Ridecamp: [RC] Finding your saddle size

Something that a lot of people don't think about when choosing a saddle for
endurance is the fact that they are frequently doing a different type of
riding then the people in the tack stores or the folks who wrote the
articles about saddle fit are used to. And many people will fit their hinny
to the saddle seat and not take into account the length of their legs. We do
a heck of a lot of posting trot. Because of the big energetic trots that
lots of Arabs have this may be a pretty forward/back/forward/back kind of
posting. 

Lots of people find themselves banging their thighs against the pommel of
"western" style endurance saddles because they are in too small of a saddle
for the sport. In other words, a saddle seat that would be fine for say
western pleasure would just be too tight for endurance and posting and
standing/leaning forward uphills, etc. But you don't get to do those things
sitting in the saddle at a tack store and the sales person doesn't have  the
knowledge about the sport usually.

With English style saddles if you are inclined toward the dressage style
saddles because of the better balance and stirrup bar placement you can
again get into trouble. take this type of saddle out of the arena and you
will probably want to shorten your stirrups a bit to be able to get off the
saddle better over rough terrain, hills and logs. But you may easily find
that as soon as you shorten your stirrups your knees are up on top of the
thigh/knee rolls instead of behind the rolls. If you would pick a 17 inch
saddle for arena riding you may very well be better off with an 18" saddle
to get a better leg fit and more room for changing your riding position. In
an all-purpose type of saddle you may not need to increase your saddle size.

So you need to be aware of this stuff when you go to a tack store as the
sales people may not understand your real needs.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
 Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
 Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=