You can’t see good fit in pictures!
We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.
We regularly see pictures like this on the internet, asking if the angle of the saddle matches the “angle” of the horse. We don’t respond to these posts, because really, we can’t tell. What we see in a picture is the skirts – and what needs to fit the horse are the bars.
But when I read the responses, it isn’t uncommon to have one person saying that the angle is too narrow and another saying that it is too wide! The issue with western saddles is that it is bar shape that has to match the horse and you can’t SEE the bars in a western saddle. You have to FEEL how the shapes match. You are looking for even contact top to bottom, front to back, all along the bar. While pictures can sometimes give indications of fit, you can’t tell fit from pictures. You have to FEEL under the saddle to really know. (Though if it is WAY off, you can often tell it is wrong. But you have to feel to know if it is right!)
