Saddles - how tight at the front?!

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Procrastination

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How tight do people think a saddle should be at the front? I know the general guide for a good fit is that there should be even pressure down the length of the panel at the front but nobody really mentions how tight it should be?!

When you are on board should you be able to easily fit your fingers between your horses skin and the saddle and run them down the shoulder panel with ease?

When I'm sitting in my saddle I struggle with my to get my fingers in to judge the pressure, and once I do wiggle them in I can feel my horses shoulder blade jutting against them as she walks...this to me suggests that it is too tight but I have just had the saddle fitter out who assured me it isnt.
Opinions would be appreciated :)
 
I don't really know the correct answer to this and I am interested to hear how other people respond, but when i'm sat on my pony there is just room for my to get my hand under the saddle and run it down the front panel. This says to me that if there is room for me to do this, there is room for my pony's shoulder blade to move under it. If her shoulder wasn't able to move freely under the saddle, I would think it was too narrow.
 
How could you have a saddle with room for your fingers at the front? When you took your fingers out it would be too wide. Saddles don't sit on air, its against the laws of physics/gravity etc.

If you don't like the idea of a saddle being "tight" you could have one fitted a size or half a size too wide to enable you to use a saddle pad underneath. You need to buy the saddle pad and have it there for the fitting. Or you could use a treeless saddle, the lack of tree will allow the shoulders more freedom. Or you could have Flair air bags fitted to the saddle instead of flocking. I've got a couple of saddles with serge lining instead of leather and they seem to have a bit more flexibility to the panels/flocking than leather panels. I don't know if anyone sells serge lined saddles any more or if a leather panelled saddle could be converted.

If the flocking is even and not packed in too tight in an attempt to make a too wide saddle fit, then your horse should have room/flexibility to move under it to a certain extent, but not with your fingers in there too.
 
Darkwater said:
I don't really know the correct answer to this and I am interested to hear how other people respond, but when i'm sat on my pony there is just room for my to get my hand under the saddle and run it down the front panel. This says to me that if there is room for me to do this, there is room for my pony's shoulder blade to move under it. If her shoulder wasn't able to move freely under the saddle, I would think it was too narrow.
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Yep that is my thinking too, but I really struggle to get my hand in because it's so tight...this too me suggests it's too tight but various people have looked at it and think it's ok. Just interested to hear others opinions really! I can't see how it can be comfortable on the horses back/shoulder if it's that hard up against her muscles :-/
 
My horses have huge shoulders, so if I have my hand there and they are walking it goes from almost no contact on my hand to really squeezing my hand. At stand I can get my fingers in there but it takes some effort. However I feel the muscle more than the shoulder blade, but that might just be conformational difference.

I think the size/ angle of the horses shoulder may dictate. As all shoulders will move differently dependent on the action of the horse.

I think of a saddle as fitting like a sportsbra; it needs to fit well but not loosely otherwise it can't do it's job.
 
Sugar_and_Spice said:
How could you have a saddle with room for your fingers at the front? When you took your fingers out it would be too wide. Saddles don't sit on air, its against the laws of physics/gravity etc.

If you don't like the idea of a saddle being "tight" you could have one fitted a size or half a size too wide to enable you to use a saddle pad underneath. You need to buy the saddle pad and have it there for the fitting. Or you could use a treeless saddle, the lack of tree will allow the shoulders more freedom. Or you could have Flair air bags fitted to the saddle instead of flocking. I've got a couple of saddles with serge lining instead of leather and they seem to have a bit more flexibility to the panels/flocking than leather panels. I don't know if anyone sells serge lined saddles any more or if a leather panelled saddle could be converted.

If the flocking is even and not packed in too tight in an attempt to make a too wide saddle fit, then your horse should have room/flexibility to move under it to a certain extent, but not with your fingers in there too.
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It is my understanding from what I've read online and from watching various videos etc that with a correctly fitting saddle you should be able to run your hand down the panels with ease and feel even pressure down the length of the panel. If you're struggling, like I am, to even get your fingers in in the first place surely that suggests it's too tight? And as dark water suggested above, if it is so tight that your can't get your fingers surely that would cause problems for the horse?

