The Seatbone Saver

I designed the Seatbone Saver saddle pad, for my own use, nearly 18 years ago. I ended up with bursal enlargements on my seatbones and as a professional rider this was a disaster. I couldn’t ride for six months, so I designed a product that would enable me to ride again without discomfort and these swellings, which reappeared every time I rode. This I called ‘The Seatbone Saver’, for obvious reasons, and before long friends were pleading with me to have one made for them too. So I started to have them manufactured and we have sold many thousands now, all over the world.

Few beginners ever get to hear about them, it is a product mostly sold to more experienced riders who are tired of the discomfort, but I want beginners to know about them too, not only for increased sales - but because they are such a tremendous aid to riding. Saddles are notoriously uncomfortable, designed and made by saddlers, leather craftsmen, who don’t actually ride, or even go near a horse! Riders then have to put up with the uncomfortable saddles which as you will see in the book, prevent us from sitting in the correct balance!

They not only give great comfort, but also much better ‘stickability’ to the saddle, something which is a great boon to beginner and novice riders. Pupils at a riding school are likely to be riding different horses or ponies weekly and saddles can feel very different, one make to another, leaving the novice rider feeling quite unstable. The Seatbone Saver considerably reduces this difference in feel, giving security and confidence to the rider.

The problem with most saddles is that they have the padding too far to the rear and the stirrup bars, on which the stirrup leathers and stirrups hang, are too far forward, pulling the rider into what is termed ‘The Chair Seat’ (see photo below). This is a very weak position and leaves the rider vulnerable to sudden reactions by the horse and is a very ineffective way in which to influence the control of the horse.

The weight of the rider is fully on the most sensitive part of the back of the horse and makes it difficult for the horse to carry the rider and will often slow a horse down, whereupon he is blamed as ‘lazy’ when in fact he is trying to tell the rider he can’t move!

When the rider tries to sit in the accepted correct position of ear/shoulder/hip and heel being in line, it is a constant struggle to maintain this, having to hold the stirrup leather back at a 45 degree angle. One of the worst aspects is that when the rider attempts to sit in the correct position, the seatbones end up where the red dots are on the photo below and because this is the hard, unpadded area, the rider, in discomfort, wriggles back to where the white dots are. Even this area, in most saddles, is hard and unforgiving!

The Seatbone Saver pads the whole seat area. Made from Memory foam, the Seatbone Saver was one of the first ever products in the horse world to use this material, which had, 18 years ago, only recently been developed by NASA to withstand the G forces of lift off in a spacecraft. It was the only material I found that gave relief and allowed me to ride for the last 18 years in absolute comfort and no swelling and I have since incorporated it into all my saddle designs and other products for horse and rider. It attaches simply, to almost any saddle, by two straps that fit under the saddle flaps. We also make a special one for Western saddles.

Ideal also to take on riding holidays, equally suited to advanced riders as well as beginners and novices. One rider said she even takes hers to sit on in church on a hard pew!! Covered in hardwearing, quality suede in black or brown, price £52.95 plus p and p.