The thing that cured my knee pain was getting a saddle that
put my legs truly underneath me.And
I really couldn’t figure that out without having a saddle with an
adjustable stirrup bar and playing around with it. So here’s a somewhat shameless plug
for Free’n’Easy (I don’t sell them anymore since I sold my
business, but I do still highly recommend them).Distance became a whole different world
for me and my horse when I didn’t have to deal with knee pain
anymore.
I had a back injury and my hips are a little messed up –
I’ve actually found that I use 2 different positions for my stirrup bars –
forward for endurance and back for CTR when I have to walk all day.
In general, I’ve found that if your stirrups are too
far forward it is too easy to jam your feet forward and brace.It was a big deal for me with my very
forward horse, especially trying to slow her on downhills.Now my legs stay in a proper position up
and down hills and I’ve actually learned to enjoy downhills
(previous source of terror for me!)But there are multiple reasons for knee pain – stiff fenders, hips
angled improperly for your conformation, damage in your knees, etc.
