Hip problems and riding western?

I am suffering from increasingly painful arthritis in the hip and was struggling to mount and especially to dismount. It was agony after a ride - even a short half-hour hack - to lift my leg over the cantle. Each time I got stuck and ended up lying in pain along the back of my long-suffering mare!

My solution was to try the Total Contact Saddle, having looked at it online for around a year or so. I got one on a week's trial (you get your full deposit back if you return it in good condition so I had nothing to lose except the return postage). And for me, personally, it has been a godsend! Without the extra bulk of the saddle the whole riding experience is so much more comfortable, and I can dismount in one easy move (well, apart from the hitting the ground bit, but that's a whole other story! :eek:)

It wouldn't be a great solution for anyone with balance issues, but I love riding bareback, so that wasn't a problem for me. I have quite a wide-backed mare, but using a Best Friend Bareback Pad topped with a Heather Moffatt Seatsaver there are no saddle slippage issues and I feel safe and comfortable. It only took a short ride in the school and a couple of hacks to prove to my own satisfaction that it's the perfect solution to my current problems.

Oh, and my mare loves it too! And it's lovely to feel her breathing underneath me - I feel far more connected to her and she seems a lot more responsive to even the slightest aid.
 
That is really interesting hormonalmare - on a couple of occasions recently when it has just been too excruciatingly painful after the end of the ride (as you say as little as half an hour can finish you completely!) on the way home I have dropped my feet completely out of the stirrups and just sunk long and low into her if you understand what I mean - and it did relieve some pain? And it did occur to me that riding bareback might actually help for now anyway.

Fortunately my balance riding is still pretty good and I may just hack out bareback a couple of times and then see is it worth investing in one of those - I think I will need my higher mounting block to get on though without the aid of a stirrup - that is being rebuilt tomorrow by the menfolk here. I shall blame you if I end up slithering under her belly and dangling a few inches above the tarmac blubbering like a demented eejit lol! :D
 
Haha, you paint a pretty picture Cortrasna..:D

Actually, it's through riding bareback that I've come to realise that I'm a much better rider than I thought I was. I always ride skew-wiff and out-of-kilter in a traditional saddle of any kind, and it's astonishing how much width any kind of saddle adds to the bulk under your leg. I've spent years trying to conform painful hips into the position I'm told I should be riding in, and lately it'd become agony. (And still is for walking around in general). But bareback there is less stretch on the hips and no hard lump of leather slowly twisting underneath you (I was forever putting all my weight down into one stirrup periodically to bring the saddle back to my perception of 'level', which photographs always showed me I simply wasn't...:rolleyes:)

Aside from that, barebacck gives you the warmth of the horse that seeps through and gradually warms your aching hip bones. I'm not saying my hip doesn't still give me gyp, but it's become waaaaaay more comfortable. I did over an hour of hacking in walk and a bit of trot last weekend and was able to dismount in one go :cool: and lead my mare back to her stable without wincing too much.....:):):)

The Total Contact just gives me that extra little bit of security when out and about - can't recommend it highly enough if bareback works for you....
 
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I have not been on here for years and should be doing other things in the office, but I am weighing up my options currently and was browsing the internet. My Exxie mare (in the profile pic) is very very wide, and I gave up riding her over 2 years ago. I have a super-comfy treeless saddle with HM Hipsaver, but still her width means I am in pain as soon as I mount. I have put a local advert out for a narrow pony to try, just to see if that will enable me to ride regularly again. Western saddles - I tried a few. Found them uncomfortable, far too heavy for me to carry/tack up (and Frayne would literally sink in the back with the weight when I first put it on!) and definitely too wide. Longer stirrups - I read somewhere that shorter stirrups will help with hip problems, and I have found that is true. I had a long stirrup on the nearside to mount, and then shorten it up when on (I do not have a mounting block). I look like an elderly jockey on a very fat Exmoor Pony, but it really did help to ease the pressure on the hip. Give that a go. Ali x
 
Interestingly we teach a girl with CP and one of her problems is stiffness through her hip .Her preference is for no saddle followed by my aged Thorowgood dressage saddle with no knee or thigh rolls with a sheepskin seatsaver.
 
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