ON MY TACKBOX
Beyond White Marks: The Effects of Bad Saddle Fit With 15 years experience as a horse bodyworker, DR JANE CLOTHIER explains why correct saddle fit is vital to your horse’s comfort and well-being.
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t often surprises me how many people miss what are to me obvious signs of poor saddle fit. I do understand that horses’ owners engage saddle fitters and expect the expert to decipher the signs for them, but at the same time, I sometimes wonder just what it would take to make some owners contact the saddle fitter at all. The most obvious signs are fairly wellknown, but nevertheless get ignored. Large white marks where a tree has reduced circulation and damaged tissue don’t generally appear overnight. Hollowing behind the withers is also known to many people, although I’d say that to some owners of lightweight horses, this feature is often considered normal. I’ll agree that with a narrow chested, high withered horse, the distinction between normal and atrophied musculature at the base of the withers is less obvious, but as a general rule of thumb, if this area is concave, it’s underdeveloped.
for some time. That’s not good enough, really. It is often said that a horse’s greatest problem is that it cannot yelp like a dog, as we’d then know about painful issues at a very early stage. Instead, horses depend on us to figure it out somehow. All too often, that doesn’t happen early enough for a variety of reasons. Before continuing, I’ll point out that I have been there and for this reason, I’ll never judge anyone who is doing
This very solid Warmblood X has braced up against pressure caused by a narrow European saddle tipping back.
The thing is, by the time these signs are present, things have been going wrong
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HORSEVIBES MAGAZINE - AUGUST 2019
their best to learn. All I’ll say is that in this information age, if you’re posting a picture of your horse on social media, you’re also in a position to start learning. Let’s start right here. For me, when I first meet a horse the initial indication that something may be wrong comes from its overall posture. Let’s get to grips with obvious signs of saddle misfit by looking at the horse from a distance.
The Hollow Horse The easiest postural change to spot in a horse with saddle related pain is a flattened or hollow back, accompanied by a high head carriage with an ‘upside down’ neck (I’m putting things in lay terms here). Many saddle fit issues can lead to this. The points of a narrow tree may be hurting the horse, even it doesn’t have obvious muscle atrophy. If there is muscle atrophy, the horse may have tension through the muscles both over and under the shoulder blade, and very often the neck muscles in front of the wither. It’s not only the front of the saddle, as the area beneath the cantle can be painful too. A saddle that is too wide may tip back, leading to painful pressure on the back muscles above the last ribs. If it’s too long, the pressure area may be even further back. When there’s pain
