Friday, July 17, 2009

Saddle Fit for High Withered Horse




My friend has tried fourteen different saddles on her high-withered Missouri Fox Trotter during the five years she has owned this eight-year-old gelding. She has tried a Corrector pad, but it sawed on his withers.

Right now, she is tryng a Wintech Australian-style saddle with Cair panels and adjustable gullet, with a supracor pad. I rode him with it today and it left an even sweat pattern, but another friend suggested that the saddle was bridging. Certainly the horse was happier than the last time I rode him with a Tucker High Plains Endurance saddle. That time he was fussy and rung his tail quite a bit.

She wanted me to ask if anyone on the list had dealt with a horse with a back similar to this.


4 comments:

Mrs. Mom said...

New to this blog- found it through Funder's.

LOVE gaited horses. LOVE them. Owned presently by a QH though... who has one horrible set of withers. A good pal of mine in VA sells custom fit saddles- if you are interested, I'd be more than happy to pass along her email / contact info to you. Shoot me a mail at swequine@yahoo.com, and I'll connect you with her.

Good luck finding the right fit! My horse is a rehab project, who is still undergoing changes in his back. Which means I ride w/ a bareback pad (when I have the chance to ride that is,) while his recovery continues. Once his back has muscled back up though, we are for SURE getting a custom fit saddle for him. Those withers would give him/ us nightmares otherwise!

my bad said...

I'm new too. Google

Sounds like your on right track. The even sweat pattern and the happy horse say a lot.

I don't envy your situation. I went through the saddle dilemma a while back and it is not fun. Oh at first it is, until your on saddle #7 and you still haven't found the right one.

I have a John Goodwin Paragon and an Ortho Flex western. My Paragon has been a good solution for most hard to fit horses.

Bonnie said...

You could try a treeless saddle? I hear those are good.

Anonymous said...

Hopefully this works...I stumbled upon your blog, but I too have a high withered gaited horse, she is a Walkaloosa...she is part Appy and part Racking horse. The saddle I use is a Circle Y western with "flex rite" bars...it's a flexable tree, not a stiff "one-position" tree...Her sweat marks are nice and even and consistant with no sweat along the backbone. It's super comfy for me too

http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm164/LUVMYPITTIES/teampenning302.jpg