Saddle Fitting

[Round Brim Hat]

So I purchased a saddle from a shop here in Alberta, it is a Texas Saddle Co. brand, built not to badly built. I did have to make a few modifications to it already. But after using it last summer a lot I noticed there are some hotspots that appear not matter which horse I put it one. The broader horses aren't as bad but the younger ones get heated up pretty good. The hotspots are right on the withers on each side and also at the rear of the tree just in front of the kidneys. Also when I pull the cinch tight the rear of the saddle lifts up a lot from the horses back. So I have so far torn into the under side of my saddle and have the bare tree to work with. Once it starts getting warmer and our horses lose the winter coat I'll fit the saddle and do the blocking as required.

I'll try and post pics later.

Kronic

[Round Brim Hat]

]Here are some pics of the tree from the under side:

At the front of the paddle on the bottom of the tree there is about a 1-1-1/2" spot where there is a high pressure/rub area. The white stuff is just baby powder from trying to keep the saddle a little quieter.

Kronic

Edited February 21, 2011 by Kronic

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Kronic,

The two most common reasons a saddle will pull down in front and lift off the back when you cinch up are 1.) it is too wide at the front so it tips down and 2.) it has too much rock in it so cinching makes the front pull down. Having bars with no back stirrup grooves don't help here in either case. The stirrup leathers effectively add rock to the tree and they also can make a pivot point if the saddle is too wide. You can sure see the ridge in the skirts already from the back of the stirrup leathers. That has to be a pressure point. It is unusual to have a saddle soring in the back when it is pulling down in the front so much. Now that you have the skirts off, you will learn the most by putting the tree on the horse and seeing if you can correlate where the hot spots were to the part of the tree that contacts that area. For example, the problem areas at the rear of the tree - do they correspond to those strings coming through the bars? They look kind of lumpy in the pictures. Maybe you want to do the baby powder trick - put baby powder on the horse, place the tree on the horse, then lift off and check horse and tree for where the powder transfers. You know where the contact is that way. Be interested in knowing what you find out.

[Round Brim Hat]

Hi Rod and Denise

I didn't know you were on here. I know a couple of guys that get trees from you and really like your work. The tree does have a cut out for the stirrup leathers, mind you it might not be enough. I don't think it would be the strings coming through, the area that is affected at the back is in front of this. I am going to take everything you mentioned into account and keep a close eye on those. I'm going to have to wait until the horses start loosing some winter hair though, with the cold winter we've had the coats are pretty thick right now.

Kronic

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Kronic, please post what you find. Your situation doesn't fit "the norm". Usually when there are problem areas front and back it is due to bridging - not enough rock and only front and back contact. But then the back usually doesn't lift off when you cinch up. So those don't normally go together and make this a more interesting conundrum. The depth of the indentations in the skirts from those stirrup leathers with the little amount of wear on the rest of the saddle shows a problem as far as we are concerned. The back stirrup groove isn't deep enough to accomodate the stirrup leathers. That lump has, at minimum, changed the fit of the bars on the horses. Is that too far forward for the sore areas on your horses or might it be the cause? How far forward is this rigged relative to where the center of the front bar pad is? If the rigging pulls down too far forward it will pull the tips of the bars down onto the shoulders regardless of how well the bars match the shape of the horse, and this is worse if the tree is too wide or has lots of "flare" at the front. Again, this doesn't fit with soring farther back, but then this whole senario is unusual, making it likely you have a couple of things going on here, not just one (unless the back soreness is from the back of the stirrup leathers). Very interested in what you find out.

[Round Brim Hat]

With you saying that and looking again at the pictures it makes sense about the stirrup leathers, the indent on the skirts is very noticeable. When I fit this on the horses I'll try with stirrups in and with them out and see what kind of difference there is. The front rigging is right where the skirt has a half moon cut out on it, on the tree you can see where the rigging is still attached to the tree.

Thanks for now though very helpful!

Kronic

[GrampaJoel]

Wow, from looking at the skirts I can see that there could be a pivot point right at the stirrup leather . If the saddle tree is raised off the bars because the fender leathers where thicker than the bar cut outs.

