Looking for information on Foster Saddlery

[Denise]

Other's thoughts may vary...

An example! Thanks for explaining your thoughts, Curb.

[David Genadek]

As a rider of primarily gaited horses, I prefer something that will set you a bit further back to free up the front end of the gaited horse. When your weight is behind the vertical, it allows for a more comfortable ride and better gait. Thats why these older styles are still hot. Generally they have a semi QH bar and will better fit the modern gaited horse.

Curb scrap,

The notion of needing to lean back to get a horse to gate isa common misconception amongst beginning gaited horse riders. There are fiveessentials to riding all horses.

1. Straightness

2. Engagement of the hind quarters

3. Lifting the base of the neck

4. Moving forward using all three of the above, in otherwords the horse knows how to carry weight on its back.

5. Bend in the rib cage.

These five essentials are exactly the same across all breeds and disciplines. They are essentially what it means to ride a horse. Since the mother of all gates is the walk then that means all horses are gaited. Anything that would disrupt the walk will interfere with the more complicated gait. So what allows some horses to do more varied footfalls? Well, there many variables however, one ofthe key variables is the placement of the lumbosacral joint. You will find the most gaited breeds that this joint is placed further back which means that the lumbar span on gaited horses proportionately longer. This means the lower back of gaited breeds is more vulnerable to poor riding. It is true that this greater length allows for more varied oscillation of the spine which can then be translated into the legs as different gaits. It also means that the same rules that apply to non-gaited horses are more critical on gaited breeds. Most understand the importance of collection on non gaited breeds but when you start playing with extending the range of footfalls the rider must become even more adept at controlling the muscular tension above and below the spine. One of the mistakes many people make in assessing gait is they look merely at the foot fall sequence. But to truly understand gait you need to look at it as foot fallsequence relative to back dynamics relative to overall conformation.

From the standpoint of the seat of the saddle the most critical issue is to get the rider's pelvis level. No rider on any breed can properly govern the five essentials unless they have a level pelvis. To learn more about gaited horses I suggest you go to my better half's website www.lizgraves.com. One of my favorite stories about this topic is about Liz riding saddle seat. Of course saddle seat is a discipline where everything is designed to make you sit improperly. Liz, however, has training that comes from the Spanish riding school and the US cavalry and the thought of riding leaning back and braced was intolerable to her. Because of this she taped foam on her saddle seat saddle so that she could adopt a proper seat. In order to hide the foam she had to make a suit coat with longer tails. Of course in the proper position of having a level pelvis and being more forward on the horse she was able to have a much higher quality gait and is also more capable of sustaining the gait over a longer period of time. So in the end she won the world championship with foam taped to her saddle seat saddle. Unfortunately good horsemanship is invisible until you can see it. So the following year everyone had longer tails on their coats but no one changed their position. So if you want your horse to gait as he is designed to gait find a saddle that has a level place for your pelvis. To do anything but is actually a death sentence for your horse and it also puts you in an incredibly unsafe position. To learn more about that go to www.PeggyCummings.com.

David Genadek

Edited October 1, 2009 by David Genadek

[Harfindel]

Hi all. I am new here - not a saddlemaker, just getting into repairing and restoring saddles as a hobby. I have built fly rods and other various things as hobbies over the years, so I am hoping I can catch on eventually.

I was looking that Foster saddle when it was on ebay, and found this article:

http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/drc/localnews/denton/stories/DRC_Fosters-Break-in_0915.17f2e846a.html

It mentions that the fellow's dad built saddles in the 1960's and 1970's, so that's about the right time. Denton is near DFW, too, I think.

Anyway, not sure if this is connected, but I thought I would set down the link.

Very interesting forum, by the way.