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How Your Half Pad Can Make or Break Your Ride
So many of us use them, and for so many different reasons. Whether you choose your half pad for the softness that offers extra cushion for our horses’ backs, the pretty colors that contrast our saddle pad so beautifully, or the inserts that offer extra shock absorption or the ability to shim up the saddle… half pads are becoming almost as much of an art and science as saddle fitting! This is good news and bad news. On the one hand, buying a half pad is a much smaller investment than buying a new saddle, and for the almost-fits-perfectly saddle, the right half pad can be exactly what the doctored…
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The Easiest Way to Test for Saddle Balance
How your saddle sits on your horse influences how you sit in your saddle. Once you become aware of this relatively simple fact, you’ll never not notice it again. But I see people riding in improperly balanced saddles all the time, and they are usually struggling to maintain their own position and balance, which of course makes it very hard for them to ride their horse effectively… it’s basically a downward spiral. So what can you do easily, daily even, to double check your balance? Post the trot stand-stand-sit-stand-stand-sit and see if you can get into a rhythm. As an exercise, it’s challenging enough on its own, but it’s the…