Could this be where the saddle is pivoting when cinched down tightly, causing the rear of the tree to rise up?

Could be a bad pinch point also I would think.

Just my thoughts.

I'm not a saddle builder yet, but I have done some repairs.

Joel

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Kronic,

There is some good information in this old thread about rigging positions and how they work in reference to how the bars are shaped. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1719 It is hard to tell from pictures because the perspective of the picture distorts things, but if the rigging is placed at all forward of the "roundest part of the front bar pad" (hard to explain what I mean quickly but it is in post #14 in the referenced thread) it will rock the tree forward. There is an idea that is, unfortunately, getting to be more common and we are seeing more trees incorporating it, saying that you need to "flare" the front of the bars out more so they don't interfere with the shoulder blades. So the area of contact with the bar pad ends much further back, leaving a lot of that front bar pad not touching the horse. This sounds like a great idea - until you do up the cinch, which pulls that front end down on the horse and rocks the back up unless it is rigged really far back so that the pull is behind where the contact leaves off. I'm not sure from the pictures. So you think this tree may have been built with that concept in mind?

[Round Brim Hat]

I'm not to sure if its something they were trying to do with the tree, its a Texas Saddle Co brand that is sold by Frontier Western shop. I talked to the guys down there and they have never had anyone complain about the saddle not fitting the horse (or no one cared enough to worry about it). I also have a friend that bought one of these saddles and had to do very little to it to get it to fit better. Carl down near Rocky Mountain House looked at it as well and did a little work on it for him.

Kronic

[Round Brim Hat]

So i finally got enough winter coat off one of the horses to fit the tree without anything underneath it. First try was with the stirrup leathers in, usual happened back end came way up. Took them off and it made a big difference, still not totally great but way better.

[Round Brim Hat]

[Round Brim Hat]

So I also noticed something else on the tree that I should have caught earlier...the rawhide where the stirrup leathers go is not bonded down to the wood, not sure if this is a flaw in the tree or if its something I can put staples in to keep it down. I would be nervous about stapling it down and cracking the rawhide.

Kronic

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Kronic,

It is hard to say anything for sure just from pictures and conversation on the net, but here is what we are thinking at the moment. The fact that removing the stirrup leathers makes a big difference tells you that the stirrup groove is too shallow for your leathers (which you have seen on the tree), so the leathers are increasing the rock and creating a pivot point and a pressure point on your horses. Is this the area they were sore last summer?

The fact that removing them didn't totally eliminate the problem tells you there more going on that just that. The powder is basically along the upper/inner edge of the bars, showing that the bottom of the bars are not touching the horse. The tree therefore has too much angle and or is too wide for these horses. So you have both the too wide and the too much rock problem happening which is what is causing the saddle to pull down in the front and pop up at the back. Pulling a too wide tree down on the front creates pressure points right where the black wear marks are on the first photos you posted and I expect that is where your horses were sore on the front end, and would explain why your broader horses didn't have the severity of problems your younger ones did.

The fact that the back of the right bar has no powder on it at all and the left has more could be just the way you powdered the horse or it could be the tree is twisted somehow. You may want to check that out more.

This would explain the reason behind the problems. I doubt that deepening the stirrup grooves, even if that were possible, would resolve your problems. There is too much else going on.

[Round Brim Hat]

Well to update everyone on what is going on with this. After calling and talking to Rod (which was a very big help thank you) I called the shop I got the saddle from. I have been talking to them about this just to see if they had problems in the past so they knew what was going on. So after talking to them today they told me to put it back together and send it down and they'll send me a new saddle. Only thing is I would like to be able to go down there and look at what I'm getting before I just say yeah I'll take that one over the phone. I'm also thinking I'm going to make a pattern of the horses back first using wire then possibly cutting it out in plywood and get kind of a set up built so I can possibly go down there with the pattern in hand instead of dragging a horse across Alberta.

I was very surprised over this that they are going to take it back with no issues even after using the saddle lightly for two years (didn't get used much since it didn't fit the horse). Just means I have to undo and modifications (which were minor) to the saddle.

Thanks for all your help.

Kronic