Ask yourself some simple|easy questions.

1. What size is your saddle?
2. Does my horse have a short or long back?
3. What is my preference on the look of my tack on my horse?

Size of Saddle:

What is the size of your saddle in length. Is it a barrel, roping, cutting, etc saddle? If you have a larger saddle such as a roping or cutting saddle then you will probably not want a saddle pad that is 28″ or 30″ in length. Nine chances out of ten that pad will probably just barely be long enough for the saddle to fit on. On the flip side if you have a barrel saddle then you probably want to stay away from the long (34″) saddle pads.

Does my horse have a long or short back?

A lot of people don’t think of this when choosing a saddle pad. If you have a short backed horse and decide to go with a saddle pad that is 34″ long - it may be too long for your horse. It will probably get in the way of the horses hindquarter movement. However things could be reversed as well. Using a short saddle pad on a long backed horse will allow part of his/her back to be exposed. You may think it looks weird. That is where this next section comes into play.

What is my opinion of how my horse looks when saddled?

Ultimately the decision comes down to your personal preference. What do you think looks good? Do you think that your saddle pad should cover the whole back of the horse and come right before his hindquarters start?

A lot of people like for their saddle pad, saddle, and horse to look a specific way. For a short backed horse with a barrel or youth saddle the shorter pads work well. If using a roping saddle on the same horse they may get a longer pad (33″) to compensate for the larger saddle. On a long backed horse if a roping saddle is used they may use a long (34″) pad. However if the same long backed horse is used and a barrel saddle they may use a long (32″ or 33″) pad to cover the horses back.

What it really comes down to is what is your personal opinion, your type and size of saddle, and your horse all as a combination. There really isn’t a “correct” answer to this question. There are only opinions.

Here is a link with a variety of saddle pad to help you in your decision.

New! We've just starting a message board and discussion forum over on the Toxic Byte Pets Forum. It's a bit lonely over there at the moment, but feel free to join in and participate!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 12:17 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.