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Saddle Fit Check
A. Place the saddle on the horse making sure that it is sitting BEHIND the scapula.
B. Girth it up, (if a dressage girth, check that the buckles are not interfering
with the horse's elbow in movement).
C. Look at the overall length of saddle on the horse's back making
sure that there is a good 6" clearance before the loins.
D. Look at the saddle on the horse and make sure that it sits level on the horse.
Check that the pommel is not sitting too high, if it is then the saddle will throw the rider's weight backwards and put undue pressure on the
loins. However if the pommel is too low the reverse will happen and the rider's weight will be on the horse's shoulders and make it ride quite heavy on the forehand. The latter problem
may be remedied by the flocking - but beware!
E. Check that the saddle sits quite firm behind, so that it doesn't
bounce any which way when ridden at trot.
F. Then check that you can run your hand between the horse & saddle down the front
without undue pressure and that when placing the flat of your hand up under the sweat flap to stirrup bar area that the pressure along the line of the saddle stays constant from front
to back, again with no "blocking".
Saddle Check (off the horse) - assuming that the tree is not broken
1. Check stirrup bar alignment left to right.
2. Ensure the stirrup bars arc not too tight into the saddle.
3. Check panel for lumps, hardness, narrow channel or rolling pin
syndrome.
4. Check that the panel has been stitched in correctly.
5. Check overall, the softness, i.e. that the horse's muscles could
expand and contract into the panel and that the weight isn't concentrated into a small area. We must make sure that the bearing is flat & even and covers the majority of the underside
of the panel.
6. A “banana-shaped” panel brings with it many problems; one could write a chapter on it, but to sum it up quite simply think of a spoon being
pressed down on a flat lump of butter and where the majority of indentation would be! |
