Updated: trapezius muscle question. Saddle fitting - tightness of contact?

[fivestrideline]

Everything I read about saddle fitting guidelines talks about “even pressure” but I can’t find anything about “too much pressure”! These are musings from talking to a friend about her saddle fitting experience, though I have wondered the same things as well.

How tight should a saddle (forward flap jumping saddle, if it matters) be against the horse? For example, when you run your hand under the front panel down the shoulders, the pressure is even but it’s hard to fit your hand under there - is that an indication the saddle may be too tight on the horse? If the saddle is balanced otherwise, I’m worried going wider would tip it forward.

From my understanding this saddle has 3 fingers clearance on top and 1-2 on the sides of the withers when girthed up without a rider, but it only has about a fingers width of wither clearance farther down the gullet with a rider up (measurement taken by the rider in the saddle so I’m sure the leaning forward she had to do to get it is throwing off the clearance a bit). The rider is concerned that going wider to lessen the tightness of the panel would lose all wither clearance. She has thought about going wider and putting a sheepskin pad under it, though we are both unsure if that makes sense. The saddle got a thumbs up from the fitter 6 months ago, but the horse was just coming out of the pasture.

These are just questions that we both don’t quite understand in theory. Again, everything we find talks about “the pressure should be even”, but HOW MUCH pressure?

[RedHorses]

I ask the horse. Yes, I know that is horribly unhelpful, but it’s true.

Allow me to trot out the tale of finding my dressage saddle for my senior. I’d been looking for a while and a. fitter brought me a saddle, adjusted it to my horse and I took it for a spin. We were First working on Second level, and I did all the things, rode back to the fitter and said “It feels like he wants it wider.” While my horse had given me a nice lengthened trot, it was not what he was capable of doing.

The fitter very reluctantly widened the tree a half centimetre (slightly less than a quarter inch), and off we went again. That time I rode back to the fitter and they said “I see what you mean now.” The difference in his lengthened trot was that obvious.

I knew what he was capable of doing, and how he should feel when doing it without interference from the saddle, and if I couldn’t find that performance then the saddle didn’t fit.

Our jumping saddle search had a similar story, except I had two saddles to test ride. One fit like it had been custom made, molded to his back. The other was pretty good. He would not take anything remotely like even a slightly long spot wearing the “custom fit” despite all my attempts. If the distance wasn’t perfect, he’d chip.

Put the “pretty good fit” back on and he took a flyer at the first jump.

If you pay attention, and know what your horse can do, and how they feel doing it, they will tell you if the saddle fits.

[fivestrideline]

Absolutely it makes sense! Unfortunately for this particular combo (though my question is also general), the horse is green and only 6 months or so under saddle with her. No one exactly knows what he is capable of! It is also her first wool saddle after a lifetime of foam, so I imagine the feel is different there too.

[RedHorses]

When I finally got a saddle for my then still green Wobbler, he was lame the day the fitter came. All I could do was walk. And I noodled around doing circles, fig 8s, the odd few steps of shoulder in or leg yield, and after ten or fifteen minutes he suddenly relaxed, stretched his stride and lifted his back… I had never felt that from him before.

Training may be limited at the moment, but can she try new stuff and see how willing he is to move his body? How comfortable he feels? I do know not everyone has that sort of feel. A good pair of eyes on the ground can be helpful as well, as they can see the legs moving and anywhere the horse might be holding tension to protect themselves.

It sounds like a good fit standing still, but the horse gets final say in action.

[fivestrideline]

Yes we plan to meet up and play with it. I think the horse has lost some muscle behind the withers but she has the fitter’s tracings from the beginning and I can take some to compare. In theory, this loss would be due to too narrow/tight, yes? (Fitter approved the general shape of this saddle, just to reiterate). IMO the horse was insanely muscle tight when she got him (OTTB) but has loosened up - in the process he has gained and lost weight in waves. That makes the whole thing complicated too!

It’s the “tightness” of the panel to the horse’s back + evidence that it might be too wide (some indication of lack of wither clearance with weight in the saddle) that confuses me. She says she has a Mattes we may try before pursuing a wider head plate.

[RedHorses]

The muscle loss behind the shoulder can be from excess saddle pressure. One thing to determine is if the saddle is sliding forward, possibly by the girth pulling it forward, and creating excess pressure. The other thing to check is if his shoulders are even. (And of course, is the horse working correctly and coming over his back as much as his level of training allows - which is harder with the greenies.)

My senior has a low right shoulder, but when he’s fit he carries it level. When not fit I have needed to shim that side to prevent the saddle and weight dropping onto that shoulder as that starts a circle of dropping the shoulder to avoid the excess pressure, which tips the weight further onto that shoulder, and makes the horse drop more. Once we got to a certain point in training he would carry himself correctly even when unfit, and I didn’t need shims.

Have you checked what the fit is like when you scrub your fingers along his belly midline and he lifts his back? Not lifts as high as he can, but lifts as he would in action. Is it tighter or looser?

