Different Types Of Saddle

Hi, I'm Abby from the Talland School of equitation and I'm going to show you a couple of different types of saddles.

Okay, so here we have a dressage saddle and a GP saddle, a general purpose saddle can be used for flat or jumping.

So you can see there are some obvious differences when you look at these Saddles. Let's do the GP saddle first.

Okay, what you'll notice is it's got a more forward cut saddle flap, that's because when you're doing general-purpose riding and especially jumping you're going to have your Stirrups shorter, so, therefore, your knees just going to be at a bit more of an angle, so it’ll be a bit further forward. So that's just to protect that area there.

Put the saddle flap up, the girth attaches up in here and you've got just quite a nice pummel and cantle here, but then when you compare it to this, which is the dressage saddle. One of the most obvious differences is it looks like the candle and thepummel are a lot higher but that's actually because it's cut a lot deeper here. That's to encourage a deeper seat with closer contact between the hips the seat bones and the internal leg from the horse to the rider.

Another obvious difference is the length andthe shape of the saddle flap. It's a lot longer, that's because for dressage you're going to want to have your stirrups a lot longer, bit of a straighter leg.

Then another obvious difference is you've got a different type of girth straps, a lot longer girth straps. That's because with the dressage girth it doesn't actually attach underneath the saddle flaplike it does with the GP saddle. It actually will attach down here a lot further down the horse, that's again to encourage a closer contact between the horse and rider with a longer length of leg that can just sit nicely against the horse.