DAN: "How can I tell if my girth or saddle is causing discomfort
to my horse?"
DR LYDIA GRAY: Well, you are fortunate because I recently
attended the 2018 NEAEP, which stands for Northeast
Association of Equine Practitioners,
and Dr. Sue Dyson, who's from the UK,
she's a world-renowned sports medicine veterinarian
and saddle fitting expert gave not only
a lecture but a wet lab, so a hands-on demonstration.
And we got to participate and feel things.
She had us run through looking at a saddle
and checking the symmetry of the panels underneath.
We checked the points of the tree.
We put the saddle on and then felt
underneath the panel, all the way
from the withers to the back to make sure there was even
pressure, no bridging.
We measured the length of the saddle with T18,
or the last rib.
Yeah, precise, yeah--
DAN: Yeah, you guys really--
DR LYDIA GRAY: We looked how the billets hang,
they should hang vertical and not with a forward lean
or a backward lean.
And then the gullet, which is the open space
on the top of the saddle, where the saddle fits
on the horse's back, that should be about four fingers wide.
And they were four man fingers wide.
DAN: [LAUGHS]
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah.
DAN: So you would slide your fingers
four fingers underneath.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Well, you can just
look at the saddle, put it on your legs.
And then if you can put four fingers between the two panels
in the gullet, then it's wide.
But some of them are very narrow,
and those lay on the spine of the horse.
And so those would not be appropriate.
Those would cause problems right away.
But she had a great quote.
She said, "It's not rocket science.
If your fingers get jammed, it's too tight."
And we're like, Oh, great.
So some red flags for pressure points in the saddle,
or signs of an ill-fitting saddle, which is what she asked
is abnormal hair wear, areas where the hair
coat becomes wavy or ruffled.
Like after you ride, you take it off,
and the hair has been rubbed sort of sideways
or forward, that means the saddle is moving.
So that's a sign.
Dry spots within the sweaty spot.
So if you look where the sweat pattern is
on the horse, and then all of a sudden,
there's a little area of dry, that
indicates that there's localized pressure that's heavy enough
to press hard enough to keep the follicles from sweating.
So that's a focal point.
There can even be focal swellings under the saddle.
So when you take the saddle off, there
could be an area that's raised and elevated
and edematous because the saddle didn't fit right.
DAN: Are there certain areas you should be looking more
concerned about to see them?
DR LYDIA GRAY: Not really.
I mean, anywhere the saddle contacts the horse's back,
you should be observing for these things.
Now there's also signs, like behavioral signs
and performance signs.
She's doing some-- there's a paper out about every year.
And I've got some titles of some that are really good,
and we'll show those at the end.
But she's created what's called an ethogram.
An ethogram is a list or a table of behaviors or activities
that horses or animals, in this cases, horses,
do to demonstrate, in this case, lameness.
But some of them, she is beginning to tie specifically
to saddle fit.
Now I'm just going to read them all.
And again, right now, it's not saddle fit, specifically.
But it's musculoskeletal lameness.
But it's ears back for more than five seconds, mouth opening
for more than 10 seconds, tongue out,
change in eye posture and expression.
She calls it an intense stare, just
looking at one thing and not--
DAN: Just blankly.
DR LYDIA GRAY: --like a soft eye.
You know when you're like-- people have done that.
OK.
Going above the bit, head tossing, head tilting,
unwillingness just to go forward, crookedness,
hurrying, changing or breaking gaits spontaneously,
poor quality canter.
So this could be crooked, changing--
like swapping leads, breaking, also resisting and stumbling,
and toe dragging.
DAN: OK, so these aren't all just related
to saddle fit, but--
DR LYDIA GRAY: They're lameness.
They're signs of pain.
Some of them, she's beginning to say,
when I take away the pain-- like they block a horse during
a lameness exam--
and some of these go away and some remain.
The ones that remain tend to be associated with saddle fit.
DAN: Interesting, because I noticed
as you were reading some of those,
I was like-- there's a couple of horses
who just popped into my brain.
I'm sure for most of you at home too.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah.
