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Discussion on Leg position revisited!
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Posted on Wednesday, Apr 18, 2001 - 6:46 am:
Hi all,
I wrote about leg position last year with lots of help from everyone-an up date is I did a lot of stirrupless riding and it helped al0t and the miricle of a new saddle with further back bars are wonderful.Now i have a new horse and two new saddles as the original really didn't fit myself or my pony.Here's my problem:
In the past year I feel my riding has made some nice (major in my mind) improvements. My seat is nice and deep with three point contact-my heels are under my hip , my knee lays against the saddle and my knee cap points more downward. I also now have independance of my hand elbow and shoulders. I feel most of this is a result of finally "getting" a seat once my pelvis became flexable and my muscles (everywhere) got into better condition for riding things started to fall into place. It seemed to take 2 years to really strengthen and improve my flexability and this past year with lots of lessons my seat has clicked. I'm in my late thirties and had started riding again just the last three years after 15 +years off.
I have a nice Isabell Wintec dressage saddle with a narrow twist (which I use on my pony and horse) and an all purpose Arabian company saddle with a wide twist. The all purpose is new and the dressage is only 3 month old. I love my position in my dressage saddle but i ride in a very long stirrup-when riding in my all purpose I shortened the stirrups as my leg felt terrible long as my thighs would rotate outward and I had to struggle to keep it forward. When shortening the stirrup, for my all purpose saddle,I realized that I had been riding with a VERY long stirrup-I think too long as now with it at ankle bone height I can't seem to get my whole leg comfortable -if my seat is deep and my thigh long my lower leg swings back and I seem to fight to get it under me and then my knee pops up. My ankles kill me and it feels like my stirrups are at jockey height! I seems to me if I could just lengthen my lower leg allowing my heel to DrOp I'd be ok-
( the shorter stirrup is fine in my dressage saddle-but now i end up with my thigh at the edge of the flap)
Does this mean I just need more stretching or will this terrible sensation go away as I get use to my new saddle. This saddle has a wider twist than the dressage saddle, I originally thought an all purpose with the wider twist would be more comfortable for trail riding and small jumps. I actually had the saddle on trial in Nov and it has taken this long to get the right width for my Arab-we had to mail it back and forth and then finally have a tree made between two sizes. I really felt comfortable in it in Nov-What happened? I hadn't ridden in the dressage saddle until Feb and liked it right away. Will I always have difficulty going back and forth from saddles? Can you offer any suggestions?
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Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2001 - 3:06 am:
Dear Kim,
I had terrible trouble getting a saddle that fitted both me and my Arab. I was most comfortable in an all purpose. However, when I finally gave up and went to have a saddle custom built, the saddler told me that he didn't make all purpose saddles, because they were neither fish nor fowl, and encouraged an "armchair" seat with legs too far forward. So I reluctantly had a dressage saddle made, which encouraged my leg to lie long. Result? My seat improved dramatically!
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Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2001 - 6:44 am:
Thanks for your reply Debra! I fiquired no one wanted to read my terrifically long post! 
At this point I'm considering selling the all purpose as the bars are too far forward for me.It seems as though when they decided to make my saddle to templete not only the width of the tree changed but I now have a different saddle.
There are some all purpose saddles with further back bars. I believe that is what a VSD vs VSS is when looking at Stubben saddles. VSD leans more toward dressage and VSS more toward jumping.
Kim
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