Saddling a Horse

When putting a saddle on a horse, it's important to move the saddle forward and backward so that there is no drop to the process. Avoid problems by applying a saddle properly to a horse with helpful advice from a reining horse trainer in this video on saddling a horse.

Now, where I've got my hands, I can just take and roll backwards and then roll forward. The saddle will just end up, rolling right on to his back like that. Ok, there was no drop to it, nothing that was going to cause a problem. Now that roll, what that did, obviously I have an offside stirrup that could end up getting caught, you know against the horse's back and giving a problem as far as getting it up there. But what that roll does and I'll show it to you again. That roll actually starts all of this stuff, the cinch, the front cinch, the back cinch, if you have one, the stirrup, it takes everything and starts it swinging. Ok, it just swings it up. So when I do that it will all just swing up over the horse and lay on the other side. Ok, and basically I just hugged the top of my horse. Alright, now I've got the saddle up there and he, you know that obviously not a problem for him. Then I'm going to take this stirrup hang it up over the horn, pull this strap loose and I'll reach over just cause I'm tall enough to do that. And I'll drop pull that stuff that was laid up against the horse on the other side. Alright, now I can reach in under and grab my cinch, when I've done that notice, how I had this billet stuck right there like that. The reason I like to do that is because when I do grab my cinch, go down through, all I've got to do, is just pull. Now I've got my whole tail and I can just wrap it around again. I always like to go around about twice. Just a safety feature. If that strap breaks and it's only around there once, you are going to fall off. Alright but if it's around there twice, I'll know when it's broke but it probably won't let go of you. Alright so I go around twice and at this point all I want to do is make it snug. I'm not going to pull it up tight enough to go ride right now. I just want it somewhat snug, so that when I do go out and start working with my horse, I'm going to do a little groundwork first. Then I know my saddle is not going to roll off. Alright, I'll tighten it up later. Now if you've got a back cinch, now is the time to do that and do them in right order. The back cinch doesn't go nearly as snug. There's a little room right there. Ok now If I were to go rope or something, I would pull it up a little tighter, later. But right now that's plenty tight enough for what I want to do. Make sure all your straps are up and connected. Find some place where you can get all your straps out of the way.