Many Young Horses, Only One Saddle?
By Jochen Schleese, CMS, CSFT, CSE
manage to do right by all these animals in your care (and for yourself) by ensuring you have and use a saddle which works for you and works for all of them? It’s even more of a challenge when you are tasked with starting a lot of young horses—most of whom will leave you within a few months or perhaps a year or two.
M
Workable Scenario It would be ideal to have a saddle that has been made and
fitted for each horse’s conformation but the reality is that this will seldom be the case. So you find a saddle that fits you wonderfully: it is comfortable and works with your anatomical requirements (male or female), which at the very least keeps you from allowing any discomfort you feel to be passed down to the horse. That’s the first step. Then, you have it fitted to the largest horse you have, because it’s always easier to fill in the gaps and make it fit horses with narrower shoulders, lower withers, etc. Just as it’s easier to fit shoes that are too large with insoles and extra socks, the same is true of saddles, while the other way really doesn’t work that well. The only issue may be that the saddle support area on a
larger horse is somewhat bigger than for a smaller horse— which is then difficult to accommodate—but for the panel size for the horse you size the saddle to fit your shortest- backed horse. It’s a compromise all around, but that is my suggestion.
It’s a workable compromise—while keeping in mind the fact that horses were never actually meant to be ridden in the first place!
Age and Adjustability So let’s look at the individual reference points concerning
saddle fit and the why behind these suggestions. Specifically for young horses, or “remontes” as they are
known in Germany, it can seem difficult to justify spending money on a custom saddle because they are definitely going to change. However even this is somewhat counter-intui- tive; if you have a saddle that is truly adjustable (not just by reflocking, but also in tree width and angle), you can accom- modate your horses’ changing conformations as they age. Well-known clinician and veterinarian Dr. Gerd Heus- chmann approached us with exactly this dilemma: he often trained very young horses and then sold them, and therefore
All illustrations are by Schleese Saddlery
any trainers face a major dilemma daily: What do you do if you have lots of horses to ride but cannot afford a saddle that will fit each one? How do you
wanted a saddle that would work on several different body types at a time. So with his input we designed a Remonte saddle that has proven very effective for exactly this purpose. This is a saddle designed specifically for young horses, follow- ing the philosophy and the principles of the German cavalry handbook the H Dv. 12 German Cavalry Manual: On The Train- ing of Horse and Rider, written in 1932 and now available in English.
Keep in mind that the horse will change his conformation
most drastically between the ages of three and eight. Even a saddle which fits perfectly at age three—correct in tree width, tree angle, gullet width, and length—may no longer work at age eight. The withers have come up and the shoulders have come up and back, which effec- tively shortens the saddle support area (which is between the base of the withers and the 18th thoracic vertebra) and means that this saddle will now impinge on all sorts of reflex points, resulting in unwanted behavior, such as bucking, stumbling and refusal to go forward. Training during these years will affect the muscles and as
a result, the three-dimensional shape of the horse’s back and the saddle support area will change. Conventional wisdom states that three years is the opti- mum age to be “broken.” A horse should not really begin seri- ous training until around age five. By eight a well-trained horse’s muscles and conformation should allow training to begin in earnest.
The Precious Back Concern for the health and care of a young horse’s back
is very important—I don’t think anyone would argue that point. Why then do we still hear, “When my young horse proves himself, I will get him a good saddle.” This is sort of like saying, “When my child learns to play soccer properly I will get him a pair of running shoes that fit.” There is a correlation between poor saddle fit and tense/
unhappy behavior. Much of it is anecdotal but, after having seen more than 150,000 horses in the 35-plus years we have been in business, I think we can call ourselves educated experts. Your horse has two systems of suspension in his body which are not held firm by the skeleton of the horse. By changing the muscling and the horse’s way of going we can actually affect these two systems. Also, if we damage these
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