Saddle fitting

[elise]

My one horse, Cody, has some white hairs on his left side near the withers. Currently he's wearing a very large western saddle which he's had for quite some time. I'm pretty sure it has full QH bars (which I think is equivalent to wide tree), he has pretty high withers and he's not a small horse. I had been using a cutback pad with slightly built up shoulders. But I switched to a regular flat western pad. As I don't think we can go any larger in tree size, I think I'm left with finding the right padding. I thought maybe the built up pad would cause more rubbing so I stopped using it (also the cut back didn't fit right with the saddle), but the flat pad makes it look like the front of the saddle is really digging into his shoulders. Any ideas what could be going on here?

You can see his white spots in this photo:
http://www.ineedanap.net/farmgirl/photos/november/11-12-05_249_cody.jpg

Cody (flat western pad):
http://www.ineedanap.net/farmgirl/photos/05/957_codysready.jpg

This photo is probably not helpful, Cody in his saddle (flat western pad, middle horse):
http://www.ineedanap.net/farmgirl/photos/october/10-16-05_146_horses_all_ready.jpg

Another probably not helpful photo:
http://www.ineedanap.net/farmgirl/photos/november/11-21-05-290_me_on_cody.jpg

Another one:
http://www.ineedanap.net/farmgirl/photos/05/976_posing.jpg

[CMR]

Are the white hairs new? Has he been acting up recently? I think the saddle looks like a nice fit. White hairs from illfitting saddles take awhile to grow in, so you probably would have had behavior issues also.

[galadriel]

What makes you think that it needs to be wider?

You absolutely can not pad up something that's too narrow. All you do is make it more narrow.

To get a good view of a saddle, it needs to be on the horse's back with no pads under it or anything else interfering with the lines of the saddle and the horse's body.

[elise]

The white hairs aren't new, but he doesn't really have behavior problems aside from being buddy sour. ;)

I've done the wither tracing and have a cardboard cutout of his withers, when I put it up to my medium tree english saddle it's evident that the medium tree is way too small. I would try the saddle on him but it has a broken tree so it's going in the garbage anyways. The same cardboard up to the western saddle looks good to my untrained eye. I guess I figured if it looked like the bars were digging in that wider would be the way to go, if such a thing existed.

Is it possible for the saddle to be rubbing but not causing discomfort? As I said, he really doesn't have any issues when ridden that would indicate soreness. I guess another thought is that these are just white hairs because he's a paint. He does have one bird catcher spot and one Ben D'or spot.

My plan is to buy an english saddle eventually because I just hate the huge heavy westerns. But when I bought the horses these are the saddles they came with so that's what I have to use for now.

Would it help if I had a more experienced rider out to ride him both bareback and with the saddle and see if she can tell if there's any differences between his movement? I hate to waste a saddler's time if I don't plan on buying a saddle for a while (too poor :> ).

Oh and if I don't forget this weekend, I'll pop the saddle up there without the padding and take some photos.

[Carab]

Has he had sores in that area or did the hairs just appear?

[elise]

No sores that I know of. I've only had him in my care since September. I've known the horse for 5 years, and if I recall correctly, he's had the white hairs the whole time. He was ridden quite a lot from age 2 until maybe age 8 or so. And from age 8 to 15 (now) he hadn't been ridden hardly at all. I've taken him out, since September, probably 5 times, maybe more.

His photo as a yearling, no white hairs that I can see, but it was taken in the winter.
http://www.ineedanap.net/farmgirl/photos/about/codybaby.jpg

[Carab]

Well, in that case the hairs are most likely caused by uneven pressure from your saddle. Pressure sores can be cause from lack of padding on the actual saddle, the saddle being to tight in places or the saddle being too loose. I would consider getting a professional saddle fitter to have a look over the saddle. You have said you've owned this saddle for a while. Its common for old saddles to wear in some places more then others causing uneven padding in places therefore causing pressure on the horses back.
Hope I've helped. Gorgeous horses BTW

[galadriel]

Well! It's entirely possible that those white hairs have nothing to do with his current saddle. Or if they do, that it's caused by *overpadding*. Since they've been there for 5 years, they're not necessarily caused or affected by anything going on now.

If your wither tracing looks good up against the front of the saddle, then it certainly does not need to be wider.

A couple of things can cause excess pressure at the shoulders, even when the wither tracing looks good. One, like I say, is excess padding--pad something too much, and you make it too narrow! Another is bridging, when the saddle doesn't touch somewhere in the middle (this is one of the main problems that I find in Western saddles, and near impossible to "see" due to the skirting). You get a lot of pressure at the very front and the very back.

There's a lot more to fitting a saddle than just the wither tracing.

The saddle fitters that we have over here aren't necessarily in the business of selling saddles. I and a good friend of mine spend most of our time simply checking peoples' saddles for fit. We don't represent a saddle company nor do we have an inventory of new/used saddles to sell; what we do is check your current saddle, see if it fits or if it can be made to fit, then give advice (and measurements) for buying a new saddle IF you need one. If you don't, we all feel happy and fulfilled ;)

So don't hesitate to have a saddle fitter out just because you're not sure you need to buy a new saddle--if you can get that saddle checked professionally and determine whether it fits okay OR if it's the cause of those white hairs, that'll mean a lot.