Using the Equine profiling cards; Dennis and/or Rod

[Alan Bell]

Jon, I was placing the cards on horses yesterday and noticed how big a difference the hind leg makes in the rock profiles. I have a couple of horses that like to "hip sit" on the near side, which flattened the rock on that side and one of those horses will also place the near hind out back in the classic Arabian pose which also flattened the back. Usually it went from one profile up to the next so from R:9 TO R:6 or from R:12 TO R:9. My question to you would be couldn't

any of the 3 R cards fit into your top line since they are dealing with a point roughly 3 1/2" from the top line? One idea is to make the cards with a slot to fit the R card in at the relative angle that places it 90 deg. to the horse's body at that point so then I can see what happens to the all the cards as the horse moves. I'll try that today and get back with pics.

Vaya Con Dios, Alan Bell

[jonwatsabaugh]

Alan,

Your study and analogy is quite interesting. Understandably, everything changes when the horse moves off. My test was conducted at static position, square and level to test my theory of all relative templates. With my results, the different rock templates fit the model differently, and did show the rock template I had chosen as correct. As I had mentioned, this was performed one time and as time permits, I will do further study. Placement of the rock template is the most subjective of the needed measurements, therefore my interest in the relationship of the top line to A,B,C, & R.

Jon

[daviD A Morris]

Great minds think alike (or is it "dummies don't differ!!)

Notice that the "C" card in this case is "3 profile" card, thats from 3 years ago. I found that these were all great excercises that helped my understanding of the shapes of horses backs, how the change with movement and how they vary from one horse to the next.

Looking back now at my post that says "we are not promoting the use of the cards in this way", I am now thinking that we should promote this kind of investigation/analysis amoung saddlemakers and treemakers. And then discuss it all here, (with photos) others can learn from what we have done, and then don't start from scratch, going over ground that has already been covered.

dam

Edited July 3, 2009 by daviD A Morris

[daviD A Morris]

I certainly agree about the rock being affected by how the horse is standing, and bending the head and neck to one side or the other also affects it. And with the horse standing up squarely we have measured quite a few that are different on the other side. However, the final result we are trying to achieve is to categorie horses that need extra front-to-rear rock in the bars of the trees or flatter front-to-rear rock and ocassionally we are now finding horses even flatter than the R6. Thus, for comparison I think we need to focuss on measuring them all while they are standing up square. And if I have any doubts I ask the person who is doing the measuring to take photo of the horse with the cards on it.

regards

dam

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

We have also found that the rock card measurement is the most variable. The height of the horse’s head also makes a difference in what reading you get (which would be why the instructions tell you to take the measurement with the horse’s head in his normal working position.). And yet the topline, unless it is combined with the other cards to make a 3D form like Jon and David have done, does not in itself tell us much about the rock under the bars either, so the rock card is the best thing we have to give us that information right now.

When I (Denise) was working as a vet I noticed something. If there was one treatment for a condition that everyone used, it was because that was the definitive treatment. Anything else either didn’t work or worked poorly. If there were many treatments for a condition, it was because a) a number of treatments worked equally well or b ) nothing worked well at all and we were grasping at straws.

I can carry this analogy over to saddle fitting. There are some things that (almost) everyone agrees on – there should be no weight carried by the shoulder blade, nothing should dig into the horse anywhere, etc. But in the question of “If you had to have a small amount too much or a small amount too little rock, which would you choose?” there are solid saddle and tree makers answering both ways, though everyone agrees that too much in either direction is definitely bad. This tells me that both ways work. If they didn’t, everyone would agree on which way was best.

The variation in shape we see with the DL cards based on how the horse is positioned tells us that there is a lot of variation in rock as the horse moves normally. This explains why, so long as nothing digs in anywhere and the difference in rock between the saddle and horse isn’t too extreme, either a bit too much or a bit too little will work. Both probably fit the horse extremely well at some phase of the stride, and don’t harm the horse at the other end of the spectrum.

There is also the idea promoted by some people that you should ask your horse to do a belly lift by poking him a bit in the belly to make him “round his back” to mimic collection and take your reading that way. But what even researchers of biomechanics and gait don’t know is what the shape of the back is when ridden compared to standing square. There is only one study that I am aware of (Effects of girth, saddle and weight on movements of the horse, P. DeCocq, P.R. Van Weeren, W. Back, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrechet University, the Netherlands, Equine Veterinary Journal, 2004 36 (8) 758-763) that has attempted to figure that out. Their conclusion was that the back sags under dead weight, though the weight of just an English saddle has no effect. However, they did not look at what the shape may be with a rider up, asking the horse to round. Is the horse able to round his back to his standing shape or not? Or might he even be able to round more? Nobody really knows. There is still so much to learn.

[Alan Bell]

I was discussing this with a friend and we were looking at it from the dressage perspective. Even though we are mostly Western riders and saddle makers we are still trying to get our horses to lighten up the forehand and achieve a better balance in the work they do. Most have heard of the roughly 65/45 relationship for weight distribution of the horse with 65% of the horses weight being supported by the front legs. This is mainly due to the way the head and neck are carried out in front of the forelegs cantilevered (if you will). We were considering "Ramener" or "rassembler" the state where the horse carries itself with a more balanced weight distribution whether cause by the horse or by the rider. Some may be familiar with the experiment where a horse is standing on 2 scales and they measure what happens when the horse is brought on the vertical and flexed at the pole. Basically as the horses head is raised until the neck is at 45deg and the nose is brought near vertical the horse shifts weight off of the forehand on to the rear, this also includes the riders weight (the test was done in a dressage saddle by the Classical Master Baucher) I was also wondering if when the horse is in ramener and collected is he not placing his back in a position that may be maintained throughout the gaits? Watch a stud around a bunch of mares. As he nimbly prances and dances around the mares his back remains level. In martial arts they say to stretch your spine by feeling as if there is a string out of the crown of your head lifting you up. This sinks your weight and stretches your spine while flattening out your lower back and when done properly and completely goes all the way to your coccyx, which is what the horse flexing its neck and poll does to achieve ramener. I am again reminded of the real importance of strengthening the horses back which is something that is all but lost in the Western world but if you go around and look at the top horses compared to the backyard horses the strength in the back is very evident even though it is achieved as a side effect to the top horses training! Not quite sure where I'm going with this but maybe it will make that "average" back position easier to fit if we see that our clients horses are fit and if not and the horses back is weak maybe we can offer some simple back strengthening exercises to our customers to help them have a better fitting saddle?

Vaya con Dios, Alan Bell

[Saddlebag]

After reading all of the above, I can't help but wonder what happens when the horse's back changes, from aging or become more or less fit. During the 23 years I owned a particular horse he used three different trees, all rawhide wrapped.

[daviD A Morris]

After reading all of the above, I can't help but wonder what happens when the horse's back changes, from aging or become more or less fit. During the 23 years I owned a particular horse he used three different trees, all rawhide wrapped.

Saddlebag,

You are not alone in that thought. I've have heard lots of anecdotal evidence about how and how much horse's backs change shape throughout the season and over the years, and I think most of what people say is pretty true, but now I can actualy measure and keep a record of the shapes to see how much they realy change. And when they change past a certain point we'll know its time to change saddle or pads or whatever.

Regards

dam