Category: Saddle Fitting

Did you know that 80-90% of horses experience back problems?

Many riders assume these issues come from poor riding posture, but the biggest culprit is often the saddle itself—an ill-fitting saddle can cause discomfort, pressure points, and long-term physical damage to both horse and rider.

Unfortunately, many horses suffer in silence. As natural prey animals, they are conditioned to tolerate discomfort. But just because they endure it doesn’t mean they should have to.

Recognizing Saddle Pressure: It Starts Before You See the Signs

Many riders believe saddle pressure issues show up as white hairs, swelling, edema, or dry spots—but by the time these visible signs appear, the damage is already well underway.

Instead, the earliest indicators of saddle discomfort are found in your horse’s behavior. The key to catching problems before they become serious is palpation—physically checking your horse’s back for tenderness before and after riding.

This hands-on method is:
✅ More accurate than computer-generated saddle fit measurements.
✅ Immediate—you can check your horse right now, no fancy tools required.
✅ Cost-effective—it doesn’t require expensive diagnostic equipment.

To get the best results, palpate your horse:
📌 Before riding – Establish a baseline.
📌 Immediately after riding – Look for sensitivity or soreness.
📌 48 hours later – Just like humans feel soreness two days after a tough workout, horses experience delayed-onset muscle pain too.

👉 Want to see palpation in action? Check out my YouTube Playlist “Palpating Your Horse” for a step-by-step guide.

The Truth About Saddle Pads & Shims

Many riders turn to pads and shims to “fix” saddle pressure issues. While these solutions can provide short-term relief, they don’t eliminate the underlying problem—an ill-fitting saddle.

Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on temporary fixes, a System X saddle helps distribute pressure evenly across your horse’s back, reducing the need for additional padding.

How Does a Horse’s Back Move?

To understand why conventional saddles create pressure points, let’s look at how a horse moves:

🐎 Standing still: A horse’s back has a slight arch. A rigid saddle can “bridge,” leaving a gap in the center and causing pressure at the front and back.
🐎 Turning: One side of the horse’s body shortens while the other stretches. A conventional saddle can’t adapt, increasing pressure on one side.
🐎 Lowered head / downhill movement: The spine flattens, shifting pressure to the front of a rigid saddle.

The result? A conventional saddle will always create pressure points—it’s just a matter of when and where.

Why System X Saddles Make a Difference

System X technology allows the saddle to move and flex with the horse’s back, rather than working against it. Unlike rigid saddles that lock the horse into a fixed shape, System X panels adjust dynamically to distribute weight evenly.

To illustrate the difference, think about a metal-frame hiking backpack:

🎒 If it’s too small or too big, it rubs, creates pressure points, and causes discomfort—even injury.
🎒 Now imagine running, jumping, and climbing hills with it on—that’s what a horse experiences with an ill-fitting saddle.

You can test your own saddle fit by sliding your hand under it (without extra pads) and checking the front, center, and rear:
👉 Without a rider, do you feel gaps or pressure points?
👉 With a rider, do you feel pinching?

What your fingers feel in that moment is what your horse feels for the entire ride.

One-Size-Fits-All? Not for Saddles.

Horses come in an endless variety of shapes and sizes—yet most conventional saddles rely on 8-15 standard tree patterns. Look at any pasture, even within a single breed, and you’ll see massive variations in:
✅ Shoulder width
✅ Wither height
✅ Back length and shape
✅ Croup angle

Can a factory-made saddle truly accommodate all of this?

A System X saddle is designed to adapt to your horse’s changing shape, giving them the freedom of movement they need—without pressure points.

---

The Bottom Line: Change the Saddle, Not the Horse.

Horses are incredible athletes, constantly growing and changing. A saddle should move with them, not force them into a rigid shape.

If your horse has been showing signs of discomfort, it might be time to consider a better-fitting solution.

Want to learn more? Check out Are there Options? to explore the next step in saddle fit solutions.

Photo courtesy of Carlee Strack

I have been there, wondering what are the options and how much am I going to have to spend on a saddle?  How long will it fit before I am on the search again?  What if it doesn’t fit me too?

