Episode 09: How to Saddle a Horse

Hi! Welcome to season 2 of Flip N Tails: a tiny podcast for BIG horse lovers! I’m a horse girl who loves to ride and each week I’ll share about what I learn and love about horses. Today is episode 09 and it’s all about saddling.

Okay so let me tell you a little bit about saddles

And then I’ll tell you how to saddle and then maybe I’ll have a couple of fun facts. A saddle is something that helps you to stay on the horse. Saddles can come in many sizes and many different types. There’s English saddles, there’s Western saddles and Western is normally used for Western riding. It has the horn on it and that’s good for tying ropes to, like if you’re trying to catch a cow or something. Yeah, and then English saddle can come in many different types. They’re like a jumping saddle and a dressage saddle.

So why is brushing and hoof picking important?

Well brushing, you have to make sure your horse stays clean. You have to swipe off all the dust, brushing also has the advantage of you’re able to make sure if the horse has been nipped by another horse you can know and see that when you’re brushing the horse. And so it’s really good to clean the horse off. And hoof picking is very important. Because if the horse has something in their hoof like a wood chip, which I have found in a horse’s hoof before, it’s very good to get that out because the horse will walk funny or even go lame because of that and you really need to pick the hooves even if it’s just dust or dirt to be able to do that so that your horse stays healthy.

There’s some brushes that you’re going to use.

So there’s curry comb, hard brush, soft brush, face brush, comb and hoof pick.

Okay, so now we’re onto saddling

So you’re going to want to put the saddle pad on, to make sure that the front of it is on the withers. The half pad is the next thing and it’s basically shaped like the saddle except a little bit outside. The next thing is actually putting on the saddle. And you want to be careful putting on the saddle. You don’t want your horse to have like a hurt back, so you want to make sure you always do it gently. And then before you put the girth on, you’re going to want to make sure that both sides of the saddle are flat and not curled up or pushing in at all.

So the girth, it’s basically, think about like a rubber band.

It’s basically like a rubber band that goes around the horse’s belly and clips onto the saddle so that when you get on the saddle you don’t fall underneath the horse.

There are other parts too

Like the bit, bridle and getting your stirrups right, but we’ll save that for another episode.

Fun Fact

A fun fact about western saddles is that they are one of the only saddles with a horn, they are also shaped sort of square shaped, they have a built in pad sort of thing. A fun fact about dressage saddles is that they have a really big seat and they have really long flaps, like the places that you have your knees and thighs. They also have pretty long stirrups and they’re pretty long too.

So that’s it! Now you know a tiny bit more about this special trick. Join us next time and subscribe for another episode of Flip N Tails: a tiny podcast for BIG horse lovers!