UK saddle survey Part 2 – Behavioural and physical responses of horses to saddles during mounting and riding

Despite a considerable increase in research into saddle function and fit recently, back pain and injury in ridden horses remains common. This study used an online survey consisting of 19 closed questions, 1 ranking scale question and 4 open free text questions to investigate behavioural and physical responses of horses trained or competing in dressage, eventing and showjumping, during mounting and riding. Kruskal Wallis analyses with post-hoc Mann Whitney U tests assessed if differences occurred between respondents across disciplines and competitive levels for the variables collected. A total 3,624 complete responses (80.1% completion rate) were analysed with nearly a tenth of respondents (9.2%, n = 416) reporting they rode a horse which was ‘cold-backed’ and needed to be lunged or put on a walker prior to mounting. A total of 30% (n = 1,339) of respondents had experienced an adverse behavioural response from horses when saddling/girthing during mounting; a further 64% (n = 2,902) reported that they had experienced a horse moving away during mounting and 34% (n = 1,542) reported tenderness when touching the horse’s back under the saddle. Using the same saddle on three horses increased the risk of a horse being ‘cold-backed’ by 1.5 times (, Confidence intervals (CI): 0.9-1.5), on four horses by 2.5 times (, CI: 1.8-3.5) and on more than 5 horses by 2.6 times (; CI: 1.7-4.0), compared to using the same saddle on one horse. The high incidence of behavioural and physical responses that could be indicative of the presence of back pain in the horse observed by respondents could negatively impact horse welfare. Education of horse owners and riders to enable recognition of responses which could indicate pain, to use a saddle professionally fitted to the horse and to encourage increased uptake of professional assessment of adverse responses to mounting is needed to safeguard horse welfare and rider safety.