Have you ever gone to ride in a used saddle and noticed that it made you sit crookedly? The previous rider or horse could have made that happen! It’s true: the rider’s position and the horse’s symmetry can have a direct influence on the way a saddle fits.
The rider’s position can:
- Cause asymmetry in the panels
- Cause the horse’s muscles to develop unevenly
- Over time cause a wooden tree to become crooked.
A crooked or unevenly muscled horse can similarly affect the fit of the saddle.
We all know how a saddle that does not fit the horse can have a dramatic effect on the horse’s soundness and general sense of well-being, but did you know that a saddle that does not fit the rider can cause an imbalance n the horse that can bring about the same problems? Think about it: if you’re having to constantly fight to get into the right position, your horse has to absorb that energy to keep you upright and balanced, making his job that much harder. Struggling with your position also prevents you from having correct timing with your aids and causes you to give your horse mixed signals. Due to the confusion and frustration that this causes for the horse (and you), behavior problems can, and often do, arise.
Let’s also consider how our bodies influence our horses. Stiffness in the rider causes stiffness in the horse. It’s that simple. It prevents the horse from engaging his hind end and relaxing into a collected frame. The rider’s tension adds extra strain on the legs and subsequently more concussion with each footfall. The result? An increased chance of lameness and arthritis down the road. This stiffness, because it adversely influences the horse’s movement, can, over time, cause the saddle to fit improperly.
Finally, how a horse is ridden is important to saddle fit, and oftentimes the causes and effects are so interrelated it’s hard to know where to begin. A horse that is ridden in an “upside-down” frame will develop his back muscles in a concave fashion, causing an unnaturally swayed back over time that often results in bridging issues. A horse with such a back often poses the most difficult challenge for the saddle fitter, and his condition is often VERY preventable! This is why riding in a “long and low” frame as much as possible is crucial to a horse’s back health, and why so many equine experts so strongly advocate cross training, mixing a little bit of dressage into jumping and vice versa. It’s good for their minds too.
Ultimately, while fit for the horse is paramount to his comfort and performance, the rider’s fit must be given just as much consideration, especially when an ill-fitting saddle for the rider can retard that rider’s progress significantly! I’ve read that if you take a saddle that fits a rider only marginally and put that rider in a saddle built for that person, the rider will gain two to three YEARS worth of experience in just a couple of lessons. Coming from the perspective of someone who falls into the “custom fit” category, when I finally made the plunge into having a saddle built for me, I understood perfectly well how truthful this statement is. When you are put into the perfect position, riding becomes effortless by comparison, and you’re able to progress further as a rider very quickly indeed.
