Best pad for High Withers

roxy007

roxy007

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Hi - my 21 year old gelding is just coming back into very light work after a 4 month lay off.....he loves gentle hacking and our vet thinks he would benefit from getting out 3 times a week as he is fit and healthy enough and came to us for semi retirement a year and a half ago. My problem is that he has very high withers and also a bit of muscle wasting so the saddle he had a thorowgood T4 high withers seems to cause him discomfort. I've had two saddle fitters out to look at the saddle before his time off and also tried several pads and rear risers but still haven't got a comfortable fit. First saddler didn't see anything wrong with the saddle and specialised in thorowgood products but then again she didn't see him ridden for long. The other fitter said because of his shape we would never be able to buy a saddle off the shelf for him and only made to measure would do at almost £1400. My vet and instructor believe this is not the best advice as there must be a decent saddle out there for him at less than that. Can anyone advise on best saddles for this type of problem and also saddle pads, gel pads etc. Any help with this much appreciated.
 
My physio recommended the Acavallo front riser for a young horse that still had to build muscle in that area, and also had a high wither. (I googled it and it was around £35)
Its like a normal gel pad, bit thicker - they do full pads, front and rear risers.
I've been using it for about 6 months and had the physio back recently and she has noticed a big improvement.
Hope that helps! :)
 
There are other brands that do high wither saddles, I had a Thorrowgood t6 for my boy, the fit along his back was perfect but he still wasn’t going nicely, battled on with it for two months totally falling out with my horse in the process, checked his back after every ride. Nothing.

Then realised that it was his shoulders that were the issue, they were hitting on the panels of the saddle and had massive tender bruises.

Saddle fitter came back out and I now have the Falcon Hawk Event High Wither saddle, touch wood we are both happy with it.

Prior to that the best saddle I had on him was an older thorrowgood, but slightly more straight cut than the new one, seems to fit well on all our tb’s etc at work.
 
I use a Thorrowgood T4 high wither with a nuumed pro plus high wither pad, seems to work. I like the pad because its padded on either side of the spine leaving enough gullet space and not padded under your legs. Smarts moves well in this combo, better than his previous airflair saddle.

Hope you find something that works.
 
roxy007 said:
Can anyone advise on best saddles for this type of problem and also saddle pads, gel pads etc. Any help with this much appreciated.
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Just be careful when using a front riser pad. My previous boy Rommy had high withers and was in a wintec saddle. His 'fit' was medium but he needed narrow to lift the front of the saddle off his withers. But obviously this meant it was pinching elsewhere. I bought a wintec front riser pad for him and thought I'd solved the problem. A few months down the line I had a horse with an extremely sore back which turned out to be from the weight that had transferred to over the cantle area of the saddle - yes, you've guessed it ... from the front riser pad altering the balance of the saddle.

Morale of the story, ditch the cheapy synthetic and buy a saddle fitted to your horse if you possibly can. You do not need to spend £1400 in a saddle that will fit. You just need to find a good saddle fitter. If you are anywhere near to Warwickshire/West Midlands I can recommend an exceptional saddle fitter and you can try as you buy too x
 
Look at the BALANCE International website. They are happy to talk about using their saddling system with non-BALANCE saddles if you don't want to splash out on a brand new Frank Baines, and the system has been designed with exactly your sort of problem in mind.
 
Where is the saddle causing discomfort?

Riser pads just move the pressure from one area to another, not really adviseable.

The only pad i would consider in your situation is a Korrector air filled pad. they are about £110 but you can adjust the 4 air bags very accurately and asymetrically if required. Any other pad will have a ridge between the raised bit and the rest of the pad and also assumes that the horse has the same amount of muscle atrophy on each side, which is very unlikely. The korrector pad will absorb much more pressure than any other. if the saddle really doesnt fit though it wont cure the problem.

You must not go narrower in the tree to clear the withers. You need a deeper panel to lift the saddle clear, with the correct width tree
 
teddyt said:
The only pad i would consider in your situation is a Korrector air filled pad. they are about £110 but you can adjust the 4 air bags very accurately and asymetrically if required. Any other pad will have a ridge between the raised bit and the rest of the pad and also assumes that the horse has the same amount of muscle atrophy on each side, which is very unlikely. The korrector pad will absorb much more pressure than any other. if the saddle really doesnt fit though it wont cure the problem.

You must not go narrower in the tree to clear the withers. You need a deeper panel to lift the saddle clear, with the correct width tree
Click to expand...

Ditto this - I have used a Korrector very sucessfully in this situation and you can often get them much cheaper on Ebay
 
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