Patrick Saddlery Saddle Fittings

6/19/2018  −   6/20/2018

Open: 5/14/2018

Close: 6/14/2018

Dancing Horse Farm

4080 WEISENBERGER ROAD

LEBANON, OH, 45036-9060

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Kate Ballard with https://www.facebook.com/StanbridgeSaddlers/?fref=mentions and https://www.facebook.com/PatrickSaddlery1/ will be at Dancing Horse Farm for Patrick Saddle test rides. Kate will have many different Patrick Saddlery dressage and jumping demo saddles available for test rides. She will also take measurements for custom orders while at our farm.

I am proud to be an Ambassador for Patrick Saddlery. Of all the saddle companies available to me, I chose Patrick Saddlery because I was incredibly impressed with their 32 point measuring method that they use to create a 3D model of the horse's back in the shop to fit/flock the saddle so that it fits with no tweaking right out of the box. Also, the gullet channel width is measured down the length of the back to ensure the edge of the panels never extend beyond the longissimus dorsi onto the transverse spinous processes, and the actual saddle trees are placed on the horse as part of the fitting process to find the tree that has the right width between the rails, angle, contour, and profile of the rails.

Two incredible facts with Patrick Saddlery that have simply blown my mind are 1. Kate and Patrick work very hard to provide a demo saddle, if one is available, for clients who order custom saddles to use while their saddles are being made. 2. Totally custom-made saddles arrive typically within 6 weeks!! That's not 3-6 months!

Probably what has impressed me most about Patrick Saddlery is the fact that Kate and Patrick actually understand correct rider biomechanics and build their saddles to enhance the horse and rider's communication pathway. They are not interested in supporting the fad of long stirrups and riders leaning back behind the vertical which inhibits the horse's ability to do his job. Of course, their attention to building saddles to support correct body posture and joint angles immediately won me over as a biomechanics trainer and coach.

These are some of my primary rider fit considerations:
1. Correct vertical line-up (ear-shoulder-hip-heel)
2. Has to accomidate a 45 degree angle in knee (so that thigh/knee/calf resembles the point of an arrowhead pointing straight forward)
3. The flap has to have a forward enough angle that allows the thigh to comfortably rest behind the thigh block without feeling restricted
4. The seat bones must point straight down in the deep spot of the seat which should be closer to the pommel than the cantle
5. The deep spot must be long enough to accomidate the rider's underneath to allow her to settle into it comfortably without having her ramus jammed against the rise up to the pommel or gluteus maximus smashed into the cantle.

Too many dressage saddles with overly vertical thigh blocks/flaps force the rider's hips into a too-open angle which forces the seat bones to point forward thus arching the back and making the rider lean the shoulders backwards and then the lower legs slide forward into a chair seat position to compensate.

My areas of special interest for fitting saddles to horses are the following (this list is not exhaustive, just a few POI):
1. Ensuring back of wither clearance with the rider up while standing in stirrups; most people think to test at the front of the pommel for clearance, but not often do people have a friend on the ground push their hand in all the way to the back of the wither (especially an issue on long-withered horses) while they are standing at the top of the rise when there is maximum weight in the front of the saddle - this is when rubbing will happen if it's going to happen...keep in mind that ideally the rider should never use the stirrups as a weight bearing surface, this is just a saddle fit test.
2. Riders need to recognize that if the horse flinches in any way when pressure is applied to his back, he is sore and it is most likely from poor saddle fit, even if he has an expensive custom-made saddle. My boy, Taffy, regularly works harder than ever and I know something has gone awry if he becomes back sore. Same with the horses I have in training.
3. I want the horse's trapezius (shoulder sling) muscle to have freedom of movement and space to lift and carry.
4. The saddle should sit balanced front to back and left to right so that even if the girth was loose, it really wouldn't matter much.
5. Every horse's back is limited by the length of their rib cage and saddles should never extend beyond the 18th rib because there's no support structure to carry the rider's weight.

Once my saddles arrives, I could not find words to describe how I felt about them except to say that they are truly pieces of art. I am a VERY HAPPY customer and am confident that you, like my other clients who have already taken the plunge, will be too!