Flocking Adjustments

As a saddle fitter, I have a certain fondness for wool-flocked saddles.  They can be “custom adjusted” to your horse’s back, they breathe and help keep your horse’s back cooler, they’re nicely resilient and offer good cushion, and they will conform to the shape of your horse’s back.  However, as most folks know, they do require regular maintenance – think along the lines of annual vaccines for  your horse or oil changes for your car – and one question I’m frequently asked is “When and how often should I have the flock in my saddle adjusted?”

The answer is “It depends.”  We have to look at the age of your saddle, the condition and age of your horse, and the type and frequency of riding you do.

New saddles should be “bumped up” (adjusted) after anywhere from 8-40 hrs. of use.  If a saddle is softly flocked, it will break in quickly and you’ll have to have it done sooner; if it’s more firmly flocked, the break-in process will be a bit slower and you can often wait.  Sometimes a second adjustment will be necessary a couple of months after the initial adjustment – particularly with the more softly flocked saddles – to get the fit totally “customized”.   After that, I see most of my clients every 6-12 months.

With used saddles, you can often have the initial adjustment done as soon as you determine the saddle suits you and your horse – and in some cases, the adjustment may be needed to make the saddle fit properly, since the wool will have conformed to the back of the last horse it was used on.  With some saddles, a strip flock (old wool out, new wool in) may be necessary if the existing flocking is lumpy and has lost resilience.  In either case, subsequent adjustments should be made on about the same schedule as that of a new saddle.

If you have a young horse who’s growing, or a horse who’s progressing quickly in his/her training, you may need to have the fit checked quite often – sometimes as often as every 3 or 4 months.  Horses who are coming back from a layoff and horses who go in and out of condition regularly (event and endurance horses, for example) may need to be seen more frequently as well.

Keep in mind that these are just guidelines, not a hard and fast schedule – it will be up to you to decide when you need to call the saddle fitter, and being proactive about saddle fit is very important.  If you notice a change in the way your horse is behaving or moving under saddle, a change in the way the saddle is looking or feeling, or a change in your horse’s attitude about being saddled or worked, you may be looking at a saddle fitting issue.  Calling your fitter and scheduling a check as soon as you notice an issue can keep something small and easily remedied from becoming a major problem that can eat quite deeply into your training schedule – and your budget.

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