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

I showed you a picture of this horn back in February.   But now I can show you a picture of it with the fancy horn cap installed...

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

This was going to be a "today in the shop" post, but since our website was being updated, I couldn't post it then.  By the way, if anyone sees any glitches in the site, please let me know.  And now, back to our regular programming...

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

Well, I'm finally getting around to that hind end muscle I promised I'd write about before my interlude post.  The name of this muscle - the Medial Gluteal.  This is a massive muscle.  It makes up a large proportion of the top of the horse's rump, and when you realize how it attaches and what it does, you understand why it has to be so large. Note: The word medial comes from the Latin, where it means middle, so this muscle is also often call the Middle Gluteal muscle.  But medial sounds more anatomy-ish, so that's what I used.

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

Well, it was either write a blog post on the medial gluteal muscle in horses, or make peach jam, canned peaches, peach pie, applesauce bread and applesauce cake - and therefore a happy husband.  I think I made the right choice...

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

today since I started writing this blog.  From the occasional feedback, I know people read it sometimes.  I have enjoyed learning as I have had to think (HARD!) to clarify ideas and information to explain it correctly and clearly in an impersonal written format.  But looking at life and the amount of time the blog takes, I thought I would take a few minutes (or longer) to look back at it to see where it has been and maybe figure out where it could go.

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

This time I thought I would highlight the central feature of our shop - the BIG BAND SAW that dominates everything else.  When people ask us about learning to build trees, one of the first things we say is that it isn't something you can do in your basement in the winter.  This band saw is the biggest reason why.  It is over eight feet tall, and when we built the shop, it was either modify the rafters to accommodate the band saw or build a ten foot ceiling.  Economically, we chose to modify the height of the ceiling in that spot.

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

Now that we have finished the last foreleg muscles I'm going to talk about, but before we get to that hind limb muscle that can be affected by poor saddle fit, I feel I again need to make a point I have stated before.  (It has obviously been a while since I planned this post.  No, we don't have snow in August!)  To those who have only ridden Western or who don't read about "saddle fit rules" on the internet, this is a no-brainer.  But for those who live in Europe, or who primarily ride English, or who do read the lists of "saddle fit rules" all over the internet, this may sound like heresy.

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

A while back we were contacted by some (relatively) local people who were concerned that one of their horses had developed white hair under the saddle which showed up late last fall.  The story was that they have Missouri Fox Trotters and had ordered special gaited horse saddles with flex trees from the US for them.  The horses seemed to be fine early last summer when they were doing shorter rides, but toward the end of the season they started doing some all day trail rides and even two or three day rides.  One horse in particular started to act up - going along fine and then "scooting out" from under them with no warning.  They originally put it down to temperament, but when the hair coat changed and they noticed the white hairs in the middle of his back, they started to wonder.  Come spring, they went to the (relatively) local tack store to see if they could find something that fitted him better, and the store referred them to us.

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

To finish our discussion of the muscles that help hold the front leg onto the horse which are affected by the saddle, we need to talk about the pectoral muscles.  These are four muscles that originate (start) on the sternum and insert (attach at the far end) on the humerus or scapula, but only one is directly impacted by the cinch.