Half pads are another individual horse preference thing. My fitter has people say their horse isn’t happy when they don’t use a sheepskin half pad. Her response is “then use the half pad.” I periodically play with various half pads to see which my horse likes - again coming back to letting the horse tell me. I have Thinline, Ultra Thinline, SaddleRight, and sheepskin half pads. I tried memory foam once for 20 minutes and had a back sore horse for two weeks, but they work for some horses.

[fivestrideline]

Horse definitely has a less developed left shoulder. When in motion, the front of the gullet has less space on the right vs the left though it feels even on the ground. This is what kicked off the whole discussion with my friend - she wondered if she should shim the left while she works on evening him out but was worried she didn’t have space for a half pad.

The saddle doesn’t budge! Even going up and down pretty steep inclines when we are out hacking, and she just uses a cheap fuzzy straight girth. This was not the case with a foam saddle from the same company and the exact same tree - it needed a fleece half pad with front shim.

ETA saddle fitter will be out again, but not for a month due to scheduling. This is why my friend and I are fiddling with it - she doesn’t want to do a month of damage or lose a month of riding time. The horse needs to exercise and build muscle

[RedHorses]

I used a folded hand towel placed between saddle and pad after putting the saddle on. It doesn’t have to be fancy.

[sherian]

was at a saddle fitter demo and the saddler used his pen for a simple check - should be able to run it down the front edge smoothly

[fivestrideline]

Thanks! This is info I was looking for!

[fivestrideline]

New question, since google is fighting me. Again I’ll defer to my friend’s master saddler independent fitter but this is just because I like to know Red Flags when it comes to saddle fit and I like to learn.

The trapezius muscle and lateral wither clearance: I have yet to see a jumping saddle that starts the panel low enough on her horse to clear that muscle. (My horses are mostly barrels with legs and have other challenges). We had free rein of the tack room, and her horse doesn’t have particularly tall withers! The “best” we could get was a thumb’s width lateral clearance without the saddle also sitting on top of the withers - and most of the panels started maybe an inch from the top of the wither. This includes the fitter approved saddle, btw. It was easy enough to find a dressage saddle that had the clearance (again, as far as I understand it), but forward flap jumping saddles all seem to need panel there to support the flap?

Am I missing something? Any good resources for me to look at regarding this? I wish I’d taken pictures but am trying not to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong

[Lusoluv]

If you look at the Schleese Saddlery fitting videos on YouTube, there’s a lot of good into, diagrams and examples of good fitting saddles vs. not. It’s not a Schleese brand commercial per se, so I think they’re very helpful.

[fivestrideline]

I’m using these pics with permission.

One would hazard a guess that based on these “saddle marks” outlined poorly in green, that the panels of the saddle are making some contact with the trapezius muscle, yes? Whether or not it is weight bearing contact is TBD. This is with just the saddle and a baby pad. Based on my understanding, one would prefer to have these panel dirt/sweat marks start lower down the horse’s side.

[fivestrideline]

Thanks! I’ll check these out! I’m not a fan of the Schleese brand itself, but I may be able to get some good info there.

[NaturallyHappy]

Butet makes a saddle w what I think is called a “dropped” panel that does what you are describing. I learned of it through Aruna, who owns Double Oak Tack in Texas. It might be worth a call to her…Hope this helps.

[GreyDes]

Look up K, drop or skid row panels. Here’s an older blog from Trumbull Mountain that may be helpful.

https://trumbullmtn.com/identifying-and-understanding-saddle-panel-options/

[Lusoluv]

I’m not pro-Schleese myself, but I did saddle fitting back in the early 2000’s and the info is inline with what I was taught as I prepared for the Society of Master Saddlers exam.

[lorilu]

@fivestrideline

She says she has a Mattes we may try before pursuing a wider head plate.

Head Plate? Is it a WOW saddle? How does filling the space in the pommel with a Mattes, on an already (possibly) too narrow tree, help?
My guy is the proverbial “Prince and the Pea”. I had trouble with saddles that seemed to fit at the front of the wither, but actually impacted the back of his (long) wither. I have a WOW that we eventually got to suit him, but it never really FIT him - the saddle pad continued to creep back when in work. It also put me in a horrible chair seat. (and it didnt help that the fitter insisted the girth buckles could be right behind his elbow and po-poo’d my choice of a longer, crescent shaped girth).
I no longer ride in it. I had his Obrigado narrowed slightly to adjust its balance and now we are fine.

[fivestrideline]

I realize that was unclear . The saddle sits closer to the withers than she would like when a rider is up - the question was whether it’s a touch too wide and could use a little extra like a mattes (plus wanting to try a really thin shim on the smaller shoulder side), or if she needed to go up a gullet size for some shoulder space to accommodate the extra bulk.

We ultimately decided not to mess with the gullet/head plate.

The trapezius question is my own. I’m still trying to identify the muscle and the appropriate placement for panel contact on a given horse. Most of the info I can find uses pictures of high withered creatures, which neither myself nor my friend currently own!