They have much in common with horses you see in every barn: The ones who won't bring their backs up, who don't track up, who buck after taking a fence or as you ask for a canter, who won't become regular in the trot, who pedastal or are long-based in the piaffe, who cross their legs in the piaffe, or have trouble with travers and ranvers going one direction, who show their toes to the sky and throw their legs from under at the trot, who cant their heads to the side at the halt.

There was a sign above Bill Clinton's desk in his campaign headquarters while he ran for president of the United States in 1992, and this philosophy saved him from scandal, blunder, and now from impeachment. It reads: "It's the economy, stupid." Where dressage horses are concerned, we might harshly say, "It's the saddle, stupid."

X-rays will not reveal what ails many troubled dressage horses. What we should x-ray is the saddle. If we did, we would find a rigid arch designed for one purpose: to provide structure from which to hang the stirrup leathers and suspend the seat; that is all. This arch, as its name implies, must not touch the top of the withers; this is basic. The wither and shoulder region, thoracic vertebrae # 5 through #11, form an arch. The saddle forms an arch. When one is placed on top of the other, they must nest together perfectly like stacked chairs, to avoid a pressure point. This is impossible, because the arch above must not come in contact with the wither below. The points of the arch must, by design, bear into the trapezius muscle to hold the apex away from the wither. From an engineer's perspective, there is no other way. This saddle design is flawed.

We feel defensive, as if our saddle design is justified, because it exists, and it is all we know. Our trainers believe in it--or at least take it for granted--as have their trainers, and their predecessors. We behave as if the modern European design existed from the time man first threw a leg over a horse's back. Why should we defend our saddles, if not to justify our own ignorance? Viewed from a physical and engineering perspective, the concept of trying to carry weight on the arched surface of a horse's wither and shoulder with a rigid arch, is flawed. The greatest light cavalries of the world, the Sarmations, the Tartars, the Huns, among others, swept down on whole civilizations on saddleless, bridleless horses, and defeated them. They were not too stupid to use saddles. They posessed them, but they knew one fact: Their horses' backs would be rendered unsound, unable to perform many of today's dressage movements, had they placed a rigid object on the horse's back and ridden into battle. Rather than choose the comfort and security of a saddle and stirrup, they wrapped their torsos and legs against relentless concussion, inventing trousers and boots, and chose life over being hamstrung, because their war horse would be too inhibited by a saddle to obey subtle seat aids. If our lives depended on the freedom of our horses' backs, we would have thrown out the saddle long ago. The saddle is a contraption to help humans ride, and only when we swallow that bitter pill, are we able to see the symptoms of saddle pain in our own horses.

ATROPHY OF THE TRAPEZIUS AND UNDERLYING RHOMBOIDEUS MUSCLES.
When the arch of the saddle places pressure on the trapezius muscles behind the scapulas of the horse, the horse eventually surrenders to the tree. He "drops his withers" away from the pressure and pain. He does this by contracting his trapezius muscle and the underlying rhomboideus muscles anterior and posterior to the wither. When the rider calls for the horse to work from his hocks, and bring his energy up through the croup, up the back, to his ears and to his nose, the horse cannot push the energy through. He must stop it where he contracts his trapezius and rhomboideus. The energy flow does not proceed over the back and up the neck, it drops away to the sternum and base of the neck. If the rider is skilled, and the horse is valient, he pulls his forehand up (not with his loins) but with a mighty force from his lower neck, the brachiosephalicus, and by pulling up with his forelegs. His lower neck becomes "proud" from the effort to elevate the forehand while being forced down at the wither by the pinching of the arch. With time, the contraction of the rhomboideus and trapezius causes hollows in front of the wither and behind the shoulders. This pressure behind the scapulas limits their travel, causing horses to bring their forelegs "from under" unstead of freely over, as if throwing a baseball under-hand rather than over-hand. It is possible for a medal-winning dressage horse to have hollows behind the shoulder and in front of the wither, and a straight, un-muscled top-line, but he had better have the best piaffe and passage in the world. His rider enjoys "success," but at what cost? The most successful riders are often the last to question their saddles.

Does this argument against modern saddle design sound too simple? Aren't most problems? In a sick culture aren't the problems simple: hate, greed, power? In saddling, the problem is the arch; does it need to be more complex? The only complexity is within the rider's psyche, not being able to see it.

