I know you’ve worked hard on your horse’s saddle fit. Most horse owners have either had a saddle fitter out, or watched multiple saddle fitting videos, or both.
But occasionally I hear, “I’ve tried everything, but nothing fits my horse. He or she is so asymmetrical!”
This podcast is for you.
I talk about 3 important misalignments in this Horse Mysteries Solved podcast.
There’s no other videos out there talking about these items, so you might want to take a listen. Perhaps you’ll be able to help your barn-mates as well.
Links Mentioned:
Sumamry:
Summary by AI:
Dr. Renee Tucker discusses three key reasons for saddle fitting difficulties in horses: sternum misalignment, pelvic symphysis misalignment, and rib misalignment. She likens the sternum to the foundation of a house, emphasizing that misalignment can lead to overall imbalance in the horse. The pelvic symphysis, despite its location at the back, affects the alignment all the way through to the saddle area, causing asymmetrical muscles along the top line. Misaligned ribs contribute to muscle tension and can drastically alter the horse’s back profile. Dr. Tucker suggests techniques to diagnose and potentially correct these issues, emphasizing the importance of addressing these misalignments to achieve proper saddle fit.
Transcription:
Renee (00:01)
Hello, friends. Good to see you guys. Hi, I’m Dr. Renee Tucker. Today, we’re going to talk about three reasons for difficulty with saddlefit. Now, this is going to continue our podcast audio, where we talked about the impossibles of confirmation was the last podcast, and how you can change some confirmation. And the moment for that, we talked about the impossibles of clubfoot and scar tissue. So the reason I’m putting this is our last impossibles podcast is because many people say to me, I try to get my horses’ saddle fit correct, but it’s impossible. And so that’s what I would like to talk about today. If you don’t know me, I am Dr. Renee Tucker, as I said, holistic equine veterinarian for over 30 years. Here’s some stuff I know. There’s plenty out there for how to tell if your saddle fits. So please avail yourself to all the videos that are already out there. Plenty of people make some really good stuff on how to check your saddle if it fits, and keep aware, you want to make sure if it fits your horse and you. So that being said, there’s still people stuck, unable to fit their saddle correctly.
Renee (01:18)
So I’ve got three things for you today, and ways you can check it and potentially fix it. And there are three misalignments. So let’s just go ahead and get started. The three are the sternum sternum, the pelvic symphasus, and the ribs. If any of these three are misaligned, your saddle fit is going to be wrong. Okay, first, the sternum. The sternum is the breastbone of the horse and ourselves, it is the bottom of the thoracic cavity. So what I mean by that is if you look at the chest cavity of the horse, it’s the bottom, or I like to talk about it as the foundation of a house. If the foundation of a house is crooked, then everything else is crooked. It will have a crooked roof, it’ll have crooked windows, everything will be crooked. So we want to make sure that that foundation of the house is perfectly level. That’s what I’m talking about when I mean adjusting the sternum, or at least checking it for alignment. There is a fun thing you can do to feel this for yourself and see how it affects the horse. If you just want to stand up, feet shoulder width apart, arms down at your sides, and just loosen your shoulders up.
Renee (02:38)
And then if you do a little twist to the side while keeping your hips straightforward, so it’s just a little twist. What you’ll notice is that one of your shoulders stays nice and loose, but the other one starts getting tight because you’ve twisted and essentially misaligned your sternum. Now, obviously, you can turn it right back and it’s realigned. This is just an example that you can feel for yourself, where when the sternum is misaligned, it rotates the whole thoracic cavity and it affects the shoulders. So typically I hear people say, well, one of my horses shoulders is too big or it’s too overmuscled or it’s asymmetrical with the other one, all these types of phrases. And what they’re having to do is do the best saddle fit job they can But their horse is asymmetrical, and it’s fantastic that they know that. And then they got to use shims and different pads to make it balance itself. So often, very often, it’s just the sternum is misaligned. Now, if you want to check your horse’s sternum yourself, I do have a different video for you that is in my Taster series, and that’s linked below.
