I’m usually up for a saddle fitting challenge, but to be honest, when I hear “I’d like one saddle to fit (fill in the blank) two, three or more horses, I gulp and look at my co-worker’s desks to see who is “light” on tracings and wonder how I can make the hand off. I know it will be a challenge and I tell the customer as much..…but I enter the fray and sheepishly ask…. what kind of horses are they? I breathe a tiny sigh of relief when I hear……..”they’re both Arabians or……..”they are mother and daughter” or “both OTTTB’s” or……..”they are both mules”. Even then, I need to see tracings and photos because backs differ enormously within breeds. I explain it’s not just tree width but also, and more importantly, tree shape that will determine how a saddle will fit a horse’s back. A good correction pad can make a saddle that’s a tree size (usually 2 cms) too wide work in many cases.(that’s why it’s necessary to fit to the wider horse since no amount of pads or shims will fix a saddle that’s too narrow) It’s not ideal by any means, but there are circumstances when this is the only option for a customer. She may be selling one horse and just needs to train him, she may ride one horse more than another due to age or injury, or there may be a financial limitation.
There are cases when I have to be very honest with the customer and say, No, there is no way in the world with any amount of padding that one saddle will fit both of your horses. If one horse has a dippy back and also needs a extra wide tree like this horse.
and the other is a relatively flat backed horse who needs a medium tree
one saddle just won’t work. If we chose a tree with some curve (banana shape) it would rock on the flat backed horse and a flat tree would bridge on a dippy back. Also, the tree widths are too dissimilar for a front shim to work.
Then there are the few times when I can happily say, yes I think we can make one saddle work!! When I see pictures like this…
both horses, to my eye, need a similar shaped tree. When I looked at their tracings they were about a half size off in width. Low and behold the saddle I sent them looked great on both horses with just a thin front shim in the Skito pad for the narrower horse.
Usually, when I take the time to explain saddle fit 101, most rider’s get the concept. It’s like asking your son and daughter to share the same running shoes! I know some of you are thinking…….so then get a treeless saddle……but we’ll save that concept for another article.
Ride happy and stay warm,
Nancy
2 Responses to “One Saddle For Two Horses?????”
Charlotte
It’s not always foolish. I have a Missouri Foxtrotter and a Thoroughbred. I can happily report that they both take the same saddle; it fits both perfectly (barring a many-holes difference in the girth). At first blush you wouldn’t think so, the TB is a behemoth and the gaited horse is barely 15 hh (and short-chassis to boot). But for some reason they both are a perfect fit for my jumping saddle (which, incidentally, I got from Trumbull). To be truthful I haven’t tried my Western or Dressage saddle on the TB, but the jumper fits both to a “T”.
joanne deltra
Funny how these things can work out and save on having to buy two saddles. I have a friend who is starting to look at the treeless option as she has two entirely different sized horses and so we are anziously awaiting an update from Nancy on this subject which I know is pretty controversial……..