The influence of a saddle that's too narrow

Once your horse starts developing due to the training, the chances are very likely that the withers will come up and the shoulders become wider. The saddles position is right behind the shoulders and not on the shoulders. Yet, this change has a big impact on the position of your saddle. The wider your horse becomes, the more the saddle will be lifted in the front and the balance of the rider falls on the back side of the horse's back.

When this happens, you can temporarily use an extra saddlepad with shims that lifts the backside of the saddle. So you can continue some riding until your fitters comes. Yet this doesn't change the fact that the saddle has become too narrow.

This happened to Reaven, 3 weeks after the fitter had narrowed her saddle. 😆Don't we all love a developing young horse!

So what did Reaven do to deal with the saddle as it was? She stopped fully lifting the thorasic sling to stay away from the pressure of the saddle. Her back didn't fully come up anymore. She even sometimes collapsed through the chest at times. 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑛. Reaven has a Peter Horobin stridefree saddle. Due to the shorter tree panels this saddle doesn't pinch behind the shoulder like many other saddles do. Yet there still is pressure when the width of the tree is not at the same angle as the shoulder.

Now the saddle is adjusted and she can move freely again. This is a picture during the warm up and you can see her lifting the shoulder up in a working position. So in order for your horse to be optimally moving under saddle, you have to make sure that your saddle fits. The body can change very fast and I need adjustments on my saddles every 𝟮 𝒕𝒐 𝟯 𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒉𝒔!!!