Modern saddles provide new options for tree type, with the goal of sparing a horse pain from localized saddle pressure. But new Swiss research suggests that, at least when a horse trots, tree type makes little difference in pressure distribution along the horse's back.

All the saddles in this study (specifically, race training saddles), whether equipped with a traditional wooden tree, a flexible synthetic tree, or no tree at all, registered "surprisingly high pressure levels" in the hind third of the saddle at the trot, according to Selma Latif, DVM, Dipl. IVCA, researcher in the equine performance center at the University of Zurich, lecturer at the animal hospital of the University of Bern, and independent equine chiropractor practicing in Bern. The elevated pressure is due primarily to the rider’s position during this gait, she added.

"The high peak pressures observed at the trot in all saddles may limit the activity of the horse’s back, which is of particular importance since the trot is also an integral part of the daily work of a racehorse,” Latif said during the presentation of her results at the Swiss Equine Research Day, held April 30 in Avenches.

Using the Pliance-X System, a pressure-sensitive mat consisting with 256 sensors, Latif and her colleagues originally set out to prove that normal wooden trees cause greater pressure under the rear part of the saddle at the trot, canter, and gallop, compared to flexible trees or no trees. However, by measuring saddle pressure on racehorses' backs with various racing saddles during these gaits, they disproved their own hypothesis