Are you certain?

Lack of visible swelling, white hair, and sores does not mean his back is fine!

Symptoms of a Sore Back

Won’t stand for saddling

Moves away when saddle is brought up

Bites at girth or holds breath (cinching applies pressure to withers)

Won’t stand for mounting

Bucks

Runs away

Tosses head

Hollow-backed

“Cold-backed”

Dry spots under wet blanket

Doesn’t travel down hill well

Refuses jumps

Hard to catch

Stumbles frequently

Behavior deteriorates as ride progresses. - Nice at start.

Won’t walk calmly, always wants to go faster

More nervous under saddle than in hand

Shorter attention span than others

Quits working mid-season

Trainer calls him lazy

By Len Brown:

Why aren’t standard type English and Western saddles good enough?

English Saddles

Weight bearing area too small. Today’s English saddles have an extremely small weight bearing area compared with English and military saddles of 100 years ago. The panels underneath are all that transfer your weight and your concussion to the horse’s back. Even if a lot of padding is used under current English saddles, too many pounds per square inch cuts off circulation to the subcutaneous vessels, sheet ligaments and muscle tissue causing a death of cells (necrosis). This soon results in contraction of the muscles that are compressed (spasm) causing extreme discomfort, mechanical, and behavior problems in the horse. Saddle “fashion” created this too-small weight bearing area simply because we no longer ‘trot-trot to London town...” we load our horse in a trailer and then trot him around after we get there. In short, we don’t use horses for transportation any more, and we don’t see the visible damaging signs created by too many pounds per square inch.

Rigid fork pinches, causes pressure points. Some say their English trees are flexible. While it’s true that many English trees flex in the rear portion, most of the damage is done at the wither by the rigid, inverted V-shaped fork at the front of the saddle. Even if the angle of this fork matches the angle of your horse’s wither, it will pinch if the stuffed panels do not reach into the middle of your horse’s back and help bear your weight. There is no way to carry weight on an arched surface (the wither) without pinching. Unfortunately, the majority of 13. English stuffed panels are not stuffed firmly in the center of the saddle and literally have more contact at the fork, and at the rear of the panels with less contact in the middle. Since your stirrup leathers are hung from the inflexible front fork of the English tree, all your weight is being borne by the arched surface as it squeezes down over the wither. Some saddlers say saddles should be straight to cause the horse to raise his back into the saddle. Unfortunately, when you pinch the trapezius muscle (at the wither) with the fork, the horse automatically raises his head and flexes his back downward, and it takes years of expert training to teach a horse to stretch downward and lift his back despite pinching of the trapezius muscle caused by traditional English saddles placed too far forward.

Western Saddles

Large western skirts serve no saddle fit function; they only cover the tree. Many people think large western skirts “fit horses better” because they spread out the rider’s weight, but this is not accurate. Only the wooden tree bars inside a western saddle transfer your weight to the horse’s back. Why? Because the leather in the skirts is molded to the shape of the tree bar during its construction. Furthermore, there is only one layer of leather between the bars and the horse. Skirts appear thick at the outer edges, because filler leather pieces are used around the outside of the skirts to add form and stiffness. Whether your saddle fits your horse or not depends solely upon whether the shape of the bars of the tree matches the shape of your horse and has enough flare at the ends of the bars to allow for muscle movement.

Western bars are often too long and too straight. Western bars are turned out of pieces of lumber on a wood duplicator using patterns that frequently have been

In existence for generations. To make production most economical, tree makers use pieces of two-inch thick lumber for the bars. Unfortunately, very little curve can be carved from a piece of wood only two inches thick, and likewise very little twist is possible. The result: if the horse does not have an extremely straight back, the straight bars will make contact at the shoulders and at the rear of the bars. Suddenly these long bars are only contacting the horse at four points: on each side of the wither and on each side in the rear, causing the familiar, telltale “dry spots” or white spots at the shoulder from excessive pressure. The weight bearing area of these bars is reduced to a very small area because of lack of contact. Your weight and concussion create too many pounds per square inch at these pressure points front and rear. Even if a lot of padding is used, this excess pressure cuts off circulation to the subcutaneous vessels, sheet ligaments and muscle tissue, causing death of cells (necrosis). This soon results in contraction of the muscles that are compressed (spasm) causing extreme discomfort, mechanical and behavior problems in the horse.

