Friday, 30 October, 2009
Day two of the class was entirely practical in nature. The class was split into five groups, each group rotating through various stations: Template Taking, Conformation, General Purpose Saddles, Close Contact Saddles, and Dressage Saddles.
In Template Taking, we were taught the proper way to record the shape of the horse’s withers and back. This technique is useful in determining what saddle should be used in the immediate future, as well as measuring and chronicling changes to the horse’s back, as horses’ backs do indeed change with work (or lack thereof). We also used weight tape to calculate approximate body weights. Not only is this helpful in determining the saddle to be used, but it’s again helpful to track changes in the horse’s body, especially with young horses.
In Conformation, we learned to identify aspects of a horse’s conformation and the challenges that conformational changes can present when fitting a saddle (young horse, obese horse losing weight / thin horse gaining weight, etc.). We further learned to identify subtle lamenesses and how they influence movement and subesquently saddle fit.
In the various saddle stations we were presented with horses used by the school and asked to select from dozens of each saddle type to find a saddle to fit each horse. My group began with a cob/arab type with a relatively healthy back. This horse was pretty straightforward to fit, requiring a medium-wide tree and flatter panels to acommodate his broad, flat back. The remaining horses had extremely large withers and were more “slab sided,” presenting an obvious challenge when finding the saddles to fit them.
Interesingly, all horses displayed significant muscle atrophy around the wither (although the cob’s atrophy was minimal). Further, most of the horses had various degrees of stiffness and lameness issues. When it was discovered that all of the horses in the school use inexpensive synthetic saddles (whose name I shall not reveal), the situation became obvious. Apparently the school was given these saddles to use on their school horses, and although one horse was in his late teens, the others were too young for such unfortunate body conditions. Their atrophied backs are directly due to improper saddle fit. What an amazing and sobering display.
I will say that the degree of lameness varied from horse to horse at the school, but I wouldn’t be able to declare a single horse as sound. One sad gelding in particular could barely walk, the arthritis in his hocks was so bad.
Although the condition of the horses was somewhat sad, the fact that they were able to quantify the perils of improper saddle fit filled me with gratitude that I may be able to help prevent problems like these from arising in other horses. Thankfully, the students of the college paid close attention to our fitting assessments which were validated by the instructors representing the Society of Master Saddlers.
After class, our new Icelandic friend joined us for dinner at the Windmill Inn at Stratford upon Avon. It was supposed to have been the pub where William Shakespeare himself was entertained, and was over 500 years old! I wonder whether there’s anything in the US’s history that’s quite that old – anything still standing and still performing its original function, anyway. The food there was wonderful (as was the ale). I had braised beef with mushrooms while Bret had a burger – how American of him. 
