The Nine Points of Saddle Fitting
Your saddle affects the way you ride and the way your horse performs. Learn how to evaluate this very basic piece of riding equipment. At the risk of sounding like a school-kid returning to class in the fall, I must say that I went to camp this summer. No, not to learn canoeing, nature crafts, or even dressage. I went to "saddle camp." For the better part of a week, our group of eight, made up of professional saddle-fitters, tack-shop owners, riders, an insurance agent, a college professor and an assistant editor--me--bent over carpet-covered workbenches in a classroom at the Potomac Horse Center in Gaithersburg, Maryland. We used assorted-sized metal "flocking irons" and wooden "smashers" to push and shape soft wool into saddle panels, while our instructor, saddler David Young of Raleigh, North Carolina, looked on. "Put the flocking in there as light and fluffy as possible," he told us. "Don't let it ball up." We heeded his word and worked intently, knowing an intensive five-part practical test and written exam loomed at week's end. The course, sponsored by the Master Saddlers Association (MSA), was an education in equine anatomy and saddle fitting. As I realized at the time I enrolled in the course, it's impossible to teach or to learn everything there is to know about these subjects in just five days. But you can take people who already know something about horses and saddle fitting, teach them the basics of what they don't know and give them guidelines for standard saddle-fitting procedures.
- copyright Equisearch/Stacey Nedrow-Wigmore -
Find out more about saddle fitting at Windsong Dressage and Equestrian Center. If you have questions you can email Ulla Hudson, our German Certified Instructor.
Windsong Dressage and Equestrian Center
#733, Route 344, Cedar Grove, Edgewood, NM, 87015, USA
505-615-5050
Your saddle affects the way you ride and the way your horse performs. Learn how to evaluate this very basic piece of riding equipment. At the risk of sounding like a school-kid returning to class in the fall, I must say that I went to camp this summer. No, not to learn canoeing, nature crafts, or even dressage. I went to "saddle camp." For the better part of a week, our group of eight, made up of professional saddle-fitters, tack-shop owners, riders, an insurance agent, a college professor and an assistant editor--me--bent over carpet-covered workbenches in a classroom at the Potomac Horse Center in Gaithersburg, Maryland. We used assorted-sized metal "flocking irons" and wooden "smashers" to push and shape soft wool into saddle panels, while our instructor, saddler David Young of Raleigh, North Carolina, looked on. "Put the flocking in there as light and fluffy as possible," he told us. "Don't let it ball up." We heeded his word and worked intently, knowing an intensive five-part practical test and written exam loomed at week's end. The course, sponsored by the Master Saddlers Association (MSA), was an education in equine anatomy and saddle fitting. As I realized at the time I enrolled in the course, it's impossible to teach or to learn everything there is to know about these subjects in just five days. But you can take people who already know something about horses and saddle fitting, teach them the basics of what they don't know and give them guidelines for standard saddle-fitting procedures. Find out more about saddle fitting at Windsong Dressage and Equestrian Center. If you have questions you can email Ulla Hudson, our German Certified Instructor.
#733, Route 344, Cedar Grove, Edgewood, NM, 87015, USA
505-615-5050
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