AN INTERVIEW WITH AMANDA ANDERSON

HQ: ⁠How did you become involved in saddle fitting? What led you to this work?

Amanda: When I was in my early 20s, between undergrad and grad school, I was still a bit unsure of what I wanted to do with my life. I took a couple of massage and saddle-fitting courses from Don Doran of Animal Dynamics in Ocala, then went overseas to study with a German sattlemeister, and I’ve completed 25+ courses in the US, UK, and Germany, including studying with 19 or 20 brands.

I knew I wanted to focus on medicine and health care; I studied, and completed, human massage therapy school in 2001, received my Masters degree in Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture (functional medicine) in 2007, and moonlighted as a paramedic from 2009 to 2013, but horses have always been the direction of choice, and the puzzle of how to match the saddle to the horse to keep them healthy makes my brain happy.

HQ: You work at a rehabilitation facility, perform necropsies and also fit saddles. Can you tell us a bit about what your work involves day to day?

Amanda: My day to day is EXTREMELY GLAMOROUS. It involves me waking up, making sure my makeup and outfit are perfect, then jumping in my perfectly clean car and going to brunch. After brunch, I’ll go to my first barn, where the horses are worth millions, everyone rides perfectly, and no horses are ever lame… UMMM, NO. I snorted my coffee writing that.

THE REALITY: My days start at sunrise; if I’m home, I hopefully get up with enough time to shower, then I feed the horses, get dressed, and maybe grab some coffee on the way out the door. Sometimes my shirt is on inside out. I do always manage to wear clean underwear, though. My makeup skills are non-existent.

Then it’s off to regular barns, seeing regular people with regular horses. Some places are high-end, and I have a lot of lesson barns (which are my favourite), but the majority of my clients are boarders, own 1 to 4 horses, and maybe they have a saddle for each horse, and maybe they don’t. They usually work full-time jobs and fit the horses in around their family life. These clients are the reason I started this deeper journey into anatomy, because they aren’t going to accept incompetence. They can’t afford for a saddle not to fit well, and will generally do whatever is necessary to keep their horse rideable. It depends on the location, weather, timing, etc., but I currently see between three and six horses a day, four days a week.

When we have a necropsy planned, I have a system. Two days before a necropsy, I’ll wash my hair and shave my forearms. This is very important, because you want your hair just greasy enough to prevent those flyaways from making your nose itch or getting stuck to a body part. I shave my forearms so the hair is growing back a bit prickly, which allows me to itch my nose or face with dirty gloves on, because YOUR NOSE WILL ALWAYS ITCH WHEN YOU CAN’T SCRATCH IT WITH YOUR HANDS.

The day before the necropsy, we set up the lab – fresh blades on the scalpels, the table out if we are doing it with the horse lying flat, or the stand out if we are doing a standing one.

The day of the necropsy, I show up about an hour before we are scheduled to start. My job is largely grunt work; I am responsible for prepping the horse to go on the table. This includes draining the blood and removing the organs. Then, with the help of the team, we position the horse for research, depending on what is being studied. Then my role switches to researching the back under the saddle.

It’s a team effort; we certainly have a system down where we could do a necropsy with just four people, but all of those people jump between their roles whenever necessary.

The first necropsy shocked me; I went straight back to my anatomy books and had a meltdown because very few things agreed with what I saw on the table. I thought it was a one-off, but after more than 50 necropsies, I know now that most of the illustrations we use for teaching saddle fitters are wrong, and this has vast implications for the welfare of the horse.

Lastly, other days are either travel, study, or ‘content days’. I do quite a bit of international travel to either hold a clinic or study from a brand, school, or fitter.

I’m in the process of creating the “Anatomy Academy” for Stubben, an online resource for their saddle fitters, a fitting manual for Koehne Saddles (Düsseldorf), and the curriculum for the International Biomechanics Symposium. I do a lot of writing on planes or in the car when I have a driver, but most of the social media content that you see on IG is when I’m raging on the Stairmaster.

HQ: Regarding your social media presence, what led you to create your accounts? And did you expect them to be so popular?

