07/07/2024
Conformation or Posture?
A question we all ask ourselves when looking at our horses standing square,
We can't change conformation defects in our horses, but we can change their posture and how they choose to carry themselves.
Poorly fitted saddles can cause a horse to work in a poor posture, making conformation defects even more complicated to try and fit a saddle to and if not corrected can cause serious damage to our horses topline.
Below is the lovely Ginger, I have had the absolute pleasure working with over the last 9-10months, you can see Ginger has a huge shoulder, gives the illusion of being croup high with an over exaggerated forward girth groove..... every saddlers worse nightmare! By having a saddle that wasn't allowing for the wither to come up and in turn stopping the horse from being able to use her thoracic sling has giving Ginger poor posture and stopping her very dedicated owner to progress with her trainning .
So what did we do?
Changed the saddle that allowed Ginger to be able to lift up through the wither and engage her thoracic sling, this meant changing every part of the saddle to make sure it was right for her at all times- from the head plate, to the panels to the tree.... over the last 9-10 months this horse has changed tree shape twice, changed head plate 4 times and even changed panels!
As her posture has improved with the correct work, saddle fit and management, it has changed the shape of her back completely.
To be able to have a saddle that is completely inter changeable is so important, this allows you to change with the horse as he or she changes shape. As you can see in the pictures below she has gone through a huge posture change over the last 9-10months.
Ginger has been one of the trickest horses I have had to fit, but by the far the most rewarding, it is seeing these kinds of changes that inspires me to always try and do better for our equestrian friends.
Let's raise the standard of saddle fitting, our horses deserve it. ❤️🐴