
Back to saddle fit... While I love my About the Horse Saddle by David Genadek, as-is it started to cause loin soreness on challenging mountain rides (see the orange outlined area in the picture). The first soreness I found was in February after a particularly challenging ride in both distance and elevation (13.3 miles with 4900' elevation change in 4 1/2 hours). David then helped me out and sent some shims. I played with those and found that I could velcro them to the wool underside of the saddle using the rough side of velcro sticky strips which I adhered to the shims. This seemed to be working well, but unfortunately after our last ride Poptart was very sore from mid-back almost to his hip (he is much better already!). As I figure things out about saddle fit I noticed that the saddle seems to have a lot of diagonal rock, meaning when his shoulder movement lifts the left front of the saddle then it pushes it into the right loin (I think). We will see what shimming may help this new challenge!
In the mean time I am trying demo saddles from Trailwise saddles -- they make really interesting
lightweight endurance saddles with shimmable panels, adjustable seat shimming, and adjustable rigging position. I really like the idea of being able to easily tweak the saddle, but we still have to accomplish a good basic tree fit. I tried the flat-bar tree and its seems to flat, it is tight in the shoulder and bridges a bit -- more than can easily be corrected with shims. The other recommended tree style is being shipped for Poptart and I to try. The seat was comfortable and while the saddle is the stripped down lightweight model everything is of very nice quality. In the meantime I fit my old standby treeless Torsion to Poptart today, adjusting the stirrups and breast collar, putting on the sheepskin seat instead of the OEM seat, etc. We will try the Torsion out on our rides this weekend, it is not my favorite as far as riding position and stability. Hopefully it will work for him and see us through No Frills (or I will be able to shim our ATH saddle appropriately).