Is your saddle helping you?

Ear above shoulder, above hip, above heel.  Sounds familiar yes?  If a rider is sitting in this way, ear, shoulder, hip, heel, they are holding themselves in a good basic alignment.  One of the first things I always ask myself on seeing a horse and rider is, if I could click my fingers and the horse magically vanished, would the rider land on their feet, or would they land falling backwards or falling forwards?  If that magic ear, shoulder, hip, heel line is correct, they have a good chance of landing on their feet.

Can a saddle help you?  To a degree, yes.  A good saddle will not necessarily put you in a perfect seat, but a bad saddle will make your life very difficult.  We’ve looked at legs before, but we’re back there again, focusing on what the saddle is doing to help or hinder you too.

Look at this photo…

Yes, it’s a jumping saddle, but looking at just how forward cut it is, a good flat work position is virtually impossible.  The green arrow and red vertical line show where I would like this rider to have their leg, but in this saddle, her leg would almost be hanging off the back of the flap.  If the horse was magically not there, how would the rider land?  Flat on her back, would be my guess.

How about this saddle?

Well, this saddle appears to be an improvement, yes?  The rider looks to have her leg in almost the correct place.  I’d still like the heel to be a couple of inches further back, but we’re much closer to the green line that I’m looking for.  This is a somewhat old-fashioned showing saddle and has virtually no padding on it’s knee or thigh rolls, so there isn’t much to help. 

This is the same horse, rider and saddle, but now we’ve moved forwards into canter.  And…  it’s all gone very wrong, hasn’t it?  Because the saddle is so flat cut, there is nothing to help the rider to keep the leg position.  Yes, the saddle isn’t pushing her leg forwards, but the momentum of the canter and lack of any knee roll hasn’t offered any support.  If we could magically remove the horse, what happens?  Yup, she lands falling backwards.  And, what effect does this have on the horse?

This – this is the effect that it has on the horse.  Same rider, saddle, horse again, but seen from the other side.  A great example of an old-fashioned chair seat.  And, this is what happens…  The green line down, is where I would want to see the leg being held.  This would help the rider support herself in a better, more balanced way.  We’re not quite 90* side on to the horse, but the red line would be about right for the ear, shoulder, hip, heel line.  In this current place, the rider has to be supporting the majority of her weight on her seat bones, exactly like sitting on the office chair, as I am doing as I am typing this.  This puts a huge amount of pressure straight down onto the horse’s back muscles, exactly where we would like his back to lift under us.  If someone pulled my chair out from under me?  I’d fall on the office floor.  If someone pulled this horse out from under our rider?  She’d fall on the floor too.  With her weight all straight down on her seat bones, the horse cannot lift his back and bring his hind legs further underneath himself.  As a result, he is trailing his hind legs out behind him, and his entire body is cantering downhill, forward towards a nose dive, as shown by the big blue line.  Again, this saddle isn’t causing the rider to go wrong, but it’s doing nothing to help her to find a good place.   

What about, inside leg on the girth?

Awesome, look, our rider has his inside leg on the girth.  And the shoulder, hip, heel line?  Would he land on his feet?  Uh, no.

Same rider a few seconds later.  Ear, shoulder, hip heel line?  Spot on.  Is his leg on the girth?  No?

Now, we’ve gone too far in the other direction – his heel is now behind that magic vertical line. 

So, of these three examples, only the first has his leg on the girth, and yet, it’s the worst out of the three.  How can that be?  We seem to have two big, contradicting bits of information.  Rule one, we must be, ear, shoulder, hip, heel.  Rule two, always keep the inside leg on the girth.  Which is almost never in keeping with rule number one.  So now?

Look at this handsome fellow – he is the stuffed (taxidermy) and mounted war horse of King Gustav from 400 years ago, now “living” in a military war museum.  Now, the reason we are interested in him, is, look at his girth.  This is the real skeleton, the real skin, with the real saddle.  And, look how far back the girth is sitting.  And here, is Painting of King Frederick William III (1770-1840) Prussia

When a lot of the equitation books were written, riding was largely a pursuit for the military, and in that era, the girths were mainly, a lot further back.  If the rider of either of these horses was told to put their inside leg on the girth, it would have pretty much lined up with their ear, shoulder, hip, heel line, and this is what has created a lot of the confusion.  If our modern day rider were riding in one of these two saddles, the middle photo where his vertical line is correct, would have put his leg on King Gustav’s girth. 

We’re going to continue this next week…. But have a play with your leg position meanwhile and see, how close would your leg be to the girth when you really are ear, shoulder, hip heel?

Happy riding!