We often get letters from our customers asking us about horse health, behavior, skin problems that may be related to saddles and tack. Because such issues are so common we'll address them here and share the discussion with our site visitors in this, the newest section of our site.
Letter of the Month
Posted: 03/18/2011
We received this email from one of our saddle customers about a saddle fit problem:
Hi CJ,
I bought my saddle form you about 5 years ago and it's been wonderful up until a few months ago. My horse was 12 when I bought the saddle and is coming 18 and her back has dropped quite a bit. My mare has been getting sore right behind the shoulder blades and also on both sides of the back of the rib cage. Can anything be done to this saddle for a better fit?
Thanks,
Charlie O. Charleston, WV
After receiving the saddle back from Charlie with a reshaped EQUImeasure mold of the horse's back we immediately saw that the saddle had no contact whatsoever with the middle of the horse's back. If you've ever heard someone mention 'bridging' in a conversation about saddle fit, this is what they were talking about.
"Saddle Bridging illustration showing where pressure can build up on the ends of a saddle.
When horses get older their top line starts to drop and the once great fitting saddle looses contact in the horse's middle causing pressure to increase on either end. To refit the saddle we ended up building up the middle of the tree by just under an inch to get the contact we needed in the middle of the horse's back. The great thing about doing the actual fitting by sculpting in leather to fit the horse is that when she retires that horse we can then strip off all the previous work and have a standard Quarter Horse bar tree again that will be ready to refit to a new horse.
Aging Horse & Saddle Fit
CJ Di Pietra 