Riding without a numnah/saddle cloth?

MaisieMoo

MaisieMoo

Well-Known Member
Oct 19, 2007
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How many of you do this?

When I got C's new saddle Norm advised that I should ride with just the saddle for about a month which I did and all was fine.

Now I ride with a very thin saddle cloth and I find that the saddle moves around more with the cloth than without.

I'm seriously considering just getting rid of the saddle cloth all together and just riding with the saddle although this will cause the underside to get hairy/dirty very quickly (it's already covered in a layer of white hair!)

Just wondered how many others do this?:)
 
i ride without a numnah or cloth day to day on one of the saddles (with on the other one) and neither have one when im showing.

just means you have to wash the saddle more often because the sweat damages the leather.
 
Tango<3 said:
If it was fitted without a saddle cloth then it should be tight on him [or her!] rather than moving around?
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You'd think it would be but I'm not sure if it's just the saddle cloth I use as it is fine without it.

I do have a thicker numnah that is made of velvet that holds it steady but think that is more likely to make it tight.:confused:

He has lost a bit more weight in this last few weeks so will get Poohsmate to give it a check again when he's up next weekend.:)
 
I understood that an english saddle, with leather wool-flocked panels, is designed to work directly against the horse's back. The panels work by having some wiggle room in the stuffing. You put it between the horse's back and your bum, ride on it, and the flocking moves and shapes itself and settles where it needs to go and the fibres all move and mesh together etc - BUT - it needs the action of the horse's sweat rising through the leather and into the flocking in order to do this.

(Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong because this is something I think I've read or been told somewhere sometime, and I don't have a reference to quote, sorry !)

Years ago, we weren't even allowed saddle pads in the show ring for something like working hunter. Is that still the case ?

To answer the question - I usually have a thin pad under a saddle, and I do own a thick sheepskin half pad, but I only use it where I know for one reason or another the saddle isn't fitting right, or the panels are not completely smooth (and yes, I know this is a sin, but we don't have saddle fitters out here so we do the best we can.)
 
your not supposed to use a numnah for showing, but aslong as it is hard to notice (similar colour to pony and cut to saddle) then its ok.

but we go without to save the hassle :rolleyes:
 
I treid my serge-lined saddle without a numnah, but Blondie's losing her winter coat, and it got matted very quickly.

The saddler said I should use a thin saddle-cloth or numnah under it, but I'm not sure exactly what 'thin' means, so I've gone back to the ordinary one, which is only slightly padded ....

KateWootten: I can't really see why the numnah should stop the interaction between you and the horse - there is the same pressure on the flocking , isn't there? - and I can't see why sweat should be good either - won't it just make the saddle greasy?
Although I'm guessing here; I'm willing to be convince ...
 
LindaAd -

I think you're right about the 'feel' - when we fit a saddle, we're hoping to interface the pressure of a person's bum, with a moving horse's back, by dispersing the pressure through a semi-rigid surface (the tree) somewhere in the middle of the two. Somewhere down the line, there has to be resilient padding to absorb motion - whether that be the spring in the tree, bounce in the panels, or air in the sheepskin pad - somehow or other there must be some 'give' in the system, and it'll surely compress according to how much pressure there is on it.

The thing about the sweat rising, I'm definitely vague on it. Maybe it's an old out-dated thing ? I seem to recall someone in a western kind of a book riding with a hessian bag of horse-hair under their saddle, directly against the horse's back, so that sweat and motion would meld the whole thing into a thick saddle-pad exactly shaped to that horse. I have a feeling it was Ken in the real version of My Friend Flicka, or it could just as easily have been a Silver Brumby thing. It obviously sunk in to my poor brain quite firmly, as I came across the idea later in relation to english saddles and remembered it from there too. (Though, sadly,it was probably in a library book dated around1907 :D )

p.s. in case anyone wonders how I could possibly remember reading such obscure things as a kid 30 something years ago .... well, it's because, obviously, I went straight out and tried to do the same thing and build a custom saddle for my spacehopper, by bouncing around forever on a plastic bag filled with grass-clippings - the closest equivalent I could find. Oddly enough, that didn't work so good.

I conclude from this experiment, that Spacehoppers Don't Sweat Enough.
 
feeling it was Ken in the real version of My Friend Flicka
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Yes, he did. I often wondered if it would work :o

Casper's is a Saddle Co saddle with the serge panels, isn't it? I have been wondering about this too, even with a pad the underside of mine is all cast hair - I suppose vacuuming it might work to clean it. But it does beg the question about the sweat?
 
Saddles are fitted with no saddle cloth/numnah to fit the horse correctly, therefore should not need one. Really only used to help keep saddle clean.

Absolutely, go ahead and go naked :D.
 
i think this may have already been said but i think his saddle might need adjusting again if he's lost weight and changed muscle shape.
 
I was told about the sweat thing for my wool flocked saddle last year, so it's not out-of-date thinking :) I was told to ride for a month without a cloth to enable the sweat to get into the flocking.
I ride with a thin cloth, purely because Salsa is a delicate soul and he doesn't like it when the saddle is cold :rolleyes: I'm sure if I warmed up the leather beforehand, he would be quite happy without!
 
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