Saddle - great for horse, not doing me any favours....

[soloequestrian]

My mare is very flat and wide. Heather Moffett leather tree saddles suit her. Recently I've found that I'm tending to tilt my pelvis back when riding to stop my bits rubbing on the pommel - it's not doing my position any good, my leg slides forwards. It doesn't help that I had back surgery a while ago and my back tends to round rather than hollow anyway. I can sit up nicely when I'm really concentrating but as soon as my attention goes more to the horse I get into the tilted pelvis position. Any ideas how to remedy this?

 

[sbloom]

The seat shape doesn't suit you which is pretty much as important as it is to fit the horse as you being out of balance and in tension will stop your horse truly pushing up at the base of the wither. You can add a general seat saver to widen the twist (it increases the "circumference" of the semi circle of the twist) and see if that helps. You really need a saddle that has the right shaped seat, and the bar in the right place because in this saddle it's really set back which suits only a minority, HM designs saddles for how she likes to sit, which is heavily influenced by her own pelvic and hip structure.

 

[soloequestrian]

Thanks, I've switched around a few times - the HM GP was making my leg too far back, I used a Balance Free Spirit for a while and my leg went forward, I hoped the HM dressage would help but it's still forward.... I'll try the seat saver in the dressage and see if that helps, might raise me above the deepest bit of the seat and give a bit more space in front. I'm wondering about trying LM saddles but can't afford new and can't find second hand wider than a 3 which I don't think will be wide enough for us.

 

[Petmurf]

I had the same problem with my wide, flat backed Cob. I tried cream, padded knickers for cyclists, all sorts of things but none of them worked so I ended up selling my saddle and buying a Total Contact Saddle, well over a year ago now and we are both really happy with it, I’ll never go back to a tree’d saddle

 

[lme]

I found HM saddles awful to sit in. Stride free have a wide channel and I find them much more comfortable.

 

[TheHairyOne]

The HM saddle my sister got for her super wide beast was the most uncomfortable thing I have ever sat in. My sister hated it to. He ended up in a Strada which is lovely.