Saddle Fitter

This past Sunday I finally had the saddle fitter out to take a look at my Prestige dressage saddle. Mort was extremely sensitive to her and was a bit of turd about it all but it was still an educational and interesting experience. The saddle fits Mort ok. It fits his spine and withers well but it's a bit tight in the shoulders and stirrup bars. I sent the saddle with her to reflock it to his confirmation better. I'm interested to see how he goes in it when she's done. Side note--this is why wool flocked saddles are the way to go if you don't want to buy a new saddle every time your horse changes a bit.

The part of this experience I found most interesting was when we were discussing Mort's shoulders. I've always known they were a bit crooked (slightly in looks and certainly in the way he moves). Her tracings really showed just how crooked he was there. I had always thought it was him travelling crooked that made his shoulders look that way but apparently it's his confirmation. His left scapula is just a big different than his right--making it bigger. Not a huge deal but it just surprised me because I had it backwards in my head for so long.

She went on to describe what happens when his bigger shoulder can't slide under the saddle properly. The shoulder hits the front of the saddle, twisting it off to one side. This obviously makes me go to that side as well. Now he's got more weight taking him to that side so he falls out that direction. So one direction he'll bend easily but always feel like we're wanting to make smaller and smaller circles and the other direction it'll feel like he wants to drift out. She hadn't seen us ride or work or heard my complaints about his training but she summed up what I work on EVERY ride in a two minute discussion about shoulders and saddles. Should have had her out ages ago.

Literally my eternal struggle with Mort in a nutshell. He's soooo freaking crooked because of shoulder/saddle fit. The good news is that the reflocking should help. But the bad news is that it probably won't fix it 100% simply due to how much of a difference there is between his shoulders. She said when she brought the saddle back out she'd watch us ride and maybe make some more adjustments to the saddle itself, but the only way to really fix the shoulder issue is to put a shim (or two or whatever) in a half pad. She has several in her truck that I will be able to try to see what works best for my boy. To say I'm very interested in how it changes the way he moves is an understatement.