Variances in Western Saddles Based on Discipline
Western Saddles
66 www.EliteEquestrianMagazine.com
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Since mankind began riding and saddles were developed
to help keep them astride their mounts, the original purpose
was based on supporting the function of the horse.
Saddles were designed to accommodate the use – whether
it was military, side-saddles to allow women to ride, mail
delivery, herding cows, etc. Recent years have seen a
change from strictly function to include fashion (bling, silver,
etc.) And even more recently, as the demographics of
riders as a whole has changed to include primarily women,
gender considerations have been added to the mix of
saddle design for both English and Western disciplines.
In Western Riding it seems to be that riders have been
willing to spend quite a bit of money to get the right ‘look’
with fashionably appliquéd saddles incorporating beautiful
tooling and silver accoutrements. However, the basic
design of the saddle (i.e. the ‘style’ for which of the various
western disciplines) include many variations in the seat,
fork, swell, horn, cantle, and skirts. All of these can change
with the discipline mainly for the rider. Western saddles are
classified into different categories by fork style, intended
use, tree type, breed type, material type, and production
technique. Let’s look at some of the more popular types of
western saddles by intended use:
Cutting saddles are designed to separate a single animal
from the herd. These are not overly secure saddles, but
designed to keep the rider balanced and out of the way
during starts, stops and turns. They can also be used for
reining.
Calf roping saddles are made for demanding use and
maximum freedom of movement for the rider. This saddle
must have an extremely strong tree and horn, with a lower
cantle for easier dismount. The seat is usually deep and
covered in suede for grip.
For barrel racers where the saddle is designed for speed,
the cantle is higher, the horn is thinner and longer (easier to
hold on to) and the swell and cantle are built to wedge the
rider into position, so when the rider comes out of the gate
and has to make turns at full speed she sits securely. Many
saddles also feature wider gullets and greater flare on the
bars to help the horse move freely, and with forward hung
stirrups to keep the rider in position by being able to brace
the legs. Since females also compose the majority of barrel
racers, these saddles are often very flashy with bold colours
and materials.
In Western reining, the saddle cantle and swell are lower
and the pitch of the seat is higher to be able to seat the
rider further back in the saddle to stay out of the horse’s
way. A reining saddle needs to provide the rider with the
close contact needed to communicate subtle commands
to the horse for the meticulous patterns of circles, spins,
and sliding stops.
For the relatively newer sport of Cowboy Dressage or Western
Dressage, the ground seat, the cantle, the swell and
skirts are designed to place the rider more forward and
over the centre of balance on the horse’s back. The movement
in this discipline is somewhat different from that in any
other Western discipline. The horse’s head is ridden very
low so that back comes up – which means a different fit is
required from a western saddle in any other discipline.
Most western saddles have always focused more on fitting
the rider, since there is very limited fitting to the horse that
can actually be done. This was actually not traditionally
necessary as the quarter bars, semi-quarter bars, or Arab
bars were basically the only changeable options that were
needed in the past. The horses used for western disciplines
were usually generically ‘average’ quarter horses. These
quarter horses were kept pretty pure in their breeding lines
(which led to a whole other issue resulting from issues arising
from genetic inbreeding – in particular, for example
HYPP (Hyper Kalemic Periodic Paralysis), but that has nothing
to do with saddle fit, so I’ll only briefly mention this in a
sidebar below). Suffice it to say that western saddle fitting
is now much more complicated since many more breeds
are being ridden within the various disciplines, regardless
of natural proclivity based on background to one type of
equestrian discipline or other. Certain breeds were for certain
jobs and there was less cross-breeding back then.
The options for the rider on a Western saddle have increased
in recent years as well. For example, the bars as
one variable can now be ordered with 6 different options
with innumerable variations in each combination of
choices:
• Length of the bar
• “Twist” of the bar (this is a different term than what we
use for English saddles) The ribcage of a horse is angled
more steeply near the shoulders than towards the back
• Curvature of the bars = ‘rock’
• width of the bars (mainly in the front)
• flare of the bars (how much the bars flare up in front of
the swell and behind the cantle)
• angle of the bar (mainly towards the front)
Schleese has taken this individualization one step further
and offers split bars and split ground seats to allow both
male and female riders on the same saddle, as well as
fitting options to accommodate different horse conformations.
The main commonality for both Western and English
saddles – regardless of discipline - is that the saddle must
distribute the weight of the rider and the saddle over a
large weight bearing surface (the panels) without putting
undue pressure on very sensitive areas. The saddle needs
to align the horizontal spine of the horse with the vertical
spine of the rider to allow them to move in complete harmony
to accomplish whatever goal they have in whatever
discipline they choose.
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