Saddle fit - prolite pads?

J

Jingleballs

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I've just bought my boy a new saddle as unfortunately his SC one no longer fitted and no matter what the fitter did, it just would not sit right.

I have just bought him a new T4 GP. He's in the MW setting but due to the muscle wastage around his withers he has dips in this area which, if we just put the saddle on without any padding causes the saddle to sit low at the front and rise at the back.

We’ve managed to get a good fit using a prolite pad underneath – it’s one of the adjustable ones and we’ve fitted one side with 2 inserts (this is where the worst of the wastage is) and the other side only needs one insert.

The only problem is the pad is slightly too long and as a result is a little too tight at one spot near the shoulder. I’ve got a new pad on order which is just an adjustable front riser and is shorter in front which I’m hoping should solve the problem but I’m wondering if there are any alternatives that would allow me to lift the saddle at the front (more on the right side than the left) without impacting the shoulder movement.

This is only a temporary measure as he is also going to get regular massages from a body worker to build up his muscle and will spend the next few weeks only walking up and down hill to again help build those muscles up.

Has anyone used any alternatives to the prolite pads for a similar purpose?

Thanks in advance

K
 
Personally I think your saddle does not fit! A correctly fitted saddle should fit without anything under it.
The numnah should only be there to soak up sweat etc.

You need a different saddle that does fit your horse and if your saddler is telling you that due to muscle wastage etc that you can not get a saddle to fit - then you also need a new saddler!

Sorry, but a good saddler would fit your horses correctly and not fob you off with crap stuck under the saddle to 'make it fit'.

I am sorry if this seems blunt and is not what you wanted to read, but horses need well fitted saddles and I think you need to get a refund on your saddle and get another saddler out - they have just ripped you off.
 
Well that wasn't very helpful was it??

Yes saddle doesn't fit now, but horses change shape and OP has clearly stated that once muscle wastage is fixed saddle will fit.

So other than a prolite, which is a very good pad, there is the korrector pad from wow, which offers more options, but its harder to fit because of the options. This has 4 air bags that you can adjust individually.
 
Sorry I have to disagree - my horse has muscle wastage - in order for a saddle to fit his current shape it would need to be narrowed which would only prevent his muscles from developing - he should be a wide and was when I originally bought him.

The padding allows the muscle to repair whereas if you fitted a saddle directly to the damaged muscle or over flocked a saddle to make it fit this will him from filling out.

If my horse did not have such bad muscle wastage then I'd agree with you that we should be able to find a better fitting saddle but that's not the case.
 
Yes horses change shape and the saddle should then be re fitted - pads are not the answer at all and no good saddler will tell you this.....
It is their job to fit a saddle, not bodge it and say it will fit once the horse changes shape!? That is ridiculous!
 
[ QUOTE ]
Yes horses change shape and the saddle should then be re fitted - pads are not the answer at all and no good saddler will tell you this.....
It is their job to fit a saddle, not bodge it and say it will fit once the horse changes shape!? That is ridiculous!

[/ QUOTE ]

So should my horse be fitted with the narrower gullet which BTW will look perfectly balanced but will not allow him to muscle up?? No that's not the answer! I have a qualified fitter and a qualified body worker helping me with him who both agree that pads are the temporary answer.

I don't want this thread to turn into a debate on whether or not pads should be used or not - I'm interested in alternatives to prolite pads for helping horses with muscle wastage!

CotswoldSJ - thank's for the suggestion - I will look into them but I do worry that as you say they would be more difficult to use.
 
Mattes correction pads are good for this sort of thing but quite expensive.

Sorry have to agree with OP and CotswoldSJ, the horse needs to re-develop his muscle tone and fitting a saddle to his current shape is not going to help that but prevent it.
 
Hey, I am not starting a debate - this is my honest opinion - what you decide for your horse is you business and I am more than happy to agree to disagree.
I personally feel there are other ways of regaining muscle and having a correctly fitted saddle.
Using a pad is something that I would never do with any of mine.

I am not having a go at all.
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What is really interesting is that nearly all Sj'ers and most eventers rountinuely use a sheepskin or other pad beneath their saddles.

In the Sj'ers case its generally due to having a favourite saddle (in WEG they used their own saddle on each horse). In addition the pads are generally felt to have better shock absorbing properties than a saddle alone.

So if the pro's pad up, are we too fussy about saddle fit and just looking for an excuse to blame our and our horses' faults on?
 
[ QUOTE ]
What is really interesting is that nearly all Sj'ers and most eventers rountinuely use a sheepskin or other pad beneath their saddles.

In the Sj'ers case its generally due to having a favourite saddle (in WEG they used their own saddle on each horse). In addition the pads are generally felt to have better shock absorbing properties than a saddle alone.

So if the pro's pad up, are we too fussy about saddle fit and just looking for an excuse to blame our and our horses' faults on?

[/ QUOTE ]

I've noticed that too - I would never automatically shove a prolite pad or sheepskin pad under a saddle and would only use one for the reason mentioned above - to help repair damaged muscle.

MandK - can I ask what other techniques you use to help muscle development? I'm hoping that the pads will be very short term and am planning on using massage, lunging and lots of hacking (in walk) over uneven terrain to build up muscles enought to allow me to remove the pad and then start working him a little more.
 
Pads do exist for a reason if it was possible to have a perfect saddle for every horse then things such as the prolite pad wouldn't have been invented. I personally use a sheepskin pad under my horse's saddle as he too lacks muscle over his back and is your typically sensitive chestnut thoroughbred, my saddle has been fitted with the use of this pad in mind and it allows his muscle to develop uninhibited.

