Dressage in the Wrong Saddle

Something a lot of people mention when inquiring about dressage lessons is that they’d do it at home, but they have “the wrong kind of saddle.” This statement always makes me a little sad; there’s so much more to dressage than the kind of tack you use.

When you look through history, dressage (or whatever it was called through the ages) used all kinds of different saddles. Some are more like the Portuguese bullfighting saddles, others have a rough dressage “shape” but still look a bit different (like the white saddles used at the Spanish Riding School of Vienna for performances). It’s only recently that a “dressage” saddle has come about, and even those have different shapes! Then we have cowboy dressage, western dressage, and working equitation that all use a range of tack styles.

So what makes a saddle okay to use for dressage? The key is that it fits the horse and fits the rider. If the saddle is too constricting for either to move freely and stay balanced, it’s the wrong saddle. So, I’d rather see someone come to me in an endurance saddle that fits them and their horse as opposed to buying a dressage saddle that fits neither.

Of course, different saddles have different pros and cons. An all-purpose or jump saddle is meant to give the rider freedom to get up and out of it, so it may not be as comfortable to sit deep with a longer leg position. Western, Australian, and Iberian saddles (to name a few) tend to have the opposite challenge; it’s much harder to post the trot or get off the horse’s back in those than it is an all-purpose or jump saddle. With different levels needs, neither of those may be a significant issue worth getting a whole new saddle for. For example, from green to 1st level (if we’re going by competition levels), the horse generally needs the rider to be able to get off their back until they’re strong enough to hold a rider at the sitting trot. Even at 2nd level, the seat doesn’t have to be super deep. However, once you start getting further than that, a deeper seat is really useful. Each horse may have different needs as well; some horses do better with a rider sitting a little deeper, while others need the rider a bit more “off” their backs. So, you can see where different types of saddles can be useful when a dressage saddle isn’t available!

That’s not to say a dressage saddle doesn’t have its place; it very much does. It meets somewhere in the middle of the two ends of the spectrum, and where in the middle depends on the make and model (my personal favorite, the Peter Horobin Classique, feels a bit more like an all-purpose than most dressage saddles). It generally tends to allow more freedom through the shoulder than Western-type saddles while allowing the rider to have a deeper seat than the all-purpose and jump saddles will allow. It’s also necessary to use either an all-purpose or a dressage saddle for competition, so if you want to compete, you’ll need to consider purchasing one. However, if competition is not in your plans, you can school dressage without a specific “dressage” saddle. Any seat challenges can be met with occasional lessons on a trained dressage horse in a dressage saddle, and a longe lesson is never a bad idea no matter what kind of tack you use.

So, if you think the kind of tack you use dictates whether you can or cannot ride dressage, think again! You can absolutely ride dressage in any kind of saddle as long as it fits both horse and rider. Don’t let your tack hold you back from starting your dressage journey.