Amanda: My social media presence is a true “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade” story. Without being cheeky and saying names, there used to be a saddle school in my region that taught their students what they COULD do to saddles, not what they SHOULD do. As a result, I was seeing a ton of saddles unnecessarily wrecked, horses being fit wildly wrong, and consumers who were left confused and distrusting of saddle fitters. My frustration found an outlet on social media. I started to write about simple things like “what is tree width?”, “here are the 3 basic pommel shapes”, “what is the dot-to-dot measurement good for?”, and “what is the purpose of a tree point?”, because the consumers were being told vastly different things.

Nobody wants to be confused, especially when their horse’s wellbeing is hanging in the balance, and my ability to break saddle fit down into digestible pieces apparently resonated. For me, saddle fitting is 100% anatomy and fact based – if it doesn’t make sense anatomically, biomechanically, or scientifically, it isn’t right. Which is likely another reason why my social media is popular – many saddle fitters are opinion-based, which leads to consumers getting very different opinions on the fit of the same saddle on the same horse, sometimes within a few days of each other. This is unacceptable, and my goal was to give consumers actionable intelligence by providing a deep understanding of anatomy, biomechanics, and what each part of the saddle is designed to do.

HQ: What does a day in your life look like (essentially – do you ever sleep between running your accounts, fitting saddles, working at the rehab facility, performing necropsies, running workshops…)?

Amanda: I prioritise good sleep, working out, and eating healthy. I believe that the person who is in a position to advise someone on health and well-being should likewise have healthy habits. And I realised that my mental health really suffers if I don’t take care of myself.

HQ: Your work is evidence-based and science-driven, rather than rooted in ‘tradition’. How did that approach develop for you?

Amanda: I prefer to say my work is actually tradition-based, because traditionally, we used science and evidence to determine if a saddle fit. Nowadays, it seems like saddle fitting is all about sales, who has a niche product, who has the most matchy-matchy bling, and very little to do with what the horse actually needs to work comfortably.

Back in the old days, riding wasn’t just a luxury sport. People used their horses for transportation, work, war, and sport – there was much more at stake if the horse was not saddled well. And the local saddler’s reputation – and his ability to feed his family – depended on how well he made and fit saddles to the horses in his area.

My approach developed because I want to know WHY things work (or don’t), and many of my clients have been told different things by saddle fitters without any explanations. I wanted to be different.

HQ: ⁠What are the biggest misconceptions you encounter in saddle fitting today, both among riders and professionals? And in terms of the misconceptions and myths, which ones would you say are the most harmful?

Amanda: This list is very long, but I think the 3 worst are the following:

1. That most people, whether they be riders, bodyworkers, veterinarians, or saddle fitters, do not know the importance of wither clearance, or how to check for wither clearance. The fastest way to permanently damage the horse is to use a saddle that does not provide adequate clearance on both the top and the sides.

2. Saddles are being designed for the rider’s comfort, not the horse’s, even though their marketing teams tell you differently.

3. Being “certified to fit all brands” does not exist, and the schools promoting this — in my opinion — are causing major problems for consumers. Saddle schools often teach that their way is the only way, when many ways exist, and it is unethical for a fitter to evaluate/fit a saddle/brand that they aren’t trained on. Training only comes from the brand directly. And very little history is being taught! This is one reason consumers receive very different opinions about the same saddle.

HQ:  ⁠What are the red flags that saddle fit is an issue in a horse?

1. The saddle doesn’t fit the horse anatomically or the rider biomechanically, which prevents them from moving together in harmony. However, in order to determine this, you have to know correct anatomy and biomechanics of movement, which is not being taught in the majority of schools, whether they be independent or by a brand.
2. Conflict behaviours begin when the saddle is present. The horse is being brushed in the crossties quietly, then turns into a dragon when the saddle pad, saddle, or girth is brought out. You have a saddle issue. It may not be that saddle — it could be any saddle — but there is a problem that needs to be addressed immediately. Similarly, if the horse can do perfect changes in the field, but is unable to under saddle, you have a saddle fit issue.
3. The rider buys a saddle in order to treat lameness or fix crookedness in the horse, or create balance and skill in themselves, instead of working on that off the saddle. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been asked, “Is this saddle going to get me to Grand Prix?”, or told, “My horse won’t canter left, so I bought [insert saddle].”