As for ideas other than a prolite pad I can't really help, for your situation I do think the prolites are best as like you said you can have more inserts in one side as you need.
 
I believe not - I have had 1st hand experience through the wrong saddle being fitted to my youngster - she ended up with a very sore back - I got this sorted & changed saddle and amazingly her back returned as new - she has now had the same saddle ever since (she is now 8yo) and has it checked reg - she has been out of work for over 1 yr due to my pregnancy - now back in full work and will be jumping affiliated next year - still the same saddle, just flocking adjusted.

Some horses are certainly more sensitive to the saddle fit than others.

This IS my personal opinion!

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My TB has exactly this problem and we get round it by using a Mattes correctional numnah which has shim pads to put in the front to fill out the hollows. His problem is that he has a wide back but has these hollows.

Needless to say I use the Mattes numnah with one shim pad in each side and the saddle fits perfectly. I think horses with wither hollows are hard to fit because if the saddle fits in front they will not fit behind and vice versa.

Yes in an ideal world the saddle should fit perfectly but not every horse is the same and sometimes you have to find another solution (hopefully in the short term).
 
I think the main issue here is that the horse is clearly one sided. So, in order for the saddle to be fitted to the horse, which side do you look at?

If you choose the side with the worst damage, the saddle will pinch the other side and the muscle on the worse side wont have room to develop. If you choose the better side, there will be a "pocket" on the worse side, and the saddle will dip and twist into it.

The only solution in this case is to pad out the saddle. By flocking one side more than the other, the saddle will be out of balance and the horse will never develop the correct shape.

There are a number of pads that can be used. Prolites are good because they also disperse the pressure on a larger surface area. Other things you might try are the korrector pad and the suber pad http://nicolawest.com/davidahn/ which I have seen work on horses with bad conformation (not saying this about C but it might help). They are quite expensive, so you might try and see if anyone has one that you could borrow as by the sounds of it you are spending a fortune on pads and saddle fitters as it is!

As you know, I like to use a sheepskin to account for uneveness but this will depend on the degree and of course how you manage the FISH to compensate.

Hope you enjoy the great hacking at the new yard.
 
having had badly fitting saddles causing muscle wastage on my horse I got an excellent saddle fitter out who has put flair in my dressage saddle so allowing my horse to build up the muscle where it has been wasted away. No point in fitting the saddle to the horse with muscle wastage as how is he supposed to rebuild the muscle if the saddle fits perfectly to the muscle wastage? The air bags are allowing him to rebuild the muscle back which thankfully is coming on nicely
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I would personally go with something that will allow him to build the muscle back up, perhaps ask Bosworth for some advice she is very good, good luck
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Keep the work going especially working properly from behind as this will help tremendously, I've seen a big difference in 10months.
 
Personally I would start by lots and lots of lunging & long reining + massage.
This would help regain muscle and you would have a changed shape. I personally would wait to have a saddle fitted until I had regained some muscle..... then you should have something to fit a saddle to.
 
Thanks CB Anglo!!

Was hoping you're reply as you've seen the pictures of the muscle wastage.

I have the full size mult prolite pad on loan until the new front riser arrives - fitter has suggested doing nothing but walk until then but with lots of hill work and asking him to work correctly as you'd previously advised.

I have the sheepskin half pad but because he is worse of the right side it's still a little uneven - I have tonnes of fibregee (about 4 sheets of it) and am wondering if I could fashion some kind of made to measure pad by stitching it to the numnah but a bit worried that I end up doing more harm than good!
 
I would be inclined to not stitch fibregee to a sheepskin. I have seen people use them as temporary shim pads on a normal numnah but you have to be really careful that they are removed once the muscle is formed otherwise you could have them on 12 months later.

If the saddle is ok with the sheepskin then I would just use that and make sure you fluff it up/change regularly. Walking slowly up and down hills so you can literally feel every footstep is needed - at first he will struggle to keep his balance and try and rush so you will have to hold him with your seat and legs. Also, lunging on alternate days getting to go long and low will really help, in walk and trot making sure that he is working well from behind and I would be inclined to just use a roller rather than the saddle.

If you manage to do this 4 or 5 times a week then he will begin to muscle up in a couple of weeks so you have to make sure that whatever you are using is readjusted. Then it will be a long hard slog to get his topline back up, making sure that you check you are not restricting the muscle.

When you are out and walking on the flat, asking to change the bend from left to right will also help - make sure that he is properly bending on the right, as this probably has something to do with the muscle wastage on that side.
 
So mandK what would you do with my horse then???

He has PERMANENT muscle damages that will never build back up no matter what I do as the muscles itself has shifted and as he is getting on a bit vet has informed me that it wont fix itself anyway.

I HAVE to use a prolite pad and have been advised to do so by a few people not just one saddler. Since i have been using my pad my horses back, shoulder and wither muscles have inproved obviously more on one side than the other and he is not longer in pain from a saddle that I attempted to get reflocked on one side till it fit.

Where did that leave me??? With a horse with a sore back and me having to lean to one side after the saddle had bedded in to try to keep me balanced. No matter how many times i could have had it flocked it would have just have ended up narrower and causing more pain.

I love my adjustable prolite and i cant wait to start removing the pads more as he muscles up. Also means that I can get a saddle to fit despite his damage, that wont cause more.

Open your mind a bit, I am all for muscle developement but sometimes temporary measures like pads have to be used to help correct problems.

Nikki xxxx
 
Isn't using adjustable/combinations of pads with a wider saddle to encourage muscle recovery the basis of the Balance saddles? Obviously they don't think it's a bad approach & I've known a few people who swear by this system & have very happy horses.
 
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