Wither conformation - seeing the damage

Posted by RodandDenise on April 24, 2015

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

By contemplating equine back conformation (not a normal activity for normal people, but definitely normal for tree makers) you come to realize there is quite the range of variation of normal, and I wrote about that recently. However, on even further contemplation we have come to recognize the abnormal. It has taken a while to “see” it, since we actually see it so often. But common does not mean normal and we now recognize that a lot of what we have been seeing for years actually isn't “normal”.

In our blog post about normal wither conformation, I kept stressing that the transition between the shoulder blade and the wither pocket area is smooth, even on horses who naturally have quite a concave wither pocket. The muscle in the wither pocket on this horse is normal and there is a very smooth flow over the shoulder blades.  (The chalk line is at the back of the shoulder blades.)

Contrast that picture with this one. This horse is damaged. His wither pocket area is sunken compared to what it was prior to a specific saddle being used on him for a couple of years. He also is showing the “lump and hollow” we now recognize as a result of excess pressure over the back of the shoulder blade caused when the muscle is compressed between the bone and the bar of the saddle tree. (Note that this doesn’t happen with well designed saddles that are properly positioned.) Scar tissue builds up from chronic damage, creating a firm lump. Behind the lump, the muscle is atrophied. And between the two is a pretty steep transition zone.

Muscle atrophy occurs when excess pressure causes the muscle to waste away. (The physiological and biochemical causes of pressure damage are still debated by the academics, but there are likely a lot of factors that contribute to it.) Here is an obvious case of atrophy where you can see the hollowing of the wither area. The way the sun is shining on the coat, you can even see the edges between normal and atrophied muscle.

The worse examples of atrophy I have seen to date have come from horses ridden primarily in English saddles. At a seminar on saddle trees which we were presenting a few years ago we had a saddler from the eastern US attending. In discussing atrophy, I put up pictures of what I considered to be severe atrophy. Their response was “We see that every single day.” This is a picture she sent me later of a horse she was dealing with. While it is severe atrophy, she says this is really common in the horses she sees. Not normal. Common. There is a difference there…

Here is another picture I snaffled off the net. If you look in horse forums, you can find all sorts of pictures of horses that look like this. I have this labelled as being a six year old TB ex race horse, primarily ridden English. You can see how pronounced the back of the shoulder blade is and the amazing atrophy behind it. (In fact, on a lot of horses ridden in poorly fitting English saddles, you can see the atrophy extending back under the entire length of the saddle.)

But it isn’t just atrophy we are seeing in our western horses. There is also a lump at the back of the shoulder blade. This is a picture we took a few years ago of a well used ranch horse. He was a narrower built horse for sure, but instead of a smooth transition between the concave wither pocket and the shoulder blade, he has an obvious lump. The area covering the back of his shoulder blade rises up in a discrete lump and then drops off suddenly into the hollowed out wither pocket behind the shoulder blade.

Here’s another picture of the same horse from a different angle. It is harder to see the front edge of the lump from this angle, but easier to see the steep transition at the back of it.

Note: this lump is often present in horses ridden English as well, but while I have seen English horses without much of a lump and a fair bit of atrophy, I haven’t yet recognized a horse ridden primarily in a western saddle with atrophy behind the shoulder blades but without the lump.  Note the "yet" in that sentence...

Here’s another example in a horse ridden both western and English. I would suggest this horse has atrophy down the length of his back as well, but what I want to point out is the distinct lump over the back of the shoulder blade. That lump isn’t there on all the pictures of normal withers I put up in the earlier post. But it is there on damaged horses. In talking with some people who do body work on horses (massage, etc.) they recognize this abnormality, though it isn’t discussed in the veterinary community yet as far as I can tell. Again, is it just so common it is seen as “normal”? I don’t know. But now that we recognize it, we see it everywhere.

See what I mean? This is another old ranch horse – solid, used for roping for years, but showing the lump and hollow effect of saddle pressure over the back of his shoulder blades. This side shows the issue, but it isn’t dramatic.

Same horse, other side, more severe problem. It is common that one side has a larger lump than the other. In fact, if you look at the grey horse at the top of this post, while you can see he has the lump and hollow, it is worse on his right than his left. The third picture of the bay horse shows the left side worse than the right. Asymmetry in horses is very common, so it is not surprising that the damage isn’t equal side to side either.

And, just to show that it isn’t just age that does this, here is Gus. He was somewhere between 20 and 25 when this picture was taken. He had been used for a lot of years as a ranch horse and he had had some arena roping done on him as well. But there’s no lump, no hollow. Horses don’t have to be damaged by saddles.

Now think about trying to fit a saddle on these horses. Which is easier – the normal horse with the smooth transition or the damaged lump and hollow horses? The answer is obvious. Can a severe lump and hollow horse even be fitted really, really well? That answer is pretty obscure. We don’t know. So the best “cure” is prevention, by properly positioning your saddle. Make sure the front bar tip is behind the shoulder blade so the muscle isn’t compressed between bone and bar and isn’t damaged. (And unless you are doing something that is actually pulling or pushing the saddle back, like dragging calves, take off the breast collar! Let the saddle go where it wants! You may be surprised where it really fits, and your horse will be happier. There. Said it. Out loud. And in public…) There’s lots more to write on this topic, but this will do for now.