Saddles and other dilemmas

In the Wintec 500 dressage saddle

Saddle fitting is something I have only just begun to learn about. We are very lucky to have a wonderful therapist/saddle fitter who visits our region about once a month. She's worked with both of my horses and we achieved some great things with my older mare.

Young Maxie, although pretty much unspoilt, was ridden in a saddle way too small for him when we went to see him. It was his laid-back attitude to having this nasty old heap of leather thrown up on him, and then visciously girthed up that made the first good impression on me. He just kind of steeled himself, and didn't move a muscle. So one of the first things to do was to sort out a suitable saddle for him.

I am a fan of the synthetic Wintec saddles made by Bates in Australia. They are virtually the only saddles we can buy here that have changeable gullets. And since they are synthetic, they are incredibly easy to look after and no worries if you're riding in the rain! Naturally, it didn't work out that I could ride both my horses in the same saddle. Max is a bit narrower and a completely different shape to the mare. So I found a second-hand dressage saddle (above) which seems to be doing the job with the correct gullet size in it.

Now as we get into some real work, I need to make sure that I do his massage and stretches to build up his muscle. I hope he will develop more of a topline with correct work. He doesn't yet have much in the way of back muscle, and has the tell-tale sign of poor saddle fit - muscle wastage at the shoulders. It's a difficult thing to get a photo of, but we have some drawings (wither and loin) that will show our progress.

Let's just say I wouldn't like to try to ride the goober bareback at the moment!!!