I am genuinely interested, I am trying to educate myself as much as I possibly can :-)
 
bakewell said:
My horses have huge shoulders, so if I have my hand there and they are walking it goes from almost no contact on my hand to really squeezing my hand. At stand I can get my fingers in there but it takes some effort. However I feel the muscle more than the shoulder blade, but that might just be conformational difference.

I think the size/ angle of the horses shoulder may dictate. As all shoulders will move differently dependent on the action of the horse.

I think of a saddle as fitting like a sportsbra; it needs to fit well but not loosely otherwise it can't do it's job.
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That's interesting that you're feeling the muscle more than the actually blade. I can definitely feel her shoulder blade coming back and pushing against my finger, I can only assume that when my finger is not in the way the blade actually pushes against the panel of the saddle. We are having a few ridden issues at the moment so I am trying to ascertain whether the saddle could be the culprit or at least part of the problem.
 
Procrastination said:
That's interesting that you're feeling the muscle more than the actually blade. I can definitely feel her shoulder blade coming back and pushing against my finger, I can only assume that when my finger is not in the way the blade actually pushes against the panel of the saddle. We are having a few ridden issues at the moment so I am trying to ascertain whether the saddle could be the culprit or at least part of the problem.
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They're entire PSLxPRE so they're quite hulky (oh god I almost described my horses as hunky, my descent into horsewife is complete).

Have you tried her bareback (if safe)?
I know that too tight a saddle can prevent appropriate muscling, but it's usually evident directly to the sides of the withers.
 
Hunky horse ooh la la!! :D

My bareback riding leaves a lot to be desired so it's not the most reliable diagnostic tool but i will give it a go in our next session!
 
Can you ride bareback? That can show up saddle issues.

When you're sitting in the saddle, if you try to put your fingers under the panel you'll have to lean forward which will make the area tighter.

Yes when the horse moves the muscles (or bones if your horse has no muscle/fat) will come against the panel. The saddle is s fixed thing and the horse isn't. As I posted before, the panel will have a little give in it, as long as its not been over stuffed.

Sliding your hand down the front is with the horse stationary and the person doing it on the ground. If there is a rider they should be sitting up in the normal position. If the saddle is too narrow, when you do this you'll feel a tightness corresponding to where the point of the tree is.

One further thought. A saddle will be pulled too tight into the horses back by an over tight girth. Girth up as you normally would then try to slide your hand round to the bit of the girth nearest the floor by the horses front legs to judge the pressure. If the saddle slips on mounting with a snug girth, it either doesn't fit or you're putting too much pressure in the stirrup to mount. It's normal to need to tighten the girth once mounted and possibly again after the first trot. Or it used to be, now its more normal to see people on tip toes heaving their full strength into squeezing the straps up one more hole.
 
There should be clearance for the scapula to move without being impeded. If you put your hand on the top end of it (the shoulder blade effectively) and your horse moves you will feel that the top rotates backwards. If the saddle is getting in the way of that it is getting in the way of your horse moving. There is a very small area between the withers and the top of the scapula to support the saddle, and in fact it shouldn't be tight at all - the saddle rests on the muscles either side of the ligaments either side of the spine. Which is why backward facing points are much better if you can get them.
 
Would say there is some tolerance depending on what the horse likes too, mine does not like a tight at the front saddle - prefers almost on the verge of being too slack/wide and he is quick enough to tell me!
 
My old saddler(boy I miss his skill....his ill now) used to fit the saddle so that you could slide your hand down between the saddle and horse, even pressure the whole way. It's not about there being a gap, meaning that the saddle is too wide but there being enough room and no pressure points. He would fit the saddle so that he was still able to do this even when I was on the saddle. Meaning that it was balanced and not pinching or dropping forward. My next saddler fitted do you could not do this even when there was no one in the saddle, he said that if you could the saddle was to wide and that my old saddler was an idiot for expecting to be able to slide his hand down when someone of my size was sat in the saddle! Funnily my horse NEVER went well in the saddle this man fitted. Apparently I was expecting too much from a cob!? He wasn't my saddler after that?! Although I do wish I had got rid of him before buying a saddle that did not fit.....I ride treeless now!!
 