SADDLE-CAUSED TROUBLE IN LATERAL WORK
When a horse must bend, as in shouldering-in, or taking a lead, the trapezius and rhomboideus on the inside of the curve must contract. When a muscle contracts, it gets thicker. If you curl your fingertips under the leading edge of the arch of your saddle on one side while your horse is walking straight, and then bend your horse in that direction, any space for movement will be filled and your fingers squeezed. The horse's trapezius and shoulder are also squeezed. He will avoid it.

Emily Rawle of Oxford, Pennsylvania, who has competed at Grand Prix level for the last two years, who competed in the Pan Am selection trials in 1994, and in this year's try-outs for the world equestrian games, tells of a student who refused to switch to a different saddle design.

"She just quit with me, because she will not buy the saddle I recommend. I can't help her. The horse will go two strides in the left lead canter, and it stops and bucks. In this particular mare, the pressure is just behind the scapula on the left side. She cannot turn her shoulders to the left to be able to get her left leg up. When we get off, her mare is wet everywhere but in a dry circle behind her left shoulder," says 25-year-old Rawle, daughter of FEI dressage judge, Anne Rawle.

Often the pressure is not severe enough to cause a dry area, or the resulting growth of white hair, but it is severe enough to keep the horse from performing lateral work equally well on both sides, such as the travers or ranvers. These horses are often unable to halt squarely. Moving and bending relieves pressure from the side which is suffering the most pressure. Pedestaling or a long base in the piaffe, or crossing the front legs in the piaffe, are all coping mechanisms the horse may use to remove pressure from the shoulders-if only for an instant at a time.

HOPE ON THE HORIZON
Molly Sivewright, of Gloucestershire, author of the books Thinking Riding I & II, and instructor at Talland Riding School in ______, England, stated, "Any saddle design which could relieve the pressure now present from the rigid arch of traditional saddles, and which frees the back and shoulders of the horse, should be sought."

Today there are several new saddle designs on the market. Over the past thirteen years, I helped to invent, refine, and test one of these radically new designs. It incorporates three patents, and is called the Ortho-Flex saddle. If I am passionate, even vehement, about the negative affects of the traditional European saddle design on dressage horses' backs, I am equally humble about its solution. Over the last decade, my husband, Len Brown, and I have struggled, failed, struggled, succeeded, and continued to struggle, to isolate the moving horse's back, from the rigid saddle tree. We grappled with how to rig the saddle so that it would automatically ride well behind the moving scapula. We threw away the flocked panels and replaced them with "reactor panels" which expanded the entire weight-bearing surface three-fold. This alone eliminated pressure points. We began by using carved, full-wood trees for a better-fitting base of support to those panels. Then we adapted traditional "English" saddle trees. We struggled with how to mount these panels so that they would flex on all planes, and even rise in the middle as the horse's back rises. We found, to our horror, that if these panels were not installed properly, as happened with roughly 25 saddles assembled for us in England, the mountings could break. The mountings are now designed so that they cannot be installed improperly.

Through the years we tried three different panel materials until we found the one which would not stress-crack. We developed a shimming system which made it easy to raise the front or rear of the saddle to balance the seat on any given horse. Every horse, in any level of fitness may have its own "shim recipe," impossible with traditional saddles.

No amount of test-riding could anticipate all potential problems, but we were fortunate to be a small company whose owners could directly respond to individuals'problems, and institute changes immediately. Meanwhile, we received letters from thankful owners, such as Lisa Cosgrove, of Dreleich, Germany. The traumatic phone call had already been placed to the butcher for the wonderful horse she had bought and who could not be reclaimed from his dangerous rearing and explosive behavior. A chance visitor happened by and showed Ms. Cosgrove our company's brochure. She gave her horse one more chance, and today Border Rhyme is her life's companion and her training partner in dressage.

One-by-one, puzzle pieces fall together in the mystery of fitting a saddle to the horse's moving back, while allowing the horse's energy to flow through. Every day, challenges are faced and met. When enlightened riders become an active part of this process, they cannot return to the old ways of viewing their horses' performance and behavior. Saddlers cannot do it without the riders, nor visa-versa.

As Reinhold Neibuhr said, "Nothing worth doing can be accomplished in a single lifetime." It is up to dressage riders to question the one factor we most take for granted-the saddle-and carry the torch into the future.