Question on saddles for Heather.

[Gwenllian]

I've never ridden in a dressage saddle before.Because of my hip problem,I need a certain amount of 'armchair'posture.I've got unrecognisably better recently, found myself a dressage trainer who thinks like you do, but I think my improvement as far as leg position has probably reached its peak now.I get tremendous back ache AFTER riding, if I put my legs right underneath me.I need my hips to be slightly forward,because of the curve my spine has adopted in order to cope with my pelvic tilt when I'm standing.However,I'd love to have a dressage saddle now,but do they ALL have the stirrup bars far back so that I would HAVE to adopt this posture?? Any recommendations??Also, do they ALL have a very high cantle, as it causes me a big problem when I'm dismounting,getting my leg over the cantle.I can't get my leg over the front to dismount that way unfortunately.

[Edited by Gwenllian on 19th Aug 2000 at 07:20 PM]

 

[Heather]

HI Gwenllian,

No, no other dressage saddle has the stirrup bars as far back as mine, nor GP for that matter. This is the whole crux of the difference in my saddles and others, and why I found it necessary to design my own in the first place.

For riders with a physical problem, mine are less suitable. What can help is to have an adjustable stirrup bar so that as you improve, you may find that you can get your knee and thigh a but deeper. The adjustable bar means that you can put it back little by little. Few saddles are made with them, but we can put them on my leather ones no problem. I used always to use them as previous saddlers would not put the bars back as far as I wanted them, said it couldn't be done, whch Barry my saddler has since proeven them wrong!

I am wary about using the ones that we used to, as I did have one bar break. Barry has his own design of asjustable bars which are long tried and tested, being the original ones available, and which he designed.

Heather