The saddle should be fitted two fingers behind the scapula, it may be too long? I had this discussion with a master saddler regarding one of mine last week, his shoulder blade goes a long way back in motion, slight sway back and bum high. I have a saddle fitted to him ( the 11th one) and have used a thick sheepskin half pad to lift it, she said that is exactly what she would do and there were no pressure points at all, chiro happy too. Maybe the horse has very wide shoulder blades but it sounds to me that yours may be tipping fowards. Does the stirrup leather drop vertical if you lift it out and drop it. I would get another opinion and make sure they check it in use and with you sitting in it. Had one that needed a high wide head and careful stuffing as he bucked like stink if it pinched but most saddles seemed to fit when not in motion, ended up with a 16.5" inch instead of an 18" fitted by another saddler and moved it farther back, problem solved.
 
Have a look at the information on the Balance International website. Their whole philosophy stems from this point, and they never fit a saddle without deformable material underneath. I've been using their saddles for years and the horses love them. The minimum padding (which goes on a horse with a very well developed back and no muscle wastage) is 1/2" of prolite under the front of the saddle, which give support for the saddle but at the same time can compress as the horse moves underneath it. Saddles should always be fitted so that the back of the scapula clears the saddle tree as the horse moves, and having the padding there gives a little more insurance that if the saddle is slightly forward, the scapula would only graze the padding, not the hard structure of the saddle.
 
I describe it that when I put my hand under any area of the saddle it should be massaged but not squashed.

Also, with horses with a big shoulder it can be hard to fit a GP type saddle to them, as the flap comes onto the shoulder when the shoulder rotates back. With some saddles they end up moving back, with others the shoulders are pinched. A swept back dressage type saddle is often easier to fit.

Jay was a pig to fit with a jumping saddle, tried lots of brands, and ended up with a custom made with backward facing tree points (dressage tree), Owen panel, and a "floating" top flap. It is not ideal, if I ever do have an emergency moment and grip on the flaps curl under, but the horse is happy and in most situations it is fine.

I would be very concerned if I could not get my fingers under the saddle at any point at all. Is it as tight if you sit up and someone feels under it from the floor? If so I would not put it back on my horse until it was resolved.
 
As Red-1 has mentioned it can depend on the cut of your saddle. It is the POINTS that must not interfer with the scapula, with more forward cut saddles it is impossible to keep the whole saddle back from the scapula. The flap is somewhat moveable, it is the tree points that are rigid (how rigid depends on the individual saddle design but usually only the tips have any flexibility) and must be kept back, and the pressure under them even.

There are so many factors as to how tight a saddle should feel, I'll give some examples where saddles could feel tighter than you expect.

Heavier rider - of course there will be overall more pressure.
Rider trying to check it themselves - you're leaning forwards placing more pressure on the front of the saddle.
Too wide saddle - the very top edge of the panel will feel tight, there will not be a gap except possibly further down at the points but with a rider on it may not be possible to feel this. Also it is likely pommel low so more weight is pushed towards the front of the saddle and the cantle starts to lift.
Horses with prominent scapulae and in show condition - the saddle, even when just girthed, will sink in behind that shoulder and it can be very difficult to get a hand under when firmly girthed, let alone with a rider on top.

The design of the tree and panel can make a difference too - some saddles almost curl out away from the horse at the front, tree included. To me this isn't always helpful - it makes the saddle feel less tight at the front but actually you are losing both panel area contacting the horse (so the weight is spread over a smaller area) plus you have lost grip on the front edge of the saddle and it may be more likely to move forwards on natives etc where saddles want to run up the neck. A parallel to the horse's side is better but will feel tighter.

The only saddles that should truly pride themselves on not being "tight" in this way at the front are those with larger flexible panels that sit actually over the scapulae.

No-one should be panicking that not being able to get their hand under with a rider is a massive problem if it has been fitted by a saddle fitter - go back ot the fitter and ask them to either reassure you, or come out and check the fit. If their assessment and explanation doesn't reassure you then you may want to get a second opinion, but I do not think that in itself, it is an issue depending on all the other aspects of the fit.
 
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