What's your saddle fitting philosophy?

On Saturday, while I was away, Tristan had his dressage saddle re-fitted. It had been two years, and he's muscling up so much better this spring that I wanted to make sure everything was all set.

My dressage saddle is an Albion, not sure what model, that I bought used about 8 years ago. I adore it on a number of levels: it's comfortable, it's minimal, and it puts me in the right spot.

the saddle in question, on a grumpy faced mustang.

For me, though, its most important quality is that the general shape and line of the tree is a good match to the underlying spinal structures in his back. I looked at a LOT of dressage saddles over a number of years. None of them quite worked, even though I fell head over heels in love with them.

The key to making it work was having a good relationship with a local used tack store that had a) a good inventory and b) a tack fitter on staff. When I finally got serious about wanting to buy a dressage saddle, I stopped taking random saddles that I liked and did a wither tracing of Tristan's back, and took that to the store with me. I sat only in saddles that the saddle fitter thought probably worked. I took a few home on one week trials. Eventually, I came across my saddle.

I never had a preconceived brand in mind. I had a vague idea of style - more minimalist - but other than that, my top priority was the fit for Tristan, and my second priority was the way I sat in it. Both of those things had to work really well in order to buy, but the overall fit to Tristan's back was my most important criterion.

So now I've had this saddle adjusted about a half dozen times over the years, by three different fitters, and each one has only done partial reflocking.

In a way, I've probably been lucky; Tristan doesn't have a wildly difficult body type, and he is on the stoic end of the spectrum. So I had a wider range to choose from to begin with, and also a wider margin of success, since his back wasn't going to demand one very specific type of fit.

last saddle fitting

I do think that some of what played into this process and made it a success was the philosophy I had at the beginning. I never fell in love with one brand and demanded I get that. I never needed a brand new saddle. I worked with a saddle fitter, and a tack store, that I knew and trusted from day one. The idea of buying a saddle sight unseen off the internet kind of baffles and scares me.

At the same time, I realize there are a lot of people who want to purchase a particular brand or type of saddle, for whatever reason, and they make that work for their horse. (Or for multiple horses.) Professional riders often get custom free saddles in exchange for brand representation. Sometimes riders have trainers who want them riding in a certain brand. (In fact, my jumping saddle, a Passier, came to me because its previous owner rode with a trainer who demanded all her students buy Passiers; she bought the saddle, but it never really fit her horse, and 10 years later I bought her $3,000 saddle for $300.) People have a long brand relationship with a particular company - because of quality, or good customer service, or a style or philosophy preference. I'm sure sometimes people cycle through what is trendy or looks good.

My way works for me. Other ways work for other people, including lots of people whose blogs I read. There's no right or wrong way as long as you're keeping your horse's best interests in mind.

So: which side do you fall on?

The best Christmas present ever, that sadly wasn't

I have a very belated story to tell, partly because it is ultimately a sad story.

For Christmas, my husband hinted that he was so excited because he had found the best present ever. He consulted friends. He searched the breadth of the internet. He ordered me to stay at the barn late on the day it arrived. He placed it in my lap on Christmas and waited, breathless and excited.

And lo, it was in fact the best Christmas present ever. 

I was in total numb shock, so deliriously excited.

If you don't know what you're looking at, that is a modern replica of the famous McClellan cavalry saddle, first developed by the Civil War general of the same name. 

It was the perfect nexus between my horse geekery and my history geekery. I loved it.

But I knew right away to temper that excitement, and you, dear reader, are probably nodding your head along as you sigh in sadness.

I simultaneously reassured my husband that this was indeed an AMAZING Christmas gift, stupendously thoughtful and something that I have long coveted but would never have bought for myself.

But it would need to fit my horse. 

Yeah, it didn't fit my horse. :(

Regardless of the ill fit and the very strict return policy, I put a half pad under it and rigged it up for one ride.

It felt weird and wonderful. It made me sit up straighter and ride with a longer leg and more open hip than any other saddle I've ever ridden in...and it was also exquisitely uncomfortable. In a way that's really tough to describe. It wasn't that it was hard as a rock, though it was. It wasn't that it was sort of weirdly evenly narrow. It wasn't that I'm just not used to riding in a saddle with such a high pommel and cantle.

It just felt so completely and utterly different from any saddle I've ever sat in. I loved it. I wished desperately that I dared trot, but the fit was so bad that I didn't.

So, I got off after two laps around the arena, carefully wiped down the saddle, put it back in the box, took it to the UPS store, and sent it back.

That was a solid three months ago, and I'm still sad, looking at these pictures. I wish it had worked.

Trailer Inspection & Saddle Fitting

Spring cleaning all around!

