From: Carolyn
hello - i have trained and retrained horses for a few years but there is a particular case that i am having trouble with. there is a gorgeous 9 year old arabian mare that i am training who has impeccable conformation, is in good weight (although she is currently three months pregnant), and is very smart but spooky at times. she has the attention span of a gnat, so whenever i longe her i have to constantly ask her to do different but simple things such as: transitions, changing directions, turns on the forehand and on the haunches, sidepasses, back ups, and jumping obstacles. she is very responsive and has no trouble doing any of these things most of the time when i just use body language. she used to hate to be caught, led on the off side, saddled, have anything near her face. but now she comes to the gate when called, can be led on any side, i can saddle her on both sides, and she likes it when i massage her ears. and recently she let me mount on both sides. but whenever i walk her around saddled mounted or unmounted she tenses up and gets scared by the squeak of the leather. i longe her saddled for 5 minutes and she bucks and tries to run off. so i take off the saddle and she's fine again. the saddle fits and everything, and several years ago she used to be ridden just fine. can you help?
Carolyn
Hi Carolyn! It sounds to me as though you're doing a great job with this mare; the list of things you've accomplished with her is impressive.
It also sounds to me as though there IS a saddle-fit problem, probably deep under the saddle where you can't see or feel it -- but where the mare can feel it. Yes, she could be reacting to the squeaky leather, but I'd bet that there's something more serious going on.
Here are some things you can do to find out what's happening.
First, try her in another saddle -- one that fits her AND doesn't squeak.
See whether she is still frightened of it after the first five minutes -- she'll probably run and jump around for a few minutes just because she's used to doing that whenever she's saddled, so don't take it seriously until she's STILL reacting that way to the other saddle after five minutes. ;-) Then try her in several other saddles, until you find one that lets her move comfortably on the longe. Then double- and triple-check the fit, because a saddle that seems to fit a horse that's standing still may not fit well enough to let it move freely on the longe, and a saddle that seems to fit a horse on the longe may be very uncomfortable for the horse once a rider has been added to the equation. Horses are truthful animals, and they're usually quite specific about where their saddles hurt them, so pay close attention to your mare.
Second, IF you are comfortable riding her bareback, and if she is comfortable being ridden bareback, that might be a good way to find out whether it's a saddle/riding issue or a squeaky leather issue. If she doesn't get tense when she's ridden bareback, that will tell you quite a lot.
Third, you don't say what her previous experiences have been, other than the fact that she was ridden several years ago. It's possible that her saddle/riding experiences weren't happy ones, and that the squeaky saddle, or the discomfort of the saddle, brings back unpleasant memories. If YOU weren't the one riding her, don't assume that she has a lot of experience, and don't assume that her experiences under saddle were good ones. Either way, the best thing for you to do will be to start her from the ground up, introducing the saddle slowly and teaching her to accept it calmly while she is standing, being led, being longed, and finally being ridden. She CAN learn all that (or re-learn it) -- it will just take as long as it takes. ;-)
It's also quite possible that she's not the same shape she was when she was being ridden a few years ago. The back contours of a four- or five- or six-year-old riding mare aren't necessarily the same as the back countours of that same mare, three or four or five years later -- especially an unridden, pregnant mare! So even if you're using the same saddle that she was ridden in earlier in her life, it may not fit the same way or feel the same to her. If the saddle was wide enough to accomodate a wide, muscular Arabian back, it may be sitting on her spine now that she's out of (riding) shape. A saddle that's temporarily too wide can be "padded up", using big Kodel pads for a Western saddle, and gel or deflatable pads for an English saddle. If you do this, be very careful, as it's surprisingly easy to make a bad fit WORSE with the help of pads!
If, on the other hand, the saddle fit her in her younger, thinner days and is now too narrow for a wider, older horse, then padding will only make the fit tighter and more painful, and any solution will have to begin with a wider saddle.
The squeak, as you guessed, may also play a part. Horses have very sensitive ears and acute hearing, and a squeak that just annoys a human might be a sound that a horse would find frightening, highly irritating, or both. Some people can't bear to be in the same room with squeaky styrofoam (have you ever had one of those cheap styrofoam coolers in the back seat of your car?), some can't stand the fingernails-on-a-blackboard noise. Some humans can hear (and can't stand) those high-frequency dog whistles. I'm sure you can come up with a couple of sounds that you can't stand, or that someone you know can't stand. If your mare reacts strongly to this particular sound, you'll need to know whether the problem is the sound itself or the fact that it's connected with an uncomfortable experience. If it's the sound, you'll have to oil the saddle. ;-) This brings us back to trying other saddles, etc.
This mare is three months along in her pregnancy, so you've got another five or six months to figure out the saddle issue and do light work including light riding. Make all of it as pleasant as possible, and then she'll have a set of good (new) memories to consider during the last few months of her pregnancy and during the half-year or so that she'll have her foal at foot.
Then, once you start her back into work, you'll have to begin again from the ground up! But it should all be much easier, faster, and more pleasant next time around.
Saddle-fitting is as much art as it is science, and the only one who can truly say whether a saddle fits is the horse that wears the saddle. If your mare says that her saddle doesn't fit, believe her.
Jessica
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