saddle gullets and horses spine

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Sugar_and_Spice

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I've been wondering this for ages and I know there's some saddlers on here so maybe somebody knows the answer?

Why do some saddles have almost no gullet? There's wither room at the front but as the gullet tapers towards the rear of the saddle, at the place just about where the rider sits, the gullet narrows to about 1".

I have never seen a horse or pony with a 1" wide spine, its usually more like 2". I suppose if those saddles were put on a fat horse the panels would sit on top of the fat that's covering the spine so perhaps for short rides no harm would be done? But these tiny gullets often belong to medium width saddles so probably not what you'd want for a fat horse.

On a normal horse with a bit of a protruding spine, rather than a table top back, these tiny gullet saddles would surely cause terrible pinching when girthed up worse still once the rider was on board! How is a horse supposed to move in a saddle like that? Doesn't it cause terrible damage to the spine?

I don't just see these tiny gullets in cheap saddles but in decent brands too, though it does always seem to be second hand saddles rather than new with this feature. Were saddles designed differently in the past? Is it a design fault? Or something that happens with use, as a saddle ages? Did horses used to be a different shape 50-100 years ago with smaller spines? If its a defect in the saddle, can it be corrected?

Sorry for all the questions but this has been bugging me for ages!
 
Heather Moffett's webby says that wide gullets can do just as much damage as the saddle needs to sit near to where the muscle attaches to the bone (ligaments?) rather than further out where the muscles are softer. I always thought wider gullets were better but now I've read that I can kind of see the relevance of that.

Who do we believe????
 
Coblover63 I agree that gullets can be too wide as well as too narrow, that makes sense. I've recently seen a few saddles that have a very strange feature of being wide at the withers like any saddle is, then narrowing slightly before going very wide again (5" or so) just under where the riders bottom would sit, before narrowing to what appears to be a reasonable width of aprox 2 1/2" at the cantle. I haven't seen many of these and just assumed they were the result of bad flocking. But if its mentioned on someone's website perhaps its more prevalent than I realised.

I'm mostly confused about why I see lots of saddles for sale that I wouldn't put on any horses back, ever! Perhaps I'm too fussy :confused3:
 
I'm no saddler, but it is absolutely one of the most important parts of saddle fit IMO. Not wide enough can cause pinching and pressure, too wide can cause tearing of muscle and lots of discomfort. It's one of the reasons I always try out saddles first without any saddle pad...I want to be able to see exactly where the weight is taken on the horse and then feel the structure underneath it.

I can fit a saddle, but I still use a master saddle fitter that I trust to be sure. Would be interesting indeed to hear their views on this.
 
Over time with wear the channel at the rear of the panel narrows down, it's a very common occurrence. I like to see 3 knuckles width along the entire channel from the gullet right down it's entire length to the rear, 3 knuckles width denotes the average horse's spine width and as you rightly pointed out the panels should bridge the spine and be sitting on the muscles of the back, like a bridge over a road. If the channel is narrow it sits on the spine, there's thousands of nerve endings along the spine and a narrowed channel will act like a nutcracker on the spine.
It's a job I used to do on site at stables, takes a while to do but you can strip the saddle down and open up the channel.
Most saddles I see round yards have a narrowed channel to some degree, some horses can cope some can't.
 
Sugar_and_Spice said:
Thanks for clearing up the mystery cremdemonthe :) I'm pleased to hear I won't have to put my saddles in the bin if the gullet narrows!
Click to expand...

You're welcome.
You can only open up the channel of some saddles, not all. It depends how wide your panels are before you work on it, if I were to alter/open up a narrowed channel on a saddle with narrow panels, you are jumping out of the frying pan,into the fire as there may not be enough bearing surface left once it's altered therefore transferring the pain from one area to another.
What I have seen at various yards though is the unscrupulous behaviour of some saddle sellers, they see a narrow channel on a customer's existing saddle. They tell them nothing can be done and sell them a new saddle, old one in part exchange which they sell on to someone else who's horse may then have a problem with the narrow channel.
In reality in some of these cases all their old saddle needed was 2 hours of work to open up the channel and reflock it.So if anyone tells you your channel is too narrow and you need a new saddle, get a second opinion!
 
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