Do not sit up straight on your horse - it makes your horse stiff

[pootler]

Gotta love parelli - according to them, many riders have learned to sit up straight with their shoulders back and heels down. This can make a horse stiff and restricted in their movement.

But don't worry folks, those clever people at Parelli have designed a £2,500 saddle that will help you slouch and thus free up your horses movement!

http://www.parellisaddles.com/

Although I do find I naturally slouch in the saddle without much help - it's the sitting up straight bit I struggle with!!!

 

[soph21]

WTF???? What planet do they live on lol!
Someone posted about those saddles the other day!
Bloody ridiculous prices!

 

[Jane_Lou]

Ok so

You pay $4k for the saddle....
Then you need a special airfilled pad to make it fit $440
Then their special stirrup leathers $154
Then the (gold plated??) irons at $239
And a very special girth for $229

Best of all the smallest size they seem to do is 17.5" - there is a lovely piccie of a poor grey horse in an 18" saddle sitting way beyond the last rib.

Sad.......

 

[Slinkyunicorn]

I'm lost for words! I didn't pay that much to have one made to measure!! except I don't have a Parelli label on it.......

 

[michaelj]

The world has gone mad...

 

[Super_Kat]

Ha ha ha ha, what a bunch of bellends!

 

[sunflower]

PMSL
[ QUOTE ]
The Parelli line of saddles are not for everyone... they are only for those who care about learning to ride better, in a way of which their horse approves.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's funny, every horse I've ridden has gone much better when my riding instructor has finally managed to get me sitting up straight rather than my usual slouching....

 

[mik]

they have lost the plot

 

[Penguinboots]

*bangs head on table*
The thing is though...people will actually shell out that amount of money for those saddles.
*bangs head on table again*

 

[JM07]

How Interesting.

 

[Bossanova]

I love how they use a picture illustrating a horse ploughing into the ground on its forehand!

 

[mik]

maybe they are training plough horses.

 

[Bay_Beasty]

[ QUOTE ]
Ha ha ha ha, what a bunch of bellends!

[/ QUOTE ]

PMSL!!!!! I find parelli just another spending money scam!!!!! I thought at first it was quite an interesting concept, but these guys are Friggin nuts!!!!

 

[perfect11s]

IMHO its not them that are bellends that's the folk who hang on every word and buy there stuff!!! wish I was that good at taking money off people......

 

[amandaco2]

erm, do they watch international dressage competitions?!
the horses seem to preform just fine (and a DAMN sight better that the pic they use to illustrate!LOL) and there isnt one sloucher in sight!
its bonkers.who in their right mind believes THAT?!

 

[perfect11s]

we got it all wrong..... for last few thousand years ... clasical horsemanship wrong... shoulder hip and heel all wrong .....do it the parelli way.......

 

[Donkeymad]

Strange how P just comes up repeatedly, this is the third post on this in a couple of days - and I still don't want the saddle

 

[pootler]

Sorry I didn't see the previous post on this saddle (although I did do a quick search before I posted this to check I wasn't double posting) but I think you may find the other posters are also fans of the FUGLY horse website....

 

[RachelFerd]

amazingly it has quoted that the 'standard' width is 7x wider than a normal saddle - are they actually designed for elephants?

 

[LeneHorse]

well my horse must really flexible and soft through her back cos i ride like a sack of spuds!

 

[kirstyhen]

Speechless...


(By the way, that clanging sound a few seconds ago was my jaw hitting the floor!)

 

[Natch]

Oh FGS what a farce. Don't they realise they are further alienating themselves from the rest of the equestrian population?!

 

[Murphy3]

There goes the Spanish Riding School!

 

[EstherYoung]

And if you get rubs from the saddle and/or the pad, it's not due to problems with the fitting at all. Here's why:

[ QUOTE ]
Rub marks / ruffled hair on the horse
This is a sign of disharmony between horse and rider. Friction is caused when the rider is stiff and prevents the saddle from moving with the horse. Sometimes the location of the ruffled hair can provide valuable feedback& if the horse is rubbed on one or both sides of the shoulder area, it tells the rider about stiffness in one or both of their shoulders. If the horse is rubbed at the back of the saddle or pad area, it can tell you about stiffness in hips or heels.

[/ QUOTE ]

And if the pad is starting to go crooked, here's why:
[ QUOTE ]
If your pad is going crooked, it means your horse is crooked. It is a good experiment on the ground, because it will also happen when riding unless you can effectively straighten your horse as you ride. If he moves crookedly on the ground then you need to look at his limb alignment from the feet all the way up the shoulders or hips. Chances are you'll see different heights in either the shoulder or hip area when looking from behind. Until the horse can be four square, he will be like a crooked stool where one leg is shorter than the others. Unlike the stool the horse's body can bend and recalibrate, but unfortunately that means he goes crooked. Quite often people don't notice how crooked a horse is until they start trying to do finesse!

This can be instantly corrected at the level of the feet, much like Jim Crew shared with you last summer. This is usually because there is a difference in the depth of foot on one or more legs and then a compensating difference in the muscles as the body tries to adjust. When you put in a shim (like we do under our saddles) it corrects the immediate problem, helps the body to go straight and realign its muscles, and then the pressures applied to the sole in the strategic spots cause it to redevelop and thicken up again over time.

[/ QUOTE ]

So basically you should put shims under your horse's feet to even him up.....

Need to send your saddle back because the tree is twisted? No problems, they'll just twist it back for you....

[ QUOTE ]
One of our customers returned a saddle recently, claiming that she believed her tree was a bit crooked. We shipped her saddle back to the manufacturer, of course, and received this explanation and words of caution from them: "Many people reach across the saddle, or, worse still, grab the cantle when mounting, which puts a lot of torque on an English tree (which is not as broad and thick as a Western tree), resulting in it possibly becoming slightly twisted. Should this happen, simply reversing that torque by twisting it the other way rectifies the problem. This is precisely what the saddlemakers did with the saddle that was returned and it is perfectly straight now!

[/ QUOTE ]