Let's Twist Again ...

Twist width is probably one of the most frequent "rider-fit" issues I run into.  As with so many facets of saddle fitting, it's a very subjective thing; Person A's perfect twist may make Person B feel as though they're sitting on the narrow side of a 2"x4", while Person B's perfect twist may make Person A feel as though his/her hips are being torqued out of joint.  I fall firmly into the "narrower twist" camp.  I love my Passier GG, I love the Black Country Eden, and I'll even cop to loving the ride of the old, hard German Stubben dressage saddles (the Tristan in particular).  However, my mare will turn 15 this spring, and has developed a bit of middle-age (read: hoop tree) spread ... No matter how much work I put into her, she'll never be the same shape as she was when she was 7 ...  And given that I'm 50 and will never again return to my pre-childbearing 26-year-old size 8 shape, I don't feel as though I ought to be pointing any fingers.

Anyway, this means Lyric will be moving into a hoop tree, which means that I will be riding a wider twist.  You see, twist width is determined by tree width AND by tree type.  The rails on a spring tree should be at the same angle as the tree point; that means the wider the tree, the flatter the rails and therefore the wider the twist. In the photo below, the tree on the left is an extra wide hoop tree, and the tree on the right is a medium-wide standard tree.  (Ideally, for comparison's sake,  the two types of trees would have been the same width, but I'm working with what's lying around my bench!)

Here's a shot comparing the rail and tree point angles (hoop tree on top, standard on bottom):

As you can see, the angle of the rails and tree points agree on each individual tree, but the angles on the hoop tree are much flatter (and this would still be true if the tree width were the same).

Here's the twist on the standard tree:

And here's the twist on the hoop tree:

It's not a huge difference - roughly an inch - and for some people it wouldn't be an issue.  But for some, their personal conformation would make it very hard to accommodate that extra inch.  Hopefully I'll be in the former camp, but we'll find out come spring ...

Mythbusters, Inc.

Here we are, more than four months into a new year and a new decade.  I remember being in my teens and doing the math to find out how old I'd be in the year 2000 ... and not being able to imagine being that old.  And now I'm 10 years older than that.  Little did I know ...

There were lots of things I believed in my youth that have turned out to be fallacious:  "Wait an hour after a meal to go swimming.  If you don't, you'll get a cramp and drown."  (I rarely go in over my head, and "You'll get a cramp while you're wading" just doesn't have the same impact.)   "Eating raw potatoes will give you worms."  (I love raw potatoes, and if I have worms, they're very quiet tenants.)  And the biggest, courtesy of my French-Canadian Catholic grandmother:  "At midnight on Christmas Eve, the animals in the barn bow down to honor the birth of the baby Jesus."  (Ever the pragmatist, I snuck out to the barn one Christmas Eve when I was about 6, sat quietly, and watched.  Midnight came and went, and while most of the cows and some of the horses were lying down, there was no bowing to be seen.  This not only made me question the whole organized religion thing - it also blew some pretty big holes in Grandma's credibility.)

There are also a lot of old saws regarding saddles and saddle fitting that should be laid to rest.  Some are based on outdated practices or technology, and some were never really true to begin with.

1)  "If the saddle is the right size for you, you'll be able to fit your hand between the back of your butt and the edge of the cantle."   Perhaps back in the day when English saddle design was pretty static, this might have been true.  Now, however, it's pretty much gone the way of the dodo.  If you look at the deep seat and high cantle on some dressage saddles, or the swept-back cantle on some cross-country saddles, you'll see what I mean.  The length and set of the flaps, and the placement of the blocks are also important - if the seat's ok but the flap or blocks are wrong, the rider won't be comfy:

The seat on this saddle is sufficiently large - it would be too large for some people's taste - but unless the rider lengthens the leather considerably, her knee is going to be over the block and off the flap.  A more forward-set flap would be needed if the rider is not comfortable with a longer leg.

Now here's an example of a saddle that's just too darn small - we're almost talking "thong with stirrups" here:

Probably another inch of seat length, and perhaps a more generous flap, would make the saddle a much better fit.

 Also, personal preference plays a large part here.  Some people like to feel a little more cradled, while some prefer a bit more room to move.  If you feel balanced and comfortable, and can ride well and effectively, then the seat's the right size for you.

2)  "Foam panels are no good because they break down so quickly."   This was pretty true in the beginning.  Anyone who's old enough to have had one of the first English saddles with foam in the padded flaps will tell you that it degraded in pretty short order and became this nasty, grainy sand-like stuff that would magically leach out and cling with great tenacity to the knee patches on your breeches.  Unfortunately, the first foam panels behaved in pretty much the same manner.  The good news is that today's foams are far more resilient.  They don't conform to a horse's back the way wool does, which makes them a good choice for a "one saddle, multiple horse" situation (providing, of course, the fit is basically correct for all the horses it's being used on).  And if something does happen that affects the integrity of the foam, the saddle can be sent back to the manufacturer and the foam can be replaced.

3)  "You should have 3 fingers' clearance between your horse's wither and the gullet of the saddle."   This has changed to a much less exacting "adequate clearance."  With some horses and saddles, three fingers will be about right ... and on some, it may be 4 fingers, and on some, only one.  Hoop trees, for example, are designed to sit lower on the horse than standard trees, in order to minimize lateral instability on the sausage bodies.  Here's an example of a hoop tree that's fitting well (note the green lines showing angle of the back and angle of the tree points).  There's not 3 fingers' clearance there, but the fit is correct:

4)  "Buy a saddle with a wide tree and you can pad it to fit any horse."  I'm going to go back to my favorite analogy here and compare that to buying a pair of size 14 shoes and thinking they'll fit everyone if they just wear enough pairs of socks.  I know there are some big-name trainers out there who subscribe to that theory, but if a tree's way, way too wide for a horse, you can have it sitting up on 4 or 5 or 6 pads, and it still won't fit properly.  And in addition, you'll run into lateral stability problems if your saddle is perched 3" off your horse's back on a drift of multiple pads.  Just not a good idea.

