How to Fit a Dressage Saddle

Today we're going to talk about how to fit a Dressage saddle properly. This is Amicelli, who is a Grand Prix horse, thirteen years old this year, big guy, seventeen, two hands tall. And it's very important to fit a dressage saddle or any saddle for that matter, properly, as it has a major influence on how your horse goes for you, the well being and the progress of your riding and training. So we always start with a saddle pad, a nice saddle pad that fits the horse. Not too small, not too big, especially for a dressage saddle, you want to have it nicely on the wither a little bit. Not too far forward on to the neck and also not too far back. But just a little bit up on the wither, right here. And then you grab your saddle, making sure that the saddle goes on nice and gently, very important. If you're a smaller rider and you have a horse that's very tall, you probably want someone to help you with that. Because you don't want to just plonk the saddle on their backs. You want to be very gentle with that because they are sensitive. So what we want to look for when putting a saddle on, is we want to look that the saddle is having a lot of clearance above the wither. We don't want to see that the saddle is flat, on to the wither here. But there is enough room, enough clearance, so there is nothing pinching. And also that, the saddle is lying nice and straight on their backs. So for him I would ideally need a step stool to see that, from the back. And make sure that the saddle is lying evenly on both sides and not falling off more from, to one side than the other. So we have our saddles adjusted regularly as we use Schleese Saddlery, who was the, actually the saddler for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. And they're really great with their assistance, they come out, you get a professional. They can help you adjust these saddles and they are the professionals. As we as the riders, we do know a little bit about that, but you definitely want someone to help you. Also important, is that you have a lot of clearance here for the shoulder, that the saddle is not sitting too far forward. You want to make sure that the horse is able to have this muscle here and really be able to have freedom of the shoulder. And then the girth is also very important. In this case, for the dressage saddle, we have a girth that is a little bit thicker in the middle. Which you want to evenly apply, on both sides we cross the billets. And we want to make sure that we put it up evenly, four holes on this side, four holes on the opposite side, and not when the girth goes on. This nice big part here will sit in the center of the horse's stomach. Which will also keep the saddle nice and straight on their back.