First, Sunday, the trailer went in to get inspected. It was an hour of highs and lows.

High: Hitched that sucker up on the second try. BOOM. I take a great deal of pride in my ability to handle my rig.

Low: The electrical socket on my hitch on the truck has rusted such that the plug for the trailer did not go in all the way. So the trailer brakes did not get power.

THAT WAS EXCITING.

Luckily, when planning for my rig I was very conservative: the truck can haul and stop the empty trailer under normal conditions. Which is what we had to do, over dirt roads, down steep hills, around a few tight corners, and then into the lot at the mechanic's.

High: Backed that sucker right up in there.

Low: Looked around at the neighborhood and decided I should totally empty the trailer before leaving it. I have accumulated a LOT of crap in that trailer. More spring cleaning on the list!

A portion of the crap.

On the way home, I swung by Autozone out of curiosity. The truck has a date with the mechanic on Tuesday anyway - it has a bit of an oil leak, ugh - so I figured if I could pick up the right part they could swap out the electrical hookup for me too.

Can I just say: that may have been the first time in my LIFE that I have entered an auto parts store and been treated like an intelligent adult? Something abut muck boots + breeches + muddy coat + mussed hair + baseball cap set me apart. I was also able to intelligently describe what I wanted and they admired my truck when we went out to double-check the right part. Excellent experience all around: I will definitely go back for future stuff!

High: The part I needed was only $15 for the high-end version, and one of my new friends at the store told me if my mechanic charges me more than $20 for installing it he is ripping me off and I should tell him so. High five, random dairy farmer dude!

Then today: saddle-fitting!

I spent a solid 30 minutes outside with curry comb and shedding blade trying to get some hair off of him, and he still looked like a homeless ragamuffin at the end of it. SIGH.

 A cute homeless ragamuffin, at least.

Saddle-fitting went exceptionally well. One of my favorite things about Vermont is how genuinely lovely all the horse people I've met are. My barn manager, trainer, farrier, vet, and now saddle fitter. We'd actually met some years ago, when I lived in Vermont before; she was the first person ever to fit Tris, and advised me to buy my jump saddle. So it was terrific to see her again and find she hadn't changed at all.

It was also terrific to find that my assessment of his saddles was spot on: both were a good overall fit, but both needed adjusting, the jump saddle much more dramatically than the dressage saddle. 

I am somewhat ashamed that when I pulled out the jump saddle - which I haven't ridden in for about 6 months - it was badly in need of conditioning. Oops.

A pricey, but excellent, couple of tasks checked off the to do list. While the fitter was working on the dressage saddle, I conditioned my jump saddle. Then it dried out. Then I added another layer of conditioning. Then another. (!) I've brought it home to keep it up. Ack.

So!

I am not sure how much riding I will get done this week (PUPPY) but Tris will be a beginner lesson pony tomorrow, then he's going to be a pretend IHSA horse on Saturday for the local university. 

\For the record: dose 3 of 4 of the Pentosan loading dose was today.

Saddle Fit

As I sort of glossed over before I went away: Tristan has developed what can only be a white saddle sore on his withers. Jen at Cob Jockey's post about a possible sore on her horse pushed me to 'fess up more completely about this.

At first, I didn't notice it because he is so roany, and the white growing in looked like an extension of the white in his mane.

Then, each time I worried about whether it was in fact a saddle problem, I investigated. He showed zero tenderness or reactivity when I palpated the spot. When I put the saddle on his bare back there was zero interference. I would even reach down while riding and could still fit several fingers between the pommel and his withers. But after a few weeks I had to admit that there was definitely something wrong.

So what was the problem?

Two things. First and most egregiously, his lack of muscling behind his shoulders/below his withers means that saddle pads tip forward and slide down almost as soon as I start riding. The front of the saddle pad works its way down and puts pressure on his withers - directly in the worry spot.

Second, his jump saddle is no longer a good fit, also due to the lack of muscling. I have ridden in it perhaps a half dozen times in the last two months, and always for hacking out, but the pommel does bump the wither a bit when I sit in it. So while I doubt that flat-out caused the problem, it certainly did not help.

Solution, in two parts.

- Better fitness program, to include longeing and work on building his topline.

- Sheepskin half pad, in which he looks very dashing.

I'm going to start doing weekly topline photos, and we'll see if there's a visual difference.

Discouraging Developments

Tristan has been chuffing right along, but this week we were greeted with a setback. After some lovely long road hacks and some good flat work, two things happened nearly at the same time.

