for bays.
I can’t go to those sites because I want them all! They have definitely had some lovely horses.
Me, too! If you haven’t ever looked at it, take a glance at my avatar picture. That’s my Hackney pony, who was a gorgeous bay.
Rebecca
Lined today instead of riding due to time. Flies were so bad and biting so hard I am not sure we really accomplished much other than agitated flinging of the head and legs to get rid of the flies. Maybe it loosened the shoulders???
Did I mention I hate this time of year?
Poor guy was so miserable he doesn’t even want to go outside. He reared on my barn staff when she tried to take him out and he only lasted an hour once she finally got him out.
I’ve tried to keep him “naturally” but he thinks that is a bunch of BS. He’ll take his fly sheet, a bag of hay, and his fan thank you very much. I don’t blame him!
This statement reminds me of an article I read once entitled “Saddleseat riding is not for sissies!” One of the points being that saddleseat riders are in flat saddles on animated (sometimes very hot) horses. When I started riding saddleseat it was in an old Crosby as slick as glass, and I eventually started colts in that saddle. I do think that it made me a better rider.
The 8 year old has a rest day so today we did some ground driving on hills with the 10 year old.
Well…hill to be specific. We have exactly one (I’m in the flatlands). But it was good for him - got him out to look at very scary things like trash cans and mailboxes independently, and we walked up the hill maybe 4 times? I thought that was probably good for the first go - it’s a steep hill and kicked my butt the first time I walked up it so I was trying to be cognizant of his level of fitness since he’s been a couch potato for months.
He was very brave, and since he’s never driven outside of the arena I thought it might be interesting. He is not, to my knowledge, broke to actually jog but he lines very well (and I used to start all of my young horses ground driving, so this is very comfortable for me). I’m looking forward to jogging up the hill with him in the grass, but today we just walked on the road (there’s no traffic on the road). He’ll need a lot of strength to collect properly, so I’m hopeful that this will help. Plus it helps my fitness, a two-fer!
I’ve got at least a year to rework all of this before show time, so hopefully my approach will work!
I believe it! I’m loving the adjustable bars, but the saddle itself takes some getting used to. I’ve got very bad hips, and being able to move really helps me, even if it feels a bit like I’m riding on slippery leather attached loosely to a barrel. My horse seems comfortable enough in it, so I’m pleased.
He is VERY picky about saddles, and so many dressage saddles were discarded because they didn’t fit his shape. Actually, he’s picky about everything! Prima donna in terms of comfort. It’s new for me since most of my horses were like “throw me out in a pasture and leave me alone” and he’s like “wipe my butt please because I don’t like crusties and OMG I have a hair out of place and it’s touching me so I must be very dramatic about this”.
He’s definitely less than tolerant with a serious flair for the dramatic, like a good show horse should be LOL
It is indeed a very lonely journey. When I lived in Kentucky I worked and showed my own horses and it was fun having friends to enjoy it with. After moving back to the midwest I feel I am completely on my own, and not having that support group of friends makes it difficult to enjoy sometimes.
I am planning on taking my Dutch Harness cross to a show the first weekend of September, but with the recent heat wave I haven’t been doing anything at all with him. Consequently, progress has been slow…
I feel you - this last few weeks weather has been ridiculous.
I’ve chosen to try to do this myself because I feel like one of the things that makes saddle seat/saddle types not do well (in addition to the perception issue) is that it’s got a huge mystique about it. Though the saddle seat barns that I have learned from are super about teaching, you do have to be near one (and they are often hours away) and there isn’t as much AOT support as I’d like there to be, at least in the saddlebreds. Tiffani’s page is great, but there should be more of it! 
Do I think I’ll out-pro the pros? No. But I wouldn’t mind at least showing up and doing my best and showing that it can be done. Of course, that means I have to do it LOL
Everyone knows trash cans and mailboxes are evil. My Hackney pony was convinced of it. Also newspapers lying on the end of driveways. It was pretty obvious when I got him that he had never been driven outside an arena. We had a few conversations about why I would make a 22 year old pony learn to get over this stuff. He never came around to my opinion, but at least he finally stopped bolting.
Rebecca
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