17/03/2025
Take note, everyone: STIRRUPS matter! 🐴 It’s easy to overlook small details like stirrup length and even leathers, but they make a HUGE difference. Modern nylon-reinforced stirrup leathers don’t stretch, so if your stirrups feel uneven, it’s highly unlikely that the leathers themselves are different lengths. Adjusting them to different holes might seem like a quick fix, but it can actually create asymmetry and discomfort for both you and your horse in the long run.
Always check for even stirrups and keep things consistent for a smoother, more balanced ride! 👌
STIRRUPS!!!
1.) You CAN’T just look at them from the front and tell if they’re even. These stirrups are even, but badger is relaxing his right hip, and I told my student to let her hips match his.
2.) Leather stirrups stretch. Because I run a lesson program, and adjust stirrups constantly, I want to know that I can count holes and both stirrups be the same length, so all of mine are synthetic or nylon reinforced under the leather. I replaced any stirrup leathers that hand extra holes hand punched.
3.) Please please please, I’m begging, DO NOT purposely make one shorter or longer because you feel better that way!!!!
4.) Did your chiropractor tell you one leg is longer? She probably meant POSTURALLY, NOT ANATOMICALLY!!! It is so darn rare for the bones in one leg to be longer than the other, but it’s extremely common for your posture to cause shortness on one side. If you feel like your right leg is shorter, please do not shorten your right start up but instead scooch over to the right and drop your right hip down.
There is only two times that I actually let students ride with two different length stirrups - one had a prosthetic leg, and the other has an ankle that is fused at a weird angle (her knee can point forward and her toe point Way off to the side, and the stirrup leather, wrapping around her twisted leg, takes up a good 2 inches of length).  In both cases, they had something a typical going on below their knees, that required different lengths drops in order to keep their knees and seat bones at the same height.
If you’re not entirely sure if your stirrups are even, take your English stirrups off of your saddle completely, buckle them into the hole you typically ride in, and a hold them against each other to compare. For your western fenders, you’ll have to use a tape measure.
If there is something asymmetrical in you or your horse, accommodating it will only exacerbate it.