The first is that I pulled off his saddle and finally, sinkingly, acknowledged that the white spot on his wither was not just an artifact of his winter coloring (which does in fact change from season to season) but an actual saddle rub/pressure point. Neither saddle interferes too much, and in fact both fit him well, but with the lack of muscling on his back (still, ugh) saddle pads are slipping down and pushing tight against his withers by midway through the ride.

Soon after that, he got a massage in which we confirmed that he was pretty tight and awful through his left side, in a triangle out from that pressure point, and his muscling is lopsided. My friend, his massage therapist, looked at saddles with me and agreed that they are both essentially good fits - the jump saddle perhaps a bit less so - but that saddle pads almost instantly want to slide back and down.

So a solution, in two parts:

1) A fleece half pad, to be his only saddle pad for a period of time. The idea is the fleece will be forgiving and cushioning and I'll just have to stay on top of brushing it off/cleaning it regularly.

2) Longeing in a regular program. In an ideal world, this would be in side reins. In Tristan-world, this is simply not an option if I want him to develop proper muscles. He has never, ever, ever softened into side reins, and I made another attempt at it a few weeks ago and still he braced and flailed and fought through every stride. They don't have the responsive give that he needs and also he's kind of a jerk and stiff through the jaw anyway, and side reins are just not the right tool for him.

So for now, longeing nekkid, 2x a week, for 20 minutes at a time, 3 minutes per side. Friday night I brought him out and warmed him up at the walk and trot, then set out poles in a circle of death exercise. He started off tripping over them every time, but eventually softened into taking them in stride and doing some stretching over his back.

Here's step 1, at the walk and trot (please ignore my sad pathetic graphic skills):

Then we picked up a canter and he bucked and farted and kicked in and generally was an ass and scared the small child on a pony at the other end of the ring. But he settled down for step 2 at the canter:

Then back to the walk and trot for step 3:

By step 3, he was really hunting out the poles, and with voluminous praise for a) going forward and b) taking the poles in stride, it was kind of fun to see him realize that it could be a game.

Step 1 was 3 minutes to each side, walk and trot, so 12 minutes total; step 2 was 2 minutes to each side (1 at trot and 1 at canter) so 4 minutes total, and step 3 was 3 minutes to each side (1 walk and 2 trot) so 6 minutes, for 22 minutes total. He was a bit warm and clearly a bit tired by the end from all the lifting over the poles and from the concentrated work, but he also responded really well to the exercise.

We'll continue variations on this though probably only once a week because for now it is hard work. On non-pole days I'm going to do some experimenting: I've ordered a chambon from SmartPak after much researching and thinking and deliberating. I think it will help him reach in the right way to build his back, and it has the right give to reward him. We'll only use it on the longe and only for short periods, but I'll report back on progress.

Mixed Messages

Good Thing #1: The saddle fitter returned some of my money - my jumping saddle didn't need to be touched, and the dressage saddle only needed a partial reflocking.

Good Thing #2: I arrived at the barn to see Tris getting the very end of his massage; he was a happy mellow boy. I got to talk to Eva about my concerns, that he had been having trouble with picking up the right lead and that I was getting a bit worried about his hocks. She shook her head quite firmly: his hind end really felt fine, apart from being tight in the hamstrings, which didn't say to her hocks - just general work. His back also felt great for not having been worked on in so long, so more good news there.

She did bring me over to his right shoulder and point out to me that he was really quite sore in the muscle that ran along the line of his shoulderblade there, and felt that that accounted for the problems in picking up the canter. I asked her what I could do to alleviate that, and she said that with the caveat that she is not a riding instructor, she would stay out of his way and not tip forward over his shoulders when he strikes off, and try to let him reach out more freely with his front end. That made sense to me.

I tacked up and did about 40 minutes of interval work, putting him lightly into contact and getting him stretchy at the trot, and pushing him through at the canter. It wasn't terribly hard work, and he felt good: springy, smooth, and he picked up his right lead and held it with no problems. Success on all counts!

I spent a while fussing over him and organizing things after the lesson, and ended up talking to T. briefly about my proposed schedule. I was a little sad to hear that he thinks we should get out more in order to prepare Tristan for a recognized event in the fall. Sad is perhaps the wrong word - conflicted, maybe?

My life will become much easier when I finish grad school later this spring, but money and time will still be tight. I'm going to have to work hard to find creative places to take Tris that don't bankrupt me, or alienate my boyfriend entirely. T. suggested finding places with "structure"; anything where we go and Tris has something expected of him when we get there, meaning not just trail rides but schooling shows. It makes perfect sense, and T. pointed out that he really needs to be on top of his game to get to a recognized, and it wouldn't be fair to him to push him there without the right preparation. Again - perfect sense. But I do wish for once I could take the simpler route with something...