Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Just another "your mileage may vary" observation:

Conformation can play a big part in whether a horse experiences 
scrubbing of hair under the cantle area.  So can the length of saddle.

In my "one-rat" case, my horse had severe rubbing with an OF.  Less 
severe scrubbing of hair with an SS.  With *any* saddle, if there is 
weight in a cantle bag, there is hair loss.  She slopes downwards from 
the croup, with a deep stride to the middle of her belly, and really 
brings up her back in the trot--it's inevitable, in my years with her, 
that she'll lose hair with significant weight behind.  So I put her 
Easy Boot in a Griffins bag hung on her side, and keep all of the light 
stuff like wet weather gear, collapsible water bucket, first aid stuff, 
etc. in the cantle bags, and keep the water up front, which has worked 
for 3 seasons.

(Heck, if the water isn't up front I won't remember to drink it. <g> )

In some years of fitting RP saddles, I've observed other horses with 
conformation like my mare's, and shifting the heavy stuff to the side 
has really done the trick for them, after the saddle issues are sorted 
out.

I have NOT seen loin scrubbing merely due to a rider's weight, though 
I've seen one-sided scrubbing due to either crooked horses or crooked 
riders.

Lynne

On Wednesday, April 2, 2003, at 02:01 PM, DeAnn Schnepple wrote:

> I've seen lots of loin rubbing over the past 15 years doing endurance 
> riding and it almost always seems to be heavy weight riders (not water 
> bottles) or poor riding.  I have several friends that use the treeless 
> type saddles.  Just an observation.  I've had very good luck with 
> Ortho Flex saddles (I've owned 3 now) and never have had loin rubbing.


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