How can the traditional saddling industry, cover all the variations of shape of our horses? Not to mention riders?! Truth is, they can’t.

At best, they offer only a handful of saddle tree patterns to choose from, then you and your horse must conform to those few choices. That is like saying that you must only select a pair of pants to wear from only 4 sizes.

Now that we have established the fundamental variation in horse backs, we still have the problem of how the shape of a horse changes with movement.

Finally, the same horse is continuously changing over the course of its life! As the result of growth, aging, training, conditioning, feeding, etc. its contours are constantly evolving.

This last point alone means you need to alter a production saddle or acquire a new saddle every six to twelve times over the course of a horse’s life. An investment for sure.

If all of this wasn’t bad enough, another structural problem now arises, the pressure load on the horse’s body resulting from the rider’s weight.

What does all that do to the horse?

As we know, excessive pressure damages the hair, skin and all of the tissues underneath.  That is where the dry spots, white hairs and sometimes even open sores can occur, all from pressure. 

Let’s take a look for example at an English saddle.  An average English saddle has a supporting surface on the horse’s body of approximately 27 square inches. Then, we put another 165 lbs onto the saddle – the rider.

This gives us a load of 39 oz. per square inch. Acceleration, gravitation, etc. may at least double this value during movement, producing a load of 78 oz. per square inch.

Let’s repeat this calculation with a western saddle. An average western saddle has a supporting surface of 96 sq in. 

Let’s take our 165 lb rider again, giving us a load of 28 oz. per square inch or 55 oz. per square inch during movement.

These values are valid for contact over 100% of the supporting area. As we know however, the horse alters its shape during movement, making this 100% completely impossible to attain.

Even if you add at least 1/4 to the load, your calculations will still be very much skewed in favor of the saddle. Now, think back to that 24 oz limit once again.

So for review, any activity that involves concussion (jumping, posting, etc.,) will effectively double or even triple the rider’s weight.

What is that doing to our pound per square inch?

Are we causing damage?

The only way to know is by palpation. You can see a video how to palpate your horse!

What are the options?

Is a flexible saddle tree an option?

This was out of the question, since it would not solve the basic problems of fitting the horse AND providing a stable seat for the rider.

It should not be like sitting on a sponge. But that would be the logical consequence if the saddle tree were to actually follow the horse’s movement.

Another effect would be a sagging of the tree, which would in turn concentrate the weight on certain points especially the spine The final point against the flexible tree was that it would not have a large enough supporting surface to meet our – or rather the horse’s – needs.

An adjustable saddle (bars & gullet)? Well yes, not such a bad idea but here again it would still be subject to the basic constraints of fitting it to the horse.

Also, any adjustment reaches a limit at some point, not to mention that in this case the “normal rider” is always dependent on assistance from others (saddle dealers). In addition, we did not want something that is calibrated but something that changes continuously.

First, because there are almost infinite variations among horses, but also because these variations are gradual and not divided into standardized sizes.

These comments also apply of course to these interesting variations of “saddle systems” that work with individually added padding.

The Option of Custom made saddles?

On the basis of all these considerations, we rejected the idea of custom made saddles from the beginning. Even a custom-made saddle can only, in the best-case scenario, fit the horse 100% in a standing position, and then only with respect to the horse’s present state.

A treeless saddle? 

Also not such a great idea. With this, there is no need to take the traditional fit parameters into account. But there remains the problem of uneven, selective weight distribution.

And the added problem of the pressure load on the spiny processes, because a treeless “saddle” cannot keep this area clear.

Which is what makes the treeless saddle not the ideal to fit both horse and rider.  Although a better option than saddle that doesn’t fit at all on a horse where a treeless at least allows them to move in some comfort. 

Independence between fit for rider and fit for the horse!

A saddle in which the supporting surface is independent of the saddle tree, conforms to the widest variety of horses, then able to adapt to the horse during movement. Additionally is large enough to distribute the weight over an area that is more than sufficient.

