Pursuit of the Perfect Fit

The other day I pulled on my favorite pair of jeans. I felt that the tush was extra soft and realized that they were getting threadbare. Those who know me best know I HATE shopping for clothes. Jeans are so difficult to find and fit correctly. In this dreadful moment of the thought of going jean shopping, I realized how much jeans and saddles are similar...

Once this idea popped into my head, the parallels were so easy to see. Depending on your body type shopping for jeans can be easy, maybe certain brands the way they are manufactured is a perfect fit. The same could be said with saddles, some horses are a super easy fit in a particular brand or style of saddle. Then there are the rest of us...

Shark fin, High wither, no wither, huge shoulder, fat, skinny the list goes on. Certain saddle models or brands are better for certain horses than others. There are so many factors at play! At the same can be said for jeans, each brand has its own dimensions and proportions. A particular brand might have the waist is big, the thighs are too tight for you but another brand (often of the same size) is perfect! 

You also need the right jeans for the job. Yes, they sell those jeans with fashionable holes already there, but think back to the threadbear problem I had in the beginning. I need durable everyday jeans that can be worn in the shop or doing yard work. I want them to fit nice, when clean, to go to dinner or out in public. 

As for saddles, those soft squishy seats and the calf skin flaps are so nice and have broken in feel. Lovely rights? Wrong. This is comparing those holey manufacture jeans. If you really ride often that soft calf skin seems to rub a hole from your great calves. 

Black is always a great color, but do not dare go into that hunter ring! How many times have you searched for used saddles and you see that MW tree with front gussets and forward long flap with the wide gullet and then you look closer and it’s not dark brown it’s black? 

Now you have to change your whole discipline due to the fact you can’t find a saddle that works in brown. That is how I feel when I see the color and size and I pull those jeans on and they fit great at the waist, thighs, and butt till my ankles are exposed. 

I want to cry because these jeans are for those short flap people!!! You now realize that you have to buy the expensive designer jeans or that custom saddle. In a few weeks, you wont fit in those expensive jeans because you now can’t afford groceries...

I could go on all day but please do one thing for me and your horse, when you feel like those jeans you pulled on this morning are not just right, go to the barn and check your saddle fit. We ask so much of our horses and they rely on us to make sure equipment is properly fitting because they can do it themselves. 

Remember how winter and summer our clothes may fit differently. We may have started or stopped going to the gym. Think about what work load or feed changes that have been done to your horse and just check fit. Everyone is happier when it fits!