Dust Patterns

A quick post about dust patterns and why we need them/use them…

Whenever we do a saddle fitting it is extremely important (if possible) to have the horse ridden before and after the fitting to see how the saddle fits and to get a dust/sweat pattern. OR if you are sending your saddle in for a long distance fitting to get this pattern and then take pictures of it to send to your fitter before the fitting.

So what is it and why do we need it?

Sparky

22 year old WB gelding

A dust pattern is the dirt or sweat that naturally comes up when a horse is ridden without a saddle pad. It creates an outline so that the fitter can assess the straightness of a saddle and also if the saddle is sliding up on the shoulder. In this post I am going to show you a before and after dust pattern dressing straightness for a gelding, Sparky, I worked on this week.

The first image that I am showing you is the dust pattern after the initial ride on the horse. I have it as just the unedited dust pattern and then also where I edited it to make it easier to assess. You will see in my marked copy of the photo that the saddle is clearly slipping to the left of the horse and pushing on the right side of his spine.

This shows us that we need to adjust to get this saddle to sit straight on Sparky’s back so it doesn’t impinge his right shoulder, left loin and his spine. I have already talked about what makes our horses crooked and why we adjust for this so I won’t go into more detail on that now. If you are curious please click here to read that post. But if the saddle continues fall this direction we will see soreness on both sides of his back, tripping with the left hind, and short striding right shoulder. This happens because the saddle irritates the spine, depresses the left loin and pulls against the right side of the wither blocking the shoulder.

As you can see in these before and after photos after riding the dust pattern is straight over the back. The horse went much more even and free after adjustment. Especially because Sparky is an older horse (22 years old) it is important to keep his back really healthy so he can stay strong and sound as long as possible.

I hope this post helps to show one of the tools we use as saddle fitters. It is also a great tool for you to use as the rider if you are concerned about your saddle’s straightness. Do two circles of walk, trot and canter each direction without a saddle pad and then take the saddle off and look at the pattern. You may be surprised what you see!