Thus the purpose of a saddle. To offer the rider support while distributing the rider’s weight over a large surface area.

This was the beginning of the various systems that revolutionized the panel saddle.

With the System X there is a strong, inflexible tree as a “chassis” to give the rider the desired stability. Mounts are attached to this tree to connect it to the panels.

These mounts are shaped to allow the panel to move in all three dimensions (up, down, side-to-side)– independently of the tree! In order to guarantee that the weight is distributed over the whole panel, we have chosen a material that is very smooth and flexible – Delrin.

At the same time, it is strong enough to distribute the force over the entire surface. This was very important, because only in this way will it work as a whole.

Of course, there are many saddles “out there” that resemble these panels, where the panels give way in the front and behind, but they are not really able to actually distribute the weight.

All other saddles – whether flexible or traditional – have one thing in common: you ride these saddles on the bars of the saddle tree, which is the source of the problems.

Finally, let us repeat the calculations we have just done of the load per square centimeter [inch] on the horse’s back.

Our saddles have an average supporting area of 324 sq. in. This means that the calculations result in values of 20-40 oz. per sq. in.

And since our panels join in the movement, we don’t need to make any reductions in the supporting surface. We are obviously far below the 105-gram limit.

As you can see it is actually quite easy to build a saddle that is truly horse friendly.

Photo courtesy of Carlee Strack

I am contacted almost everyday from folks that have picked up a pre-owned flexible panel saddle and have trouble their first time out with the saddle.

Sometimes this has to do with fit or functionality of the panels, but most of the time it has to do with placement of the saddle on the horse’s back.  

Because so many people have requested help with fitting a flexible panel saddle, I decided to dedicate an article to the subject. 

Sox vs a Pad or Rug

Rule number one, never use a pad or rug that is over ½ inch thick under any flexible panel saddle.  A thicker pad will prevent the panels from functioning.

Rule number two, when using anything other than Sox or Booties on a panel saddle you must tent the entire spine by pulling the pad or rug up into the spine of the saddle, from the front to the rear.

For optimal performance Sox or Booties are the best choice. Since Sox and Booties attach to each panel individually there is never any pad to mess with.  

You just saddle up. This will make you the envy of your riding friends as you saddle up in half the time. 

Saddle Placement

Saddle placement is where the first mistakes are made.  When you look at a panel saddle you need to ignore the panels.  

With a rigid tree saddle you place the front of the saddle bar 2-3 fingers behind the scapula. Think of the point at the swell base on a panel saddle as the front of the bar of a rigid tree saddle.  It is from there that you apply that 2-3 finger measurement. 

This will cause the panel to overlap the scapula by up to three inches. That is OK, because fingers are cut into the front of the panel that will allow that scapula full freedom of movement.

After placing the saddle, step back and make sure the saddle is level from swell/pommel to cantle.  If it is not level, then the placement is off or you may need shims.  (There are some extreme exceptions, but those are special cases.)

Cinching or Girthing up

Once the saddle is placed in the right spot and the top is level, it’s time to check and  adjust the rigging so that the girth or cinch will fall along the heart girth area on that horse. 

When adjusting the crossfire rigging, be sure that the tension is the same on both straps that attach to the saddle. If the tension is not even in the rigging straps it will cause an unstable feeling when riding. 

Rule number three when cinching/girthing up NEVER use one that has elastic attached to the buckles. Elastic cinches/girths will cause the saddle to ride like a car without shocks because the panels provide the give that the elastic would be providing to a rigid tree saddle.

So how tight do you tighten a saddle like this? 

My best description is you tighten like you always have and then just a lil bit more. Basically, you are over tightening a little bit. Once in the saddle, reach down and feel the difference. You’ll notice that the cinch or girth is not as tight as it was, that’s the flex of the panel.

 While saddling this type of saddle is different, it really isn’t that different from what you were taught, so don’t let it overwhelm you.

As always, if you have any questions never hesitate to contact me!

Or reach out to me on Facebook or Instagram…

Photo courtesy of Carlee Strack