Half chaps verses long boots

Half chaps are excellent for everyday riding - keep the expensive long leather boots for high days and holidays! Rubber boots, however, are an abomination. They concertina at the ankle joint, then constantly try to spring back. They are the cause of many a raised heel and gripping up leg!

Shires Equestrian products have some excellent new leather half chaps/gaiters, with tall dressage tops, really smart and reasonably priced. They look like long boots, and will last much longer than suede. I have ordered a pair for everyday for teaching, so I must think they are good!

With regard to why I invented the Seatbone Saver, and why so many people need them when they are sitting correctly, is because the construction of a standard saddle seat is illogical.

As I have explained in my video, the rider should, it is universally accepted sit in the lowest part of the saddle, as close to the pommel as possible. Now as anyone who has ever tried to do this will tell you, this is not the padded part of the saddle seat. You will end up sitting on the hard slope of the tree, the front arch, doing damage to the bits you would rather didn't come into contact with it, (particularly if you are a male of the species!), with your seatbones resting either side of the seams that attach the skirts to the saddle.

Saddle makers generally know nothing about horses or riding. They are craftsmen who live and work in the city, and do not have any active part in the study of riding. My own saddle design was around at the turn of the 1700's. Barry Swain, my own saddler who is himself a horseman and a world expert on the history of saddlery, showed me a wonderful old first edition book that he has worth hundreds of pounds, from the 1700's and sure enough, the saddles in use then were very similar to my dressage design. The stirrup bar, way back, big rolls, everything bar the special foam in the seat! Everything does, it seems, come full circle.

This is because the Classical position was still in use in this country then. Hunting began to become the popular form of riding, and so the chair seat became the way to ride, stirrup bars crept forward, because the rider sat toward the cantle with legs stuck forward. This seat remained the norm, until this century, when Capt. Federico Caprilli invented the forward seat over fences, and the dressage seat once more came back across from the Continent, adopted by those who wished to train for this discipline.

However, the saddlers did not change the balance of the saddles away from that of the hunting seat, with the stirrup bars way to far forward and the rear part of the seat still the only padded area, and why anyone who wanted to sit in the correct ear/shoulder/hip/heel/line of balance, whether for jumping or dressage, had to compensate for the imbalance of saddles, to the point where everyone thinks that struggling to maintain a position is perfectly normal. It shouldn't be!

Which brings me back to why I invented the Seatbone Saver. As most of you know, I developed Seatbone damage so severe that I couldn't ride for 6 months, through trying to sit in the central part of my expensive German saddles. I invented the pad so that I could ride again, but quickly realised when friends tried it and asked if they could have one made, that it had qualities other than just as a considerable aid to comfort. Because it cushions the unpadded part of the saddle seat where you should be sitting, it allows you to sit there with ease, and also because it is suede, prevents you from slipping backwards toward the cantle, which is what usually happens when riders try to sit in the correct place.

Most saddle seats are made from a type of foam called Plastizote, which is quite hard and springy. Saddlers then stretch a drum tight piece of leather over the top, and what are you then sitting on? Something which acts as a springboard under you, and on a horse that moves like my big warmblood, Ringo, pictured in the video, most people would need to pack a parachute when riding him on a normal saddle!

It makes far more sense to have a seat which is made from something soft, which does not spring back, and into which you sink, rather than skid about on top. This dampens the upward thrust of the stride, without reducing the rider's feel, and because you sink into the material, prevents the seat from sliding around, so that the seatbones can be correctly used as a pivot, not sliding back and forth in a 'driving' way in an effort to adhere to the saddle.

Yes you would have to squeeze the reins harder, and even then there is no guarantee of a response, which is precisely why I use the Pelham. As I explain in the book, the curb chain acts on a reflex point in the curb groove, which relaxes the jaw. When the jaw relaxes, the head lowers of it's own accord. This is why every one of the great Classical Masters of all time, achieved the all important flexions of the jaw, through gentle use of a curb bit. The art of the use of the curb bit is being lost, replaced by forceful use of the snaffle, and reinforced by draw reins when no response from the snaffle is achieved.

The snaffle bit was originally invented for use by grooms, whose masters did not consider them to have sufficiently educated and sympathetic hands to use a double bridle. The use of the snaffle bit has only become 'de riguer' since competition dressage came into this country. The use of the snaffle in dressage is only a very recent thing, since the Germans started to perpetuate it's use.

I am not at all against the snaffle being used, once the horse has understood what is required of him. I always put the horse back into a snaffle, provided he will accept the bit willingly and lightly and remain in carriage. My Prix St. George level dressage horse is always worked in the snaffle (not even jointed, just a mullen mouth hard rubber mouthpiece - the same as in the Pelham) for schooling purposes, but I initially had him in the Pelham to keep him light and relaxed in the lower jaw. Now you could put a piece of rope in his mouth , and he would stay in the correct outline and in self carriage.

I have used this technique with dozens of horses. If you remove the cause of misunderstanding and resistance, i.e., the snaffle whose action the horse often does not understand, put him in a bit that shows him what you want, ride him in it until his way of going is established, then you can put him in whatever snaffle that he finds comfortable.

Re: Pelhams, I mostly use the hard rubber mullen mouth. I don't like Vulcanite as they are too thick and hard. The hard rubber one has actually a metal mouthpiece which is covered in rubber, so that it is not squidgy and too chewable like the old rubber bits that used to be very bendy.

I don't like the plastic ones so much because I find that a lot of horses for some reason, don't go as well in them. You would think that the plastic tastes nicer than rubber, but horses in my experience, don't seem to agree.

Elastic curb chains are easy to get in the UK. Metal ones are often fine for most horses, and I have to say that I don't find that rubber curb guards actually work very well. They seem to deaden the feel to the reflex point in the curb groove, as do the leather variety, unless they are quite thin and supple. The elastic ones are very mild, but do seem to work better than the leather or rubber chain guards.