HQ: How big an influence is the rider on the saddle fit and comfort of the horse in terms of ridden work with a particular saddle?

Amanda: Imagine a backpack you would use for hiking out several days. The backpack itself, with no supplies in it, is pretty innocuous for the hiker, even if the fit isn’t great. But adding the weight of the supplies, and how stable that weight is plus how it is distributed inside the pack is what makes/breaks the fit of the backpack for the hiker.

A saddle with no weight in it doesn’t affect the horse much at all, even one with no wither clearance or one that is bridging, but the minute we start adding rider weight — how that weight is distributed, where it is positioned in relation to both the tree and the location on the horse’s back, if the load is centered or not and whether that load moves with or against the horse which affects how the horse develops (symmetric or asymmetric) which in turn affects how well this saddle (or any saddle) will continue to fit in the future… The amount of weight and how the load is un/balanced affects how the saddle is secured to the horse (billet position), which in turn affects how much movement the spine and shoulders will have, which in turn affects back health….

So the rider is at least 95% of the influence, in my experience.

HQ: What are the major problems in the saddle-fitting industry? And how do you believe we go about solving them?

Amanda: The quote, “If you want to manipulate someone, don’t let them think” comes to mind when you ask this question.

We have really gotten away from reality in the industry. I’m not sure if this has been done intentionally with the introduction of marketing and international sales, or organically because everyone is trying to reinvent the wheel so their product takes centre stage, but the fact is that with all the technology we have, we are more confused than ever before.

The anatomy being used in both brands and schools is largely incorrect, or even influenced by the tack sellers, which affects how well anyone can make or fit a saddle. Both saddle brands and schools are teaching that a new saddle or a wad of flocking inside the panel is going to fix all the horse or rider’s problems, which is patently false, but it means consumers are always looking for the next greatest piece of equipment or spending money trying to fit their current saddle in vain. And lastly, nobody knows the difference between healthy and unhealthy. If you don’t know what is wrong, how do you make it right? When professionals are saying radically different things, how is the consumer supposed to make sense of that?

HQ: How do you approach pushback to your work within the industry?

Amanda: I’m honestly surprised that I don’t get more pushback — maybe it’s just that I rarely see it. The only real pushback I’ve seen is another saddle fitter saying, “Don’t listen to her, she’s so controversial!”

I approach this by citing my sources, all of which are proven, scientific, and unrefutable anatomy and science. It’s hard to argue against a dissection picture, or physics, and I’ve found that the people who are pushing back don’t have an understanding of either. Nothing I teach, write, or discuss is based on an opinion. I take all the emotions and feelings out of saddle fit.

And if someone considers the WWI veterinarians who wrote Animal Management 1933, Dr Joyce Harman — author of several books on saddle fit from a vet’s perspective, Sharon May Davis — doctor of equine anatomy, Elwyn Hartley Edwards — British officer, Cavalry soldier, BHS judge, saddler, and author of over 30 books on horsemanship, Dr Ivana Ruddock-Lange — author of of the best equine dissection manuals available, and over 10,000 pictures from 50 necropsies to be controversial…. Well, I don’t know what to say.

HQ: ⁠Saddle fitting has become a major source of anxiety for many riders, with little standardisation and wildly differing advice across fitters in the industry. Do you have any advice for owners on how to navigate this?

Amanda: Now more than ever, consumers need to learn anatomy as it relates to saddle fit in order to know whether what they are being told is truth or BS.

HQ: ⁠For riders who start thinking more critically about biomechanics and saddle fit, what is a good first step?

Amanda: The International Biomechanics Symposium is a good start! As is reading the Saddles and Sore Backs chapter of Animal Management 1933. We also offer courses and clinics at Denali Equine in North Carolina, and I hold clinics worldwide upon request.