Saddle Fitting Tips - Video

Hey Guys, it’s Lynnsy here at saddle up!

I just wanted to go over a couple of things. A lot of our customers, when they come in, they just want to know about the gullet in a saddle, and when it comes to saddle fitting there’s so much more than the gullet measurement, it depends on how the whole saddle fits the back. 

So just because a saddle is a 7” gullet, it doesn’t mean the saddles going to fit another 7” gullet if that makes sense. 

So I’m going to put 2 saddles on today, to show you. As you can see, this is my horse Striker. He’s very round and flat-backed, he’s 7, so he’s at that awkward age so he definitely has a wither but he’s very round and flat-backed, so definitely finding a saddle for him is a struggle. 

I’m going to show you two different ones and how they fit and how that gullet measurement can definitely make a difference. 

This first one, this is a Loredo Barrel Saddle, this is like my all-time favorite saddle, but I noticed that it was starting to pinch him back in this area. So, this is a 7” gullet, it’s a pretty wide saddle, however, with the angle of the bars, it’s definitely tighter back in this area. 

So you come up here, we always check saddle fit without a pad on. So you really want to get in there and have a nice slide. And I can barley, look, it’s just super tight in that shoulder area. And when you come up here, you want to feel that bar and make sure it makes nice even pressure. But right here it is so tight behind his shoulder. 

Now I’m going to show you how a different gullet fits on him that’s actually more of a narrow gullet. It’s all about how this opens up in the back for those shoulders.

Okay, so this one is a McCall McLite all around, I recently just bought this saddle because it definitely fits Strikers back way better. So, the neat thing is, this is actually a 6.5” gullet, however, they have a 90-degree bar angle, so it opens up wider in this back area.

So, I have a nice slide through on his shoulders versus the 7”, I didn’t and when I feel up in here, it’s not tight right behind the shoulder area, where it is on my Loredo. It’s got nice contact going back and it just fits him really great. So definitely don’t get stuck on the gullet measurement, it’s about how all of this fits the back. 

I hope you guys enjoyed and I hope that helps and have a great rest of your weekend!