So in our wet lab, we got to put a saddle on a horse,
assess the fit with the points I told you earlier.
And then we watched the horse go.
And we would look at the length of stride and how comfortable
the horse was and how much he gooses back,
and if he rounded and went on the bit.
And then we would change the saddle
and see how differently the horse moved.
And so just in the difference of a saddle-- same rider,
same bit, same footing--
the horse went markedly different
just because of the saddle fit, because it gave them
more freedom of shoulder movement, let's say.
DAN: Yeah, so if the saddle is like staying
too tight on the withers or compressing the shoulder too
much, it's going to impact how much they can--
DR LYDIA GRAY: Or it's rocking or it's
slipping from side to side.
Or you can look at where the rider sits.
And the saddle can be leaned back or leaned forward.
It should be level.
So all those kinds of things affect.
She also made a point of saying--
and that's why we have these-- that the girth is
very important too, as is the saddle pad.
So her warning about the saddle pad
is make sure that when you saddle up,
pull that pad up in the gullet of the pommel.
DAN: So it's not pressing down.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Exactly, because she
said the pad itself, just material, can
cause enough pressure on the withers to make the horse sore.
DAN: Just that thin little pad?
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yep, yep.
And then as far as girths, so this one
is the Prestige Anatomic.
Like if the horse was towards you, and the back end was here,
this is the front.
And it provides a little shoulder and elbow relief.
And those are the two-- those are the areas that horses need
some relief in.
So this is a popular girth.
And then she also made a point of saying,
if you get a girth with elastic, make
sure it has elastic on both ends like this one,
because if you have a girth with elastic just on one end,
you can imagine that it pulls differently.
DAN: It's going to have more pull
on one side versus another.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah.
So if you're going to have elastic,
it's got to be equal to equilibrate those forces.
So it was a very interesting wet lab.
DAN: And we're seeing a lot more of these ergonomic designs
in a lot of tack now.
There's the one with girths, and of course, also
now the bridles and things like that,
to provide more comfort and movement for horses.
DR LYDIA GRAY: And the thing with them
is, just because it's labeled ergonomic
or it says it's designed to do something,
it may not do that in your horse.
So you have to read your horse's ethogram.
DAN: [LAUGHS]
DR LYDIA GRAY: And if you put a girth on,
and you have ears back, and he won't go, and he's crooked,
and he's hurrying, he's rushing, maybe that's
not the girth for your horse.
Try a different girth.
And then your horse will tell you,
ah, I like that girth better.
And it might not be an anatomic girth.
It might be a regular just girth,
but he likes that better.
So then you just got to do what he likes.
DAN: It's been my experience that the more expensive it is,
the more my horse likes it.
[LAUGHTER]
DR LYDIA GRAY: That's true.
DAN: But I will say, saddle fitting obviously
can be super challenging to try and find the right fit.
We do have our Test Ride program here at SmartPak.
So you can always have a saddle, have it sent out.
You can ride it like you would your normal saddle,
have your vet, farrier, trainer look at it
to make sure it's a good fit.
And then if it works or it doesn't work,
you can send it right back to us.
DR LYDIA GRAY: The other thing she pointed out
was, if you have a saddle that can be flocked, then--
I assumed-- I had a saddle from Custom Saddlery the Wolfgang
Solo that we sell.
OK and it was fitted to Newman.
I'm like, great, it's all done.
And she said, no, no, horse's backs change in a ride--
DAN: [LAUGHS]
DR LYDIA GRAY: --but certainly seasonally.
So coming out of winner, they might have lost some topline,
and they have a shape.
And so you need to get it restuffed then or looked
at-- at least looked at by a competent saddle fitter.
And then after the show season and you
have clinics and lessons, you're going into winter
when their topline is probably the biggest it's going
to be, it needs to be refitted.
And so she's like, have it done at least twice a year,
if not four times.
And I went, oops, my bad, because I didn't.
DAN: But that's a great point.
I didn't think about that, how much in shape
they are during seasons.
That's a great point.
Well, hopefully, that was helpful for you, Sophia.