Imagine you and I are walking down the street side by side and as we start walking I reach over and put 2 fingers on your spine and press down hard right behind your shoulder blades and then I ask you to continue our walk together in this manner.  It would cause your back to hollow and while it may not bother you at first so much but if we walked in such a manner for miles it would leave you sore at the point where the pressure was held and it would cause tense and sore muscles that would not have been normally sored (like on the mares’ neck in the story below) from trying to evade the pressure. 

I happened to watch a television program that was aired on the Horse Channel recently from a Horse Educationalist that wants to sell the Horse Public on their videotapes.  The title of this show was “Adjusting Your Horses’ Attitude” This lady brought her horse into an arena and in front of the Instructor and was asked to explain the problems she was having with this particular horse. The lady claimed she had brought the mare to the clinic because she was a chronic trail wringer but yet explained that she was an excellent horse as far as ground manners. She mounted the mare and then asked her to go forward.  The faster she asked the horse to go the faster the tail wringed. I might take the time to add to this discussion that she had a western saddle on the horse. 

Then the Educator asked the lady to come to the center of the ring and remove the saddle from the horse.  At this time they started poking and prodding amongst the mare’s neck and she really did protest this and they found that she was sore from about 4 inches behind the poll and throat latch back to the wither and then continuing on the wither itself all the way to the point of hip. Well then I was totally surprised that they fully blamed it on it what may have been an old injury that the horse received from being tied before this woman purchased her and that was comprehensible by me AT FIRST.  But THEN in the very next segment that the Instructor was riding the same horse in an English saddle and I saw no tail wringing at all. Here I will take the opportunity to quit commentating on what I saw and tell you what I think.  If it had been me the first thing I would have asked you to check for the bad behavior was the saddle fit. Why did this horse behavior change from the Western Saddle to the English saddle? It may have been that the Western Saddle was to narrow in the gullet and inhibiting free movement or the bar angles of the tree were off offering no support in the shoulder at all thus the riders weight would rest totally on the top of the wither area. But what ever the real cause was it very well could have been that saddle and my point is that the Issue was NEVER EVEN Addressed. Furthermore, rarely is a saddle even checked when it really should be the very FIRST thing ruled out for the cause bad behavior. If you have a horse that has good manners while you are on the ground and then it totally changes disposition under saddle, maybe it is time to check the saddle. 

Checking the fit properly of your current saddle, takes about 15 minutes and it is so simple to do. In this article I will explain to you Proper Saddle Fitting, Accurate Measurements, Correct Bar Angles and Bar spread and will do so in a way that anyone reading this can understand. But first issue I need to address is proper saddle placement so then you are able to do an accurate wither tracing
 
 

Many people place their saddle way to far on the horses’ back behind the wither and then try to do an accurate wither tracing and at that specific point this will not work. The first step to do an accurate tracing is locating the scapula or otherwise known as the shoulder blade.  Finding the scapula is easy. Ask someone to walk your horse as you feel for the back edge of the scapula with your hand. The scapula is the bone that rotates around its axis, and you should be able to feel and see it. Place you thumb or finger on the rear edge of this bone.  This is the place where you actually will do the measurement on the wither just above and slightly behind that bone.

Each person you talk with will tell you a different way to do the tracing but I want to do this accurately as possible while keeping it simple.  Get a piece electrical fencing wire, or heavy coat hanger and cut it 16 inches long and straighten it out just as straight as you can possibly get it. Then measure 8 inches and put a black mark with a sharpie there on the center of that wire. Now place the wire on top your horses’ wither right above and slightly behind the scapula bone centering the black mark you made on the wire directly on top of the wither and then carefully bend the wire down his shoulder on each side making sure that all of the wire is in contact with his flesh while closely following the edge of the scapula.
 

Place to measure

1.  FIND SHOULDER BLADE 2. Take Measurement

With that done, place your current saddle on the ground and roll it over on the ground so that the liner is facing upward. Then take the wire tracing you have and place it in the gullet so that it represents your animals wither. Do not mash it down. Simply slide it in there and when it comes in contact with the liner under the front edge of the tree just leave it there and observe. Here is where you will get an honest answer as to where your animals’ withers are in respect of your saddle bars. The very top of the tracing indicates clearance inside of the gullet. You want this to be at the very least 1 inch of clearance between the top of the wire and the bottom of the swell. 

Now then if your saddle is fitting properly, ALL of the wire except for the top should be touching the lining under the very front of the tree in the saddle at the very angle. *See photos below. The red line in this photo represents what your wire should look like if the saddle is fitting properly. 

The photo with the white triangle is a great way to check to see if the tree of a saddle is the correct size for a horse. Using the same wire that you had for a tracing make a triangle out of a piece of cardboard.  At the point where the wire breached the top of the wither measure straight down straight down about 3 inches and then measure straight across between the 2 points and this will give you the actual gullet measurement that you will need for your saddle. Then if you measure the bottom of the triangle that will give you the bar spread in inches. So according to the wither tracing we did on this gaited horse we would need a saddle that had a 6 inch gullet, and an 11 inch bar. The space between the top point and the bottom of the swell indicates the clearance you will have in your new saddle and ideally it should be at least ¾ to 1 inch.  So now then you just take the piece of cardboard to the retailer and find a saddle with the same dimensions and you can be reasonably sure that it will fit before you buy it.

Now then let's look at a photo of a saddle that is not fitting on the horse properly. If the wire is not touching the liner under the tree bars then the fit is not good. This saddle below with the blue and red lines is too wide at the shoulder for the horse that we did the tracing on because as you can see the wire is actually going away from the tree.  If it were too narrow at the gullet then the wire would not fit up into the tree at all and this indicates the gullet is too narrow and will cause pinching at the wither on the horse. In this case the gullet is good but the wire is away from the tree ½ inch at the bar thus indication that the bar spread is too wide and this will also cause soreness in the wither area because all of the weight of the rider is actually on the wither instead of being fully distributed over the entire area.

A Semi Quarter Horse Tree typically has a 6 inch gullet to a 12 inch bar spread and a full Quarter Horse tree has a 7 to 8 inch gullet and a 13 to 14 inch bar spread. The tree in this diagram is a Semi Quarter Horse Tree is on a gaited horse. Gaited horses are much more narrow than a Quarter Horse and their bar angles are very different. Thus most saddles designed for the gaited horse simply will not fit correctly. 
 
 

This photo shows the same saddle on the horse and you can see how the tree pulls away from the horse in the shoulder area offering no support at all. The bar spread is much too wide for this horse the red line follows the angle of the shoulder and the blue line is following the angle of the bars in the tree.
The photo on the right shows a good fit and it is also the same saddle that the triangle fit into so well.

If you happen to have a horse that is displaying bad behavior after recently purchasing a saddle and his manners have changed dramatically since that time, then the underlying problem most likely is the saddle. By following these simple steps to check proper saddle fit you can avoid a lot of future problems by simply taking a few minutes to see if your saddle passes the triangle test. Not any one saddle made today can fit all horses and you should avoid those who ever make such a claim. Even if you make an accurate measurement on the wither tracing no two horses withers and shoulders are the very same. You goal here is to get as close as you can, and then use different types of padding to see what works the best for the horse that you have. 
 
 

If you have a saddle that fits your horse properly you should notice a big difference gait when the saddle fits him well. His movement will be flowing and smooth, not choppy and hindered. When you mount a saddle that is well conformed to the withers it should not roll off to the side unless you just do not have enough spring to enable you to clear his back without a struggle. For now on let you horse be the judge of a saddle fit. He will sure tell you what he thinks if you are aware enough to listen to him.