ON MY TACKBOX WITH DR JANE CLOTHIER

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.

It 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.

The thing is, by the time these signs are present, things have been going wrong

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 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.

This very solid Warmblood X has braced up against pressure caused by a narrow European saddle tipping back. 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

This long saddle has positioned the rider further back, adding pressure to the lumbar region.

at the back, the horse may have what looks like one or two raised vertebrae there, where the muscle has dropped away and tension has affected the deeper, smaller muscles around the joints. This horse may have the pelvis rotated forwards, which leads to the appearance of sharply angled croup. When you see this, rest assured that it’s a horse with sacroiliac problems on the way. The back muscles are unable to work properly and this leads to stresses in the major joints between pelvis and spine. This horse may also have overdeveloped abdominal muscles that are compensating for the weakened, restricted back muscles.

When it moves with its head high and flattened back, this horse is sending its centre of gravity further back. It moves with shortened strides in front while the hind feet seem to trail, as it’s unable to bring them under itself. It may even drag the hind feet, wearing the toes. Riders will complain that the horse is unwilling to go forward and they may try to make the horse look correct by bringing its nose down, into a ‘false outline’.

The Braced Horse

This posture is slightly harder to spot if you haven’t yet got your eye in. The main sign is that the lumbar spine is raised, even to the point of being roached. The pelvis in this case is tilted back, so that the horse often stands with the hind feet more under itself. The abdominal muscles may not be overdeveloped, but they are certainly stressed, as they are engaged in lifting the back a lot of the time.

I’ve often seen this posture in physically stronger horses, such as Quarter Horses and more heavily built Australian Stock Horses. Often, they have been ridden in a western or swinging fender (‘hybrid’) saddle. The saddle may be too tight at the front of the tree, yet with their strong musculature, the horse tips it up and back. Sometimes it is too wide, so that it rocks back with a rider in place. The solid tree, which may run straight across the back with minimal padding, then presses down on the lumbar area. This is especially the case if the horse is curvy along its topline or is croup high – either can cause the saddle to ‘bridge’ (when the saddle has less or no contact with the horse’s back mid-way along its length). Warmbloods that have been bred very uphill are also prone to adopt this posture, as hollowing is harder.

These horses are frequently attempting to stabilize or reposition the load on their backs, in order to avoid constant pressure in an area that is becoming painful. They’re more likely to be working on the forehand, with a shortened stride behind.

Australian Stock Horse showing classic signs of saddle-related postural change.

Posture and Pain

I tend to think that unlike the hollow horse, the braced horse is a stronger animal that is trying to tough it out when ridden in a saddle that does not fit. If the hollow horse has dipped down and succumbed to the unavoidable pain, the braced horse is a more stoic individual and may even have a higher pain threshold.

There is nothing relaxed-looking about these horses when they are standing still. In movement, their body becomes the sum of two halves, the front and the back, which do not appear to be working together. Consequently, there is nothing fluid or flowing in the movement, but there is certainly additional stress placed on the muscles, ligaments, tendons and joints of the limbs. If the back is fixed in this way, all the legs take more concussion and the negative forces that come with it.

Someone, I forget who, once said, “the thing is that horses don’t know that saddles aren’t meant to hurt”. Being horses that don’t yelp like dogs, they will attempt to compensate for saddlerelated pain through their movement, until a point when that doesn’t work anymore. That is when the more serious injuries or behavioural issues start to come in. When and to what extent these things happen depends largely on the individual horse and problem.

These observations come from my bodywork experience, and I’m the first to admit that there plenty of variations due to the effects of training, riding, unrelated injury or hoofcare. However, I’ve usually found that even when other issues are present, the saddle is involved. Of one thing I’m sure: we owe it to our horses to be more aware, to understand what is and isn’t normal, and to start checking a saddle when we notice the first signs of postural change.

Dr Jane Clothier is based in Armidale, NSW. As well as hands-on bodywork services, she offers short courses for horse owners and writes a widely read blog,

The Horse’s Back.