Why Are Ortho-flex Saddles Special?

From Ortho-Flex: Traditional saddles place a non-conforming rigid saddle tree directly on the horse's back, which does not allow the horse to move under the saddle. Even traditional saddles which have been custom fitted to your horse perfectly, still will not move with your horse while riding and the custom fit will no longer be custom as your horse gains or loses weight or ages. A non-fitting traditional saddle is basically a splint that limits your horses movement. Your horse will quickly learn that it cannot extend fully or turn as freely under a traditional saddle. This situation, over time, will only cause pressure points, saddle soreing and a non-cooperative horse. Orthoflex Saddles eliminate this problem, adapting to your horse's shape automatically, though the use of specially designed flexible panels. The Orthoflex Flex Panels bend and flex in all directions with your horses movements. The panels also have a much larger surface area than traditional saddle bars, which spreads the weight of the rider over a larger area and reduces the pounds per square inch transferred to the horse's back. Because the panels adapt to the specific shape of each horse, tracings of your horse's back are not necessary to ensure your Custom Ortho-Flex Saddle will fit great on your horse. Our standard tree with System 2 regular flex panels will fit most standard size horses.

Ortho-Flex saddles solve the problem of hard to fit horses, in fact we specialize in high withered, short backed, flat backed and "mutton withered" horses. From Paso Finos and Icelandics to Percherons, OrthoFlex can make a saddle to fit. The picture to the left is our stallion, Picasso de Fe, who is a typical short couped Paso Fino. He is all decked out in his Ortho-Flex Premier. Most horse types can be fit easily due to the way the Ortho-Flex panel system contours to the shape of each horse on which the Ortho-Flex saddle is placed. If your horse is wider or shorter backed than most horses, we can make several modifications to ensure a great saddle fit for your horse. Because we manufacture our own trees, we can customize the saddle tree to fit shorter, wider, or short and wide horse types and/or modify our flex panel system to fit your horse's unique shape.

Saddle soring and performance problems are also drastically reduced. The flexible panels of the Ortho-Flex saddles provide three times the weight bearing surface of traditional saddles, which spreads the weight of the saddle and rider over a larger surface area. This reduces the weight per square inch on the horse and distributes this weight more evenly reducing pressure points for the horse. The flex panels also move with the horse while riding. This allows the horse a much greater range of motion and reduces friction caused by the saddle. These features combine to prevent bruising, swelling, dry spots and white hairs seen on horses with improperly fitting saddles. This also allows your horse to perform better and cures saddle resistance problems such as head-tossing, inability to extend, bucking or outright resistance to being saddled and mounted.

Ortho-Flex saddles have been ridden to wins in three Endurance World Championships in a row, European, North American and Southern Germany Championships, as well as numerous wins in other competitions. In addition, our English and Western saddles are proving their worth at the highest levels of competition and models have been selected by top riders in all disciplines.

We can build your dream saddle! Call or e-mail us today. We will be happy to suggest the perfect Ortho-Flex saddle for your horse and style of riding. We are also working constantly to improve and develop new products for horse and rider. Take a look around our website, when you find a saddle you like remember to check out all our custom features available, all Ortho-Flex saddles are made one at a time and are custom to your specifications including your choice of leather colors from a wide inventory of leather, fabric or natural hide inserts, tooling, silver trim, hand painted silver, size, seat cushioning, etc.! Special, shorter panels, have been developed especially for Arabian, Paso Fino, and Icelandic horses and are available on all saddles as a custom upgrade. Ortho-Flex makes their own trees from Arkansas pine and hand assembles every component along the way. If you want something custom that is not shown ask, we will do our best to accommodate you. After all, it's your saddle. We believe you should get it the way you want it.