saddle fit question

[kaite]

I have a couple of questions regarding fitting trees for a customer. This guys horses seemed to me to have really muscled shoulders, not much of a wither pocket, and this is where he is having problems with fit. He is having dry spots and is getting sores at the point where the front pads of the bars are sitting on the horse. I have not been building saddles for very long, so perhaps this is a silly question, but the way I see things here is that the problem is the saddles he is using have too much crown in the bottom side of the bar. Is this a common problem? I guess what I'm trying to find out is am I on the right track here or is there something I'm missing. Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Hi;

One thing I do to check for fit in an existing saddle is to run my hand, palm down, under the saddle(correctly placed on the horse's back, no pad)front to back. You can find pressure spots this way...also screws sticking out and broken/warped trees.

I found that with this kind of horse(the MOST DIFFICULT, IMO) the top front of the bar needs to be hollowed out more than for any other type. The tree bar and the horse's back need to mirror each other for a good fit.

[Steve Brewer]

I have been watching this topic for a while ,most orders I take are from working cowboys.They are riding 7 to 10 head of horses.It is almost impossible to fit all.Over the years you get bar measurements that will work on most horses.Most orders I never see what they are riding,just ask a few Questions.So far it has worked for me.

Steve

[Hennessy]

i had recently a fellow call who was wearing holes in his three horses shoulders. i believe in a double d rig , standard drop or in skirt and talked him into givin it a go.when i dropped the skirt lo n bhold,one bar bulged like an ostrich egg whilst th other was flat. a 1999 bc trophy saddle he was proud of.i called him n ask do you have to stand up to push down on right stirrup to keep saddle level? why yes he replied,when i gave him a tree to fit up on one of his bald shoulderd ponys, he set it up on th wither on top of his scapula like i did when i was tryin to ride broncs.when i offered my2 cents worth he turned to me n said mah father showed me how to saddle a horse 40 years ago i aint changing now.i believe in allowing that scapula to freely move,a double d rig secures th tub to a spot with less slippage and less angle in latigo pull..also being aware of back problems and seeking solutions are signs of a horseman for sure., i believe a horseman would have at least three saddles to handle an array of ponys, that goes with th work .custom fit trees are for high end horses who will likely grow up n out of it sooner or later good blankets n a few good saddles of varience combined with a conscience, to them ponys would help a heap.adios peter john

[bruce johnson]

Pete,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for jumping right in. Feel free to go back through any old posts and add to them too. Thanks for your insight on this thread, and a situation I think a lot of us deal with. You can have a pretty good tree combination for the horse, and if they set it in the wrong place, it all goes for nothing.

As an aside, if you are the Hennessey who makes the gear - thanks again for joining. Your reputation precedes you. This is an area several of us deal with kind of on the fringes, but the insight of those who have done a bunch is sure welcome. Pretty sure it is a Hennessy bareback rigging one of my best friends had in his bag when he died. His mother got it to me to put in our local cowboy museum. If it is and you are interested, I can get you a picture and the museum info.

[Hennessy]

howdy bruce,yep ahm the guy who made rodeo gear 4 30 yrs. i sold out a year back n now am still scratchin lea eh.i grew up in australia and worked on aussie n english saddles first, came to u.s. to study western saddles.i had a trainer try my double d rig with foam lined skirt with amazing results, he also moved his saddle back again he was amazed, perked me up too. heres another weird bit of opinion,look at the the old saddles they were not blocked onto skirts but were laced on thru strings. over eons of time the bars wallowed down into a blocked appearance which led thinkers to suppose a better fit would evolve if blocking was done. now we have plugged skirts that suggest a 2 layer skirt..i believe two layers of lea in skirt no blocking,this becomes a weight transfer for the load over a bigger area i think that was th reason for skirts anyway. what think you ,look forward to yer thoughts. Sorry to hear of your friends passing yes im interested in knowing more about him.later peter john

[Elton Joorisity]

Welcome aboard Pete! Not to hijack the thread but Pete is the fellow that told me about 14 yrs ago where to get flank trips. So if I have told anyone to order them from D.J. Assoc. you can all thank Mr. Hennessy

[daviD A Morris]

Pete. It will be good to meet you someday. Jeff Freeman says lots of good things about you! I can only assume that you are same person.

dam

Edited October 14, 2008 by daviD A Morris

[Hennessy]

Welcome aboard Pete! Not to hijack the thread but Pete is the fellow that told me about 14 yrs ago where to get flank trips. So if I have told anyone to order them from D.J. Assoc. you can all thank Mr. Hennessy

howdy elton,thank ye fer yer kind words of acknowledgement.i look forward to reading more of your stuff soon eh .ahm not very literate on these machines and thanks to rheu arth ahm typing one handed,left one to boot eh slooooow n spellin like a texalian eh. adios peter john

[Hidemechanic]

Hennessy,

this conversation led me to the opposite issue and I don't want to hijack STPENNER's thread so I'm going to post in General saddle discussion,Hennessy, Orthopedic fit question.

I'm happy to have the rest of you jump in as well.

Sorry for buttin in STPENNER,,GH

Edited November 5, 2008 by Hidemechanic