 |
Re: [RC] saddle fitting induced insanity - Mary KraussOn Tuesday, July 5, 2005, at 06:55 AM, KeepsakeFarms@xxxxxxx wrote: Responding to treeless- tried it- might be fine for some, but I think heat buildup is an issue....You all are making me feel much better: both about how nice everyone on Ridecamp is, and about how difficult it is to make the "right" choice. Seems like the theme out there is that everything works for some and not for others! I'm pretty open to anything that makes riding as fun for my Arab as it seems to be for my big ol' fat Andalusian. She's always had an ill-fitting saddle, so, I'm really out to make her happy. I appreciated this comment from Angie: It (saddle fitting) worried me to death until I noticed something. There were a whole lot of stupid people out there who put huge saddles on tiny horses and everything else and the horses and people looked as happy as clowns. My theory now is that if you can get "4 good corners" where the weight comes in at a pretty good angle, the horse is fine. You don't want everything digging in along an edge or anything, but four good angles and the horse is happy. SO, I'm taking this approach, I'll try reducing the amount of shim now that I know to place the saddle further back, and I'll try loosening the back part of the rigging one hole to move a bit of the pressure off the back end. I'll try riding instead of worrying for a while and see how she does. If any of that works, I'll be so happy I'll die and the whole thing won't matter a bit. If it doesn't work, I'll try the "Free n Easy" saddle that is only kinda' treeless--or a Torsion--or a Synergist (video arrived today)--or the new short Orthoflex--or.... You get the idea. (On a different note: Is it just me or are we watching the reinvention of the saddle as we move back to bareback-style treeless, then toward cantle and pommel, then toward soft trees.... The same goes for shoes: some of us moved back to barefoot, then realized boots are sometimes in order, now some are trying boots most of the time. If all this reinvention works as Aristotelian logic suggests, in short order we should be back where we were but doing it better than before! ) Thank all twenty of you who responded--what a great group this Ridecamp bunch is. Now I'm going to run away from my charming children and go for a lovely, quiet ride in the woods in my new dressage saddle that makes me and my horse feel as though we're riding bareback! Mary K.
|