First, put the saddle on the horse without a pad and don’t attach the girth.  Then just slide your hand all over the horse’s back under the saddle.  If any part of the saddle pushes down hard on your hand then it will also push down hard on your horse’s back and hurt him.  Get another saddle or try to figure out what the problem is with the one you have.

     Next attach the girth and look at the gullet.  There should be enough space to slide two or three fingers between it and the horse’s withers.  Then go around back and look at your horse’s backbone all the way up under the saddle.  Its spine should not touch the saddle bars anywhere.  Then sit in the saddle and have someone else look to make sure that the horse’s spine still does not touch anything.

     Then check to see if your saddle is the right shape for your horse’s back.  Make sure the girth is secure and then use one hand on the cantle and one on the pommel to rock the saddle back and forth.  If it rocks like a rocking chair then it means that it was made for a horse that is more swaybacked than yours.  If it doesn’t move at all and all the weight seems to be resting on each end then it means that it is too straight for your horse’s back.      

     If you are shopping for a saddle or just want more help fitting the right saddle to your horse then visit the Saddle Shop online.  They have a series of templates which you can download from their website and then transfer to cardboard cutouts.  You can take these cutouts and compare them to the shape of your horse’s back.  This will tell you the width of the gullet and the slope of the bars in the saddle that your horse needs.  They also have an interesting website and lots of fine saddles for sale, so if you get a chance just click here to check it out.

     First consider your horse.  When it chews on wood it could damage its teeth or it could injure the inside of its mouth with splinters.  This could lead to it not wanting to accept the bit.  Your horse could also be chewing because it is lacking some nutrient in its diet.  Try giving it good hay and some mineral supplements.  You should try to keep it from eating a lot of wood chips because this could cause it to develop colic.  And finally, your horse could just be bored, so try giving it something else to keep its mind occupied.    

     Then consider the people using your barn.  Just imagine how bad you would feel if one day you let someone climb across a fence in the corral and a badly chewed fence board was so weak that it broke under their weight and the person took a bad fall.  Or maybe a chewed up stable door just would not latch right anymore and the horse pushed it open and got out.  This kind of stuff can happen just because you let a horse chew on something it wasn’t supposed to.  Fortunately there are things you can do to fix this problem.

     There are anti-chew remedies available on the market that you can buy.  Most of these are concoctions that you apply directly to the chewed wood to make it taste bad and repel the horses.  These do work and they are easy to use but they tend to fade away over time, so they must be reapplied. 

     The best solution is to put metal edging on anything that the horse might chew.  This is a permanent fix.  Use 1 inch angle iron or 1×2 inch channel iron to cover any exposed wooden edge.  You can buy this metal stock in almost any builder’s supply store.  It isn’t too expensive but it will take some work to install.  You will have to use a hack saw to cut it to fit.  You will have to drill holes in the metal where needed with an electric drill.  Then you will have to fasten it to the wood with either screws or nails.  Try to keep all the fastener heads as flat and smooth as possible so nothing gets caught on them.