Saddle Fitter: Round Two

The temperatures finally dropped on Friday! Hopefully fall is here and we have a lovely, long season of cool mornings and warm afternoons. I also finally got my saddle back!

She had moved the billet point attachments and reflocked it for his confirmation. She put it on him, adjusted some flocking, then I tacked up to see how he went in the new gear. He started off a little bit pokey at the walk, but I wasn't sure if that was the saddle or just him being pokey. When we picked up trot he almost immediately was willing to stretch down over his topline--that was definitely a huge improvement. We experimented with a thicker and longer half pad and tried a few different girths.

I think the longer half pad fit my saddle a lot better, so a new one will be purchased sometime this week. If anyone has suggestions; I'm all ears. I prefer the fleece types instead of the foam or gel.

There were two girths that he was definitely NOT a fan of. His front legs were short-strided and he was particularly bitey during the girthing process. One of the times it's good to have an expressive and sensitive horse. The first one that we tried was a shoulder-relief girth with elastic on the bottom. I'm not sure what he didn't like, but he was definitely unhappy to move forward. Next we tried a simple string girth with potentially even worse results. We finally landed on another shoulder-relief girth that was a softer, padded leather and he was much happier with it. She's actually letting me borrow it for a couple of weeks to see how he does with it.

We also played a bit with some risers in different places. We had one in the front of the saddle that really helped my legs stay locked in the correct position. We also put one under the right stirrup bar to help with the way his unevenly-muscled shoulders can twist the back of the saddle. I think that it helped and she left another one with me to try to double the thickness to see if that helps more or puts it too far over.

Hopefully over the next two weeks we can come up with a combination that he really likes.

I hopped on Saturday with the plan to get him working quietly into the bridle and over his topline. He was uphill and energetic. Our canter was much more even and straight than probably ever without a lot of work getting it there. Once he was past some of his fall morning excitement he stretched down into the bridle and kept a wonderful contact and forward trot. The ride was short, forward, and fairly nice. I'm excited to see how the saddle improvements affect our training.