The First Saddle for Your Young Horse

Just put any old saddle on the horse? Better not!
 
The first experiences your young horse has with its saddle influence the course of its entire training: whether your horse keeps its trust, openness and enthusiasm for learning depends heavily on these experiences being positive ones. Getting used to the saddle should happen gradually (saddle pad → girth → saddle) and calmly. And: the saddle must never become a source of discomfort, pain or restricted movement.
 
What's more, an ill-fitting saddle can cause your young horse serious, irreversible physical damage. Mechanical overload from a saddle that doesn't distribute the rider's weight well or loads the horse's back in the wrong places: 

• damages muscles, connective tissue, tendons, cartilage and bone,
• prevents healthy growth of muscles and skeleton,
• leads to blockages / muscle atrophy, and
• promotes malformations like kissing spines and inflammatory conditions like laminitis.

Even though experienced riders seem to form an elegant unit with their horse, the rider's weight is, first and foremost, an unfamiliar and uncomfortable load for the horse's back. The job of the saddle is to distribute this load as well as possible, thereby reducing the pressure acting on the horse's back. The larger the bearing surface of the saddle, the lower the saddle pressure.
 
However, the usable bearing surface of the horse's back is limited: at the front by the shoulder, at the back by the last rib. The withers and spine must also stay free of saddle weight. A larger bearing surface can therefore only be created by widening the saddle panels.
 
This is the path Iberosattel® has taken with the Comfort Pad, our extra-wide saddle padding. A saddle with a widened bearing surface is especially important for young horses with a short back, since there tends to be too little bearing surface in terms of length. And with the exception of very narrowly built horses, every young horse benefits from the Comfort Pad.

In short: the saddle for your young horse must fit perfectly. Be as comfortable as possible. And not restrict the horse's movement. In detail, that means: 

• Low saddle weight
• Soft padding
• Large, wide bearing surface
• Good adaptation to the contour of the horse's back
• Spinal freedom
• Shoulder and wither freedom
• Adjustable saddle tree and padding

Young horses are still developing. Both their skeleton and their musculature change – sometimes in real growth spurts. A saddle that fits today may pinch the day after tomorrow. Unless you want to buy a new saddle every few months, the saddle for the young horse needs to grow with it:
 

• The saddle tree must be adjustable.
• The saddle panels should be easy to re-pad or re-stuff. 

With such a saddle, your young horse is well equipped for its multi-year growth phase, and you'll likely even be able to use the saddle for your horse's whole life. That's why a carefully chosen adjustable saddle for young horses is a thoroughly sensible investment – and is allowed to cost a little more.

A young horse is only able to carry a rider's weight without physical harm from a certain age onward. The main reason for this is the skeleton, which isn't yet fully grown and therefore not fully ossified, with cartilaginous growth plates that can be damaged by loading too early. And the mental maturity needed to learn aids and follow them willingly also only develops once a horse is no longer a very young, boisterous youngster.
 
The right time to start riding is always an individual matter too. Still, there are standards that most horse owners follow: most horses are started under saddle at the age of three to four. So-called late developers get a bit more time – for draft horses, Tinkers, Icelandic horses or PREs, for example, the serious business usually only starts at five years.
 
However, getting used to wearing a saddle should start earlier: begin at least a few weeks before you plan to start riding. Even with late developers, it can make sense to start saddle habituation as early as the 3rd or 4th year of life, placing the saddle during groundwork and walks, and later during lungeing too.

Iberosattel® is a saddlery based in Freystadt, Bavaria. We make high-quality dressage saddles, baroque saddles and western saddles for discerning leisure riders, who not only want to ride comfortably themselves, but also want to keep their horses healthy, happy and capable with an optimally fitting saddle.
 
Here's what you can expect from an Iberosattel®:
 
Lightweight saddle
 
Our lightest models – the dressage saddle Dressage Andaluz, the Córdoba Comfort and the pony saddle El Piccolino – weigh just 6 kilograms. And our western saddle Simply Pure Comfort is a genuine lightweight in its class too, at 8 kilograms.
 
Adjustable saddle tree
 
All our saddles have a saddle tree with infinitely adjustable tree width via the head plate. Adjustment can be done on site and repeated at any time, without any material fatigue. On our Premium Line, other fit aspects such as the angling of the saddle tree can also be changed.
 
Wide saddle panel with an extra-large bearing surface
 
The Iberosattel® Comfort Pad, built from several soft padding layers, is significantly wider than conventional wedge or banana panels – and is fitted precisely to your horse. Thanks to the Comfort Pad's large bearing surface, the saddle distributes the rider's weight optimally. For your horse, that means: less saddle pressure, more comfort. With the Comfort Compact Pad, there's a version of our saddle padding suited to short horses too.
 
Adaptable padding
 
Rather than being permanently sewn or clamped to the saddle, our Comfort Pad is freely suspended. This makes re-padding or re-stuffing especially easy.
 
Absolute wither freedom
 
Our EWF saddle tree has a titanium-steel head plate fully integrated into the synthetic tree. This creates up to 12 mm of additional wither freedom – and prevents the painful knocking between withers and head plate that can occur even with a well-fitted saddle when sitting deep.
 
Unconditional shoulder freedom
 
When fitting our saddles, we make sure the horse's shoulder can glide unimpeded under the saddle. This is ensured by a saddle tree with the right tree width and angling, and by our soft, thin Comfort Pad. In difficult cases, an EWF saddle tree with an integrated head plate can create additional room and ensure shoulder freedom.
 
Spinal freedom through an adapted panel channel
 
The spinal channel, positioned centrally between the saddle panels, must protect the spine from saddle load under all conditions – including when the horse bends under the rigid saddle. That's why we pay careful attention to a sufficiently wide spinal channel when padding our saddles.
 
Comfortable, stable seat for the rider
 
A stable, secure seat is especially important when starting a young horse under saddle: our range of saddles with a deep seat is large, and you can choose the knee block shape freely on many models. Velcro knee blocks are an option too – you can remove them or replace them with smaller ones once you and your horse have mastered the first phase of riding training together. Not unimportant: our Amazona Solution reliably protects against saddle sores – especially in a deep seat.
 

Every Ibero comes with a package of extensive services: this includes thorough personal advice at the saddle-fitting appointment (we come to you), trying out and sitting in different saddles, measuring the horse, and a fit check with correction if needed upon delivery.
 
We want your young horse to feel good in its first saddle. Because the back and shoulder area of growing horses often changes very quickly, we're happy to arrange regular appointments to readjust the saddle.

Do you still have questions about our saddles, adjustments or service? Or would you simply like to arrange a saddle-fitting appointment for your young horse right away? We look forward to hearing from you!