Renee (03:53)
The next thing that is going to cause saddlefit problems is the pelvic synthesis if it’s misaligned. You might say, Listen, Renee, the pelvis is way at the back and the saddle is in the middle. How can that be possible that it matters at all? Well, that pelvic synthesis It is the bottom of the pelvis in the middle. There’s a right and left side of the pelvic symphasis. It can easily get misaligned like everything else. But that pelvic symphasis is just like another foundation of a house. Seriously, if that pelvic symphasus is crooked, then your sacroiliacs, which are on the top, like the roof, they’re going to be misaligned, and probably the sacrum and even the lumbar, so that’s your low back area. If your pelvic symphasis is crooked or misaligned, all that misalignment is going to filter all the way through all the way to the saddle area. Again, you can do this fun little trick yourself. If you stand up with your feet shoulder-width apart, now this time, keep your shoulder still, but twist your hips. If you twist your hips while keeping your shoulders forward, you will feel this tension in your muscles all along your back, right where the saddle fits.
Renee (05:17)
So misalignment in the pelvic symphysis is going to cause asymmetrical muscles all throughout the top line. I know it seems weird, but it is all connected, as I’m sure you guys know. All right, for the pelvic symphysis, this is not an easy fix. I have something that can help you in my reverse the diagnosis e-book, which is linked below. And I understand this is frustrating for me to tell you, Hey, all this could be wrong, but you can’t fix it yourself necessarily. Dude, that’s where I was, all right? I’m a veterinarian for 30 years, and I kept trying to fix things, and traditional Western is great for certain things. Then it hits a limit, and then potentially you can just fix symptoms. That’s why I added acupuncture certification and chiropractic certification, all these other courses, and then eventually developed my own technique, which is energy technique, because energy can get to the pelvic synthesis in order to align it. I’m not trying to be a big sales pitch here. I’m just saying I get the frustration, and that’s how I just kept looking for it. Answers, and ended up where I am. Okay, so you might want to check out the Reverse The Diagnosis e-book.
Renee (06:36)
It gives you a little helpful thing that might be able to work with your horse to realign the pelvic synthesis. It might not be worth a shot. The last thing for side of it, difficulties, is super common, and that is ribs being misaligned. Now, if you’ve ever been to a chiropractor, you might have had your ribs misaligned, or often people We’ll just say when things are misaligned, that they’re out, out of adjustment, out of alignment, whatever. So if the ribs are misaligned, they are tight and tense, they hurts. More like a dull ache most of the time. And you just feel like you want to get a tennis ball in there and lay on it and move things around. Well, I’m not recommending a tennis ball. I’m just telling you that’s what it feels like. It’s just a nagging muscle tightness when the ribs are misaligned. However, when the ribs are misaligned and that muscle is tight, the top line also tightens up and effectively shortens and shrinks down. One time I had a horse, I was working on their ribs, which were misaligned, and the horse looked like, I guess you’d call them a tabletop.
Renee (07:55)
You know how the horse’s back should look? Round, really. I mean, maybe a little bit flat with the muscling where the saddle sits, but even that should be on an angle. But this horse looked like a flat tabletop and then a big round bear. And as I realign the ribs, that muscling along the top line came right up and the tabletop look was just gone. And it was really pretty amazing to see. That was super cool. And the owner could see it, which is really awesome. So here’s the thing, though. When you fix ribs, you automatically release this muscle, which has been so tense. And then that means you got to check your saddle fit. So ribs can certainly be a cause of saddle. Saddle is not fitting. But also every time I fix horses, I double check the saddle fit because it can change just from correcting the body’s alignments. Okay, I do have one last video for you guys. It’s a how to check your own horse’s video, and that link is also in the description. So hopefully you can take these suggestions, check your own horse, and go from there. Because I know trying to get this saddle to fit, which is so important for your horse, can be so tricky.
Renee (09:11)
These three misalignments are the most common to get those things fixed. See you guys next time.
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