Barrel Racing at Barrel Horse World.com - Horses, friendy active forums, articles, more.

Caldwell saddles and tack are geared to the working horse and rider: cutters, reiners, barrel racers, team penners, and ropers, etc. Our products are divided into several areas of interest. Because they must be tailored to the intended usage, saddles, bits, and stirrups are treated separately from tack and personal items.

There has been a lot of conversation lately regarding saddle fit and proper padding. To address these issues it is best to add horse conformation to the mix. Since this forum focus is limited to the running horse, discussion will be limited to such. Here; two basic types are found; first: Thoroughbred type with an oval barrel, deeper than wide but often with large bulges at the top of shoulders and what is typically called “high withers”. (For proper understanding I will need to discuss this in detail in a moment). And second: performance Quarter type, round barreled often shorter and thicker with more muscling in the width of their backs.

These two types can hardly ever share the same type pads or saddles. Even though the second type is less frequent in running horses, I will discuss these first.

Quarter Type: These horses have generally a “normal” back, low rounded withers, slight dip in the low of the back running only nominal up hill to loin. Looking down on their back from up above, the back will be wide, full at the hips with only a small dip at his side before widening again to muscular shoulders getting fuller towards the lower shoulders.

Generally, the 1” thick 100% wool felt pad is best overall for density, absorbing sweat, durability, and fit. These come in contoured spine and straight cut, some with holes and/ or ovals cut into the spine. When a full straight cut felt is used a few times, the heat of a horse back will shape these to the horse. My favorite is the contoured spine with a small oval cut out in front of the contour. These break in a little faster and the oval allows the rear portion of the withers to protrude through to give close contact saddles a low fit with out rubbing on top of that area which would happen if a layer of felt were laid between the bottom of the center of the saddle and the ridge of the rear of the withers.

Before you get upset with my placing a heavy pad on a thickly muscled horse, let’s talk about density. All wools are not created equal and some are blends that are too firm to mold nicely to the horse’s back. Proper wool will have some give in the area under the front bars of the saddle when compressed. Compression can be checked by pressing the pad between your thumbs in the area under the front bar of the saddle since this is the area of the back where the saddle and rider will create the most pressure. Checking this will also keep you from falling into the habit of using the same pad for so many years that it loses its thickness by being flattened by the rider and saddles weight, while the edge, because there has been no wear there, stays full.

 By guess“i”mate, see how much actual “pad” is between your thumbs. This is how much actual pad is between your weight and your saddle and your horses muscles. This is usually 5/8” to ¾” in a good pad. This test will cause several popular pads styles to fail; such as gels and airs that shift sideways allowing pressure points in the hard underside of a saddle to hurt your horses softer muscles. Materials other than those which are natural are never recommended. Only natural fibers like wool or hair will wick sweat and allow heat to dissipate. There are some pads that have nylon, rubberized neoprene, and artificial fleece, which is made of polyester, against the horses hide, none of these should be accepted even if they are “easier” to clean. Some pads have rubber or foam between layers of felt. These are O.K.  All the material and density factors apply to each type of horse, but shape vary in the extreme.

Thoroughbred Type: Almost exclusively these have “high withers” right? Wrong!! They “look” as if they have high withers, but this is an optical illusion. These animals have straight shoulders and as the top of the shoulder blade rotate forward, to create this straight shoulder, the wither area doubled in length and the rear part of the wither drops creating a low back. Don’t have a fit cause I just called your fast horse straight shouldered and low backed. Guess what? This conformation comes with speed! Perfect conformation does not always come with a 45 degree shoulder angle. Over the last three years, I have fit running horses with angles up to 80 degrees. The 45 degree shoulder causes a slower stride. Great for the pleasure riders but not for running barrels. For horses with this extreme shape in their backs fit is difficult.  No wonder folks can’t pad or saddle their animals. The entire western industry lags behind in helping with proper fit for these equines. Still several methods can be tried to fit this situation. You can use a smaller filler (or bridge) pad under your regular pad, buy one or cut up an old pad for this purpose. What you are accomplishing is making the back look “more normal” to fit your saddle “more normally”. I have also recently seen a pad by Supreme Western that actually look just like these backs and fit perfectly… made of wool felt too.

Another method of normalizing the back is to fill the back without padding over the withers. This idea has been around for a long time. It is called a “cutback” pad. A shaped notch is cut to go around the withers with an arrester strap, usually of nylon webbing to keep the front of the pad from slipping down on the shoulder. The problem is…  I have never seen a cutback that was done correctly. The cut out is never long enough to fit behind the wither. Because; remember, as the shoulder blade rotated forward, the wither doubled in length. You can take a cutback to a shoe shop or saddle shop to have the cut extended to the base of the rear of the withers.  I have heard the most commonly used excuse for not using this type pad is that the rider does not like the its look—Who cares!! By the way, the reason I do not like a contour pad for these horses is because their backs are already too low and needs to be filled up, not fit with close contact. The contour pad has to thin a spine. So pick a pad with care.

When you saddle a horse, the front if the saddle has to fit on the shoulder not behind it. Stand at a show, watch 100 saddled horses go by and at least 75% of these are saddled wrong. Most saddles made have trees in them that do not flare open in front, widening to sit on the shoulder. This is not a reflection on the saddle maker but the tree makers. Also because the wither area is much longer in a high withered horse, unless you have trained yourself to check proper placement ones natural instinct is to place to far back. Where it would sit with regular shoulder angle.

Now we can get to dry spots. Dry spots are NEVER right in any size. First though, let us check out where these areas are. When the saddle is BEHIND the shoulder instead of ON the withers (this is the same as being behind your shoulder blade) it causes pain and restricts movement, especially while turning (such as around a pole or barrel). Dry spots are caused because the front end pressure of the saddle is much greater than the rear end due to the rigging being closer to the front end of a saddle. This constriction will press so hard the skin can not breathe or sweat. Later this can evolve into white hair patches, easy to see. I have never seen these on the withers, they are always behind the wither. Try this; cinch the saddle up tightly as you would like. While standing beside the horse, try to fit the fingers of your hand under the saddle skirts starting up at the top near the withers and go all the way around to the hips. If your saddle placement is wrong, you will not be able to work one finger under at the front, but the rear of the saddle will be so high in the air, you can shove your arm under the skirts. This is dead wrong. Correct it by un-cinching and moving the saddle forward until front and rear has equal pressure. If you can’t cinch with the saddle placed properly because the front rigging hangs over the horses shoulder instead of behind his arm then the rigging of the saddle is too far forward. Have a good saddle maker move the rigging back or get rid of the saddle. This rule of fit is a universal truth. It is true for all horses and true for all saddles.

Be aware that regardless of what you try; because of the extreme shape of the shoulder and low backs on some very fast animals, there are going to be some animals that without a custom fit in a saddle, dry spots of some size are going to be a problem. Although with thought and work padding can be adjusted to make most saddles work on most horses even if the fit is not perfect.

B y Charon Caldwell