Terry Peiper, Fit Right Saddle Solutions

September 2024

Wow the summer has gone by fast!  After the last newsletter, we dove right into hay season.  Then a fun filled week of truck shopping and helping out at church. In July, I went to Alabama fitting saddles and then a little vacation in Nashville with friends.  August just flew by with a couple of horse shows and special friends and family visiting from PA.  It seems like just yesterday was the 127 yardsale and now it's football season and the leaves are changing.

Last week, I was on vacation with some of our family from PA.  They are on a little bit of different schedule than us so mornings gave me the opportunity to drink coffee and scroll through Facebook.  Now I remember why I don't like Facebook.

Someone posted a picture like this asking for an interpretation.  Of course, the answers were all over the place.  Clear as mud.  The saddle is bridging, the saddle is rocking and the saddle fits.  That is crazy!  You can't look at a picture of sweat and know if the saddle fits.  

Sadly, we have been taught that even sweat equals good saddle fit.  It might be a good fit but it could also be a horrible fit and the horse sweated a lot.  I had this happen to me a few years back while I was pretending to be saddle shopping.  Here is that story.

It could be a good fit with dry areas. But sometimes a dry area means there is too much pressure, which is bad.  Sometimes a dry area means there is no pressure and that is really bad, unless it is in the channel then it's really good. 

So to sum it up, sweat could be good or bad.  Dry could be good or bad.  My recommendation, wash the horse.  Then check the saddle fit without a pad. One more thing, wash the pad too.  Dirty pads are gross.  A good rule with saddle pads is, if you would put it on your face then it is ok to put on your horse's back.

Here are some pictures of my mare after I rode in my saddle, right before I washed her.

Looks pretty good then doesn't it?  But what if you get this pattern the next day?

And then a couple days later, you get this pattern?

These pictures were all taken the end of May and beginning of June.  It is my mare and my saddle.  I used the same pad and girth all 3 times.  Truth be told, I have been thinking about this newsletter for a couple months.  

How can it be that we have 3 totally different patterns?  The first ride lasted 3 hours.  I was hanging out talking with friends and riding mostly at a walk.   The one in the middle was a shorter ride in the ring trotting and cantering on a very humid but breezy day.  During the final ride, I was galloping a good bit of the time in the hay fields, celebrating the end of hay season.

These patterns don't tell us if the saddle fits or doesn't fit.  They basically are evidence of the ride that particular day.  I would recommend that if you see something odd like a little dry spot, a pattern on the left that doesn't match the pattern on the right or ruffled hairs that you should check the horse for sensitivity and check the saddle fit.  Technically you should be checking your saddle fit every time you put it on and have it professionally checked every 6-12 months.

Here is a reminder of how to check your own saddle fit.

 6 reasons why we absolutely cannot diagnose saddle fit by looking at the sweat:

1. Weather  If it's hot and humid, your horse is probably going to sweat. Around here that is it a good bit of the time, but what about when it's cold? There may be little to no sweat when it's cold.
2. Saddle Pad   Some rubber and synthetic saddle pads trap heat and cause sweat.  Some pads like wool and cotton have a nice cooling effect on the horse leaving less or no sweat.
3. Length of the Ride   When we are doing fittings in the summer we keep the rides short so we don't get too much sweat.  If you ride for several hours, there will likely be a lot of sweat.
4. Type of Riding   Walking down the trail is not going to produce as much sweat as galloping cross country over fences.
5. The Horse   The horse is definitely a factor.  Some horses are calm and cool.  Some horses are a hot anxious mess before they do anything. Some horses have muscle atrophy or uneven shoulders.  That can definitely influence the sweat pattern.  Previous damage to sweat glands and scarring can also be a factor.
6. The Rider   The rider's weight and position can also influence the patterns.  Is the rider balanced or heavy on one side?  Is the rider in a nice center balanced seat or sitting in a chair seat?

In July, I had to say goodbye to my Nicholas.  Toy Nic, aka Nicholas, was a 2001 AQHA gelding who joined our family in 2004.  I saw him listed in a sale catalog and I basically went to the sale to bring him home.  Before I met him, I was attracted to his bloodlines.  Not only was he Reminic and Doc's Hickory on his bottom side but on the top side he and Easy share the same grandsire, Be Aech Enterprise.  The Enterprise horse was a NRHA million dollar sire listed right there with some of the greats like Hollywood Dun It, Shining Spark and Reminic. 

He never let me down.  He was just as athletic as his papers said he should be.  Just like Easy, as soon as I rode him, I knew he was coming home with me.  It didn't take long for me to figure out why he was at the sale, he was a bucker and a very good one. He already had several owners by the time he was 3. We worked through all of that and spent a few years barrel racing.  He wasn't the fastest but he definitely had the biggest heart. This horse just loved to work.  The more you rode him the happier he was.  

After a few years of barrel racing, we started to play with western dressage, then later, working equitation.  He more than earned his keep giving lessons to the ladies back in PA which is how he developed his own fan club. 

This past year had been hard on Nicholas, now in his 20's the arthritis was getting pretty bad.  The pain medicine was not working any more. I was selfishly hanging on because I couldn't bear to say goodbye.  How could it be that my little energizer bunny that never quit was no longer going to be here. I am really going to miss him, but after all he did for me, I owed it to him to not let him suffer.

Photo credit, Alison Armstong Rehnborg

As always, thank you for the referrals and for helping me spread the word about the importance of proper saddle fit.  I hope you have a fantastic fall riding season. Give those older horses some attention and a special treat, they deserve it.

TTYS & God Bless,

Terry Peiper, Fit Right Saddle Solutions