What size western saddle for a high withered horse?

Question

i have a western saddle with semi QH bars and when i tighten the girth the top of the gullet touches his withers(my TB gelding). my brother rode him in it once and it wore the hair off his withers. im trying to sell this saddle now, but what size gullet should i lookfor? people have told me gaited?

Answer 1

well i have a TB as well and my western saddle has a gullet size of 6 inches...it doesnt fit ANY QH"S lol so i don't know if it's made for skinnier horses but the gullet is really small and his withers just fit in there perfectly!! (he's really high withered too, i have to get a cut back english saddle for him there so tall)

the gullet on your other QH bar saddle was too wide for him so it sunk down and didn't hold up on his shoulders like it should have

so look for something with a smaller gullet

and the horns are so high that they give great clearance to those tall withers

Answer 2

I also have a high withered horse, Apendinx QH. He is built like a TB.

I use a sut back pad with a 1" build up in the front of the pad.

It works well to keep the saddle up off his withers. I really like the cut back pads and many of the catalogs carry them with the build up in them.  You can find them on line at www.horse.com

They carry a couple of different ones.

I have a Tucker Saddle. They are sort of narrow in the gullet. It sits really well and rides wonderfully.

Answer 3

You can keep that semi QH barred saddle and use a pad that has padding on the sides and NOTHING but material down through the gullet of the pad.

Toklat makes some clearance pads.

http://www.toklat.com/dyn_prodlist.php?k...

OR you can look for what they call an "A" framed tree which should give you plenty of clearance over the withers.

Answer 4

You will need one with a higher gullet.  This is different than bars which has to do with width.  Another possibility to try is one with an arabian tree.  They are made for high whithered horses.

Another hting you can do is to get a thicker pad.  My neighbor had one that he used a neoprene pad under a thick wool felt pad so that he would not wear off the hair.

Answer 5

The semi qh tree should fit your horse, so I'm guessing that the fork is built low....the same saddle with a higher fork is probably what you need.  Your best bet is to first try a contour pad to elevate the saddle off the wither area, but that may not work over time since the saddle will increasingly lower with use.  I would not use an arabian saddle since it is built for lower withers on a barrel shaped back...the bars are angled more flat, for a wide back.  A semi qh tree with an A fork is what I'd look for, and be sure the fork height is described as well as the gullet width.  You may even need both a new saddle and contour padding to solve the problem, so trying the pad first makes sense.

Answer 6

you may need full qh bars.

Answer 7

I have a horse which had the same problem (high withers).  When I was saddle searching I found that the roping saddles had a higher cantle.  I just looked at some of the western saddles for sale in the Jeffers Catalog and they have a roping saddle with a cantle height of 4" but it did not mention the gullet height.  They also had a pleasure saddle with a gullet height of 8" and cantle height of 4".  I would not go any less that 8" therefore for the gullet.  For my horse it was the cantle height that was important.  I don't think you can get any higher than 4".  When you try the saddle on you horse make sure you can put two fingers on top of each other between the withers and the bottom of the cantle.  Good luck.