When padding a horse before applying a saddle, make sure that the pad is clean of sawdust or anything that could scratch the horse. Find out how to roll a pad softly onto a horse's back with helpful advice from a reining horse trainer in this video on saddling a horse.
Now we've got him all brushed up, braided up, we've checked the legs everything is good. We've even cleaned out his feet. So this horse is really ready for us to go ahead and saddle up. Now I'm going to take a nice pad like this, make sure it's clean of any sawdust, anything that would scratch him or irritate him. And then I'm going to roll it up onto his back. I don't like to just throw things on a horse's back, they'll develop a little bit of an attitude, as far as the saddling process. I'm going to straighten him up here just a little bit. Alright, now I want him to like this process so I'm not going to throw things on his back. It's all going to get rolled up there like that ok. Just a nice little soft roll. Again I'll do that for you. And I'm going to do my saddle the same way. I'm just going to take the saddle or this pad and just roll it up there. Not drop it on him but just nice and softly roll it up there. So he's ok with that. Then I'm going to grab my saddle, and there's a certain way to saddle the horse as well. Now you can grab your saddle like this, alright, but the problem with just grabbing your saddle like this is there's only about one option as far as being able to get the saddle on your horse. And that's to throw it up and let it drop. Now just talking about the horse, getting a little bit of an attitude about the saddling process and that's one of the reasons that will happen, is just the saddle getting dropped on top of his back. So I want to roll it up there, kind of like I just did the pad., So the way you are going to carry the saddle, instead of holding it like this, I'm going to put a hand on the back here and a hand on the front here and I'm going to hold my saddle like this right against my hip. This is going to allow me to swing the saddle up onto the horse's back or roll it up there like I just did with the pad. Now I'm going to make sure the pad is in the right place again. Alright, where it's right up protecting his withers and in the right spot. Alright I'm going to straighten Sparky up here a little bit so I've got room to roll the saddle.
