April 2004

Saddle Pads Need To Vent

We want a saddle pad that’s easy to fit, with a contoured withers area that vents easily up into the saddle gullet.

Your schooling pad may be a dark color, like this Thornhill General Purpose Tri-Color Pad, but should still look neat beneath your saddle.

Saddle pads are the workhorses of any tack trunk. They must work well under your saddle and be easy to keep clean. They can’t cause your saddle fit to change. And, we don’t want to work at it: The simpler the pad, the better.

We want a pad with contouring at the withers, as it’s less likely to cause rubs and is easy to vent up into the pommel. Thickness—better yet, thinness—is important, too. We want to use one pad at a time, and we don’t want to adjust girths and breastplates just because of a saddle pad. …