You can’t use a Micklem in dressage? That’s all we ride in. I ride the dressage portion of my test in a Micklem and a jump saddle. And we got first place at a recognized.
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I think your horse must be my horse’s doppelganger! This is exactly my journey. Pic of said horse slogging around
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Your horse is lovely and I love those chaps 
PS Mine is a dark bay too…maybe it’s the color!
I speak with 40 years of professional authority, actually. But in dressage, not western. Sorry you “heard” a tone in my post. It wasn’t intentional.
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It’s totally fine and please know that I meant no harm in my reply, it was just so throughly wrong I was laughing.
Your 40 years in dressage and that professional authority means nothing in the western world (as you now perhaps recognize). I’ve been riding western for 40 years and dabbling in dressage for 10. With that said, you will never, ever see me give answers on the driving forum or hunter/jumper.
I understand my limits.
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Mules come in all shapes and sizes. I’ve owned 4 and all were very different from one another. The three that I rode all wore regular English saddles with no problem, although two needed hoop trees. None required a breastplate, not even for trail riding. Two required cruppers.
I found fitting mules with an English saddle to be much easier than fitting them with Western saddles.
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Thanks Jackie
Thanks. Those chaps were someone’s custom show chaps. I found them in a second hand tack shop and paid $50 for them. I had the long tails cut off to make them more of a working chap.
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They were great saddles. Unfortunately the new Stubbens don’t ride the same.
I’m a Transwestite. Have been known to work cattle in an English saddle and chaps! On a dressage Arab, a cowpony in his previous career.
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I love it! I tell people that my horse and I cross dress and go both ways.
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You absolutely can use the Micklem Competition bridle, but not the Multi.
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You can use it, that was my point – it was once verboten because it was not a “traditional bridle”. Enough people questioned tradition that it was allowed.
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omg that is hilarious!!
We rode into the mountains and over rocks and steep slides. I mean we aren’t in need of a heavy skirt (which must have originated protecting the horse from maybe a rope?) or long ornate stirrups. No one was tying a doggie up to the horn.
I really wonder why people get so bent out of shape over western tack. There is good stuff out there, but the heavy, ornate stuff that is full of artifacts from usage that is no longer necessary does add little but add to the horse’s burden.
MOST people I’ve met in western tack barely understand what most the stuff is for, much less even need it.
I ride out in a gp saddle, it is over fields and not a “manicured bridle path” since we don’t have those out here. But we do have a host of open space after harvest.
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Western tack, when in work, is meant to be disabused. Long hours of ranch or cattle work - sometimes ten to twelve a day, with rope, twine, fencing materials, whatever dallying off of the horse.
The leather is thick and heavy to prevent wear and tear. Soft or flappy strap goods do not last and break.
Much of a western saddle is designed for utility, not fashion. There are some funky barrel racing western saddles that are really out there, and I understand what you mean when you say that seems excessive - but skirting, a horn, and heavy stirrups are all born out of necessity for doing a job, not looking pretty.
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my other mule is a much easier fit. She can wear a normal large western saddle and just a breast collar and crupper. But, Ollie is a potato
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I had a Polish Arab that started showing Western, then switched to English, and eventually dressage. I once let a friend borrow him for a team penning that he did in a western saddle, but an english bridle that was a leftover from my Saddlebred, so it was a snaffle bridle that had a bright yellow vinyl browband and cavesson, and it had a running martingale too.
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This^^^. My saddle is a working saddle. I did switch out the leather conchos for stainless as well as the buck roll screws and stirrup bolts. It is way more saddle than I need and more fancy than I would order. It is benchmade and takes 8 months-1 year to get one if ordered, so I bought the one already made. It has a 5" wide post horn and I’ll never be roping the 1500 pound steer it’s meant to hold. That said, it is made to work in all day and not sore horse or rider. I can sink my fingers in my horse’s back and not sink my horse. Not all western saddle are the same. Western pleasure, equitation, barrel, mounted shooting, reining, cutting, all around, ranch…I ended up with mine because a cowboy friend was helping us and he used his saddle. Never saw her move as well or feel so well when I sat in it so got one by the same maker.
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Which leads to that question that goes along with the original question. If Dressage (English Dressage) was to allow Western saddles then which Western Saddles would they allow? Someone would have to figure that out. And like pointed out above, the poor tack check person would have to learn it too.
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