5)  "Women want saddles with wide twists, and men want saddles with narrow twists."  I covered this in a blog post way back in March of '09 (http://saddlefitter.blogspot.com/2009/03/twist-and-shout.html), so I won't go into tons of detail -  I'll just reiterate and say that I've never found much truth in that particular statement.  I'm a woman, and I like a narrow twist; two women here in the shop like a wide twist.  So go figure.  If I ever get to the point where I can peg twist width preference and fit for the rider as easliy as I can assess fit for the horse, I'll retire in under five years.

6)  "High withered horses need narrow trees for wither clearance."  High withered horses rarely need narrow trees.  I've been fitting saddles for a decade or so, and in that time I've run into two horses that really needed a narrow tree (and strangely enough, when their fitting needs were met, they both developed muscle and had to be re-fit with medium trees).  Often, high withered horses need modified panels:  a K or trapezius panel, a wither or full front gusset, or a deeper rear gusset.  Putting a narrow tree on a horse just because of a big wither will actually cause more muscle atrophy under the tree points and actually exacerbate the fitting problems.

7)  "Steeple-withered horses are built that way because they've never had a saddle that fits them properly."  As I said in #6, trying to fit a big wither with a narrow tree can make a bad matter worse.  But there are times when saddle fit isn't the culprit - genetics are.  If you've been on the Trumbull Mtn. website at all, you might be familiar with this photo:

(Sorry it's so pixellated - I can't find the original and had to pull this one from the site.)  This is a fairly young horse at the beginning of his under saddle career.  That wither's a fitting challenge, and could be made worse by a bad fit, but it comes directly from Mom and / or Dad, not from a saddle.

8)  "Getting a custom made saddle is the only way to get a really high-quality saddle, and if you have a hard-to-fit horse, it's the only way to fit them correctly."  Any saddle company out there is going to make the best saddle it possibly can, whether it's a stock model or a custom job.  And as for fitting hard-to-fit horses ... in all the time I've been fitting saddles, I've yet to see a horse that really, truly needed a fully custom saddle.  Some need a bench-made saddle - that is, a stock model made with certain modifications - and some have needed one saddle built on another saddle's tree.  But as far as honestly needing a custom tree and a custom saddle built on it?  Nah.  It's a nice way to spend your disposable income, and the snob appeal is undeniable, but I've yet to see it be an absolute necessity.

Twist and Shout

When discussing saddle fit for the rider, one issue that almost invariably comes up is twist width – I’d even go so far as to say it’s one of the top three concerns, along with seat size and balance. Some people like a wide twist, some a narrow, and some like something in between; for some people it depends on the make and model of saddle, or whether it’s a jump saddle or a dressage saddle. But everyone has a preference, and it’s an important aspect of correctly fitting the rider.

I’ve heard lots of different theories regarding who needs which twist. Some people say men need wide twists and women need narrow twists. I am female, and can’t ride in a dressage saddle with a wide twist – I either feel as though my hip joints are being torqued out, or I fall back into a chair seat.

Another theory states that if you’ve had children (obviously, this one only applies to us females), you’ll want a wide twist. Well, I’ve had two kids, and still like a narrow twist; conversely, my co-worker Sara has never had kids, and she likes a narrow twist – while Edie, who’s never had kids, prefers a wider twist. Finally, there's Nancy, who's had one kid and prefers a wider twist. So I'm not thinking that particular theory holds water very well.

I’ve heard that it depends on the spacing of your seat bones, and found myself wading through an unholy number of exhaustively detailed e-mails from one of my Yahoo groups, explaining methods of measuring the distance between your seat bones and how that measurement should correspond to your twist preference.

I’ve heard of measuring pelvic tilt, crotch clearance, pubic arch, thigh size, butt size … and I’m still as clueless about who's going to prefer which twist as I ever was.

In my experience, there are so many things that come into play when you’re talking about twist width that it’s only a small part of the picture. The set of the flap, the style of the saddle, the rise of the pommel, the placement of the stirrup bars and the overall balance of the saddle make a difference in how the twist feels. Example: I can ride quite comfortably in a close contact or jump-focus all-purpose saddle with a wide twist, because I’m shortening my stirrup. Think of sitting on a whiskey barrel: sure, you can do it if you bring your thighs forward, but if you try to make your leg hang straight down to get the correct ear-shoulder-hip-heel line, you’ll probably pop off like a clothes pin on a piece of pipe (or dislocate your hips).

Twist width is a determined by the distance between and the angle of the saddle tree rails. Since the rails should be parallel to the horse’s back, a saddle made for a wider horse will have a flatter rail than a saddle made for a “roof-backed” horse.

Here's the tree of a Black Country Eden, with the angle of the rails marked in red. This saddle works well for the scoopy, more "roof" shaped back:

Here's the same tree in a completed saddle:

By contrast, here's the tree of a Black Country Eloquence, which works for a wider, flatter (front-to-rear) back:

And here's the tree in a completed saddle:




As you can see, the twist on the Eloquence is wider than the twist on the Eden.

And just for comparison, here's the Duett Largo, which is designed for a very wide, very flat back (wish I had one of their trees to show you). The twist on this saddle is quite wide:





So - are there any saddles with narrow twists that work on the real barrel-bodies? Not really, at least in my experience. The problem with trying to get a narrow twist saddle on a real table-back is that you either have to have a much thicker panel to protect the horse from a too-steep rail angle, or you need to build a twist with foam on the seat, and both options will leave you perched up above your horse's back rather than in good close contact.