On becoming a saddle fitter

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Monday, September 22nd, 2008 | saddle fitter training, saddle fitting

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” - Oscar Wilde

Occasionally people send e-mails expressing an interest in becoming a professional saddle fitter and asking where training is available. I don’t have a good answer for this. It’s hard for me to imagine becoming an educated saddle fitter without spending time with saddle makers and tree makers, but they aren’t thick on the ground in North America. Various therapeutic practitioners offer brief courses here, often in conjunction with training in therapeutic services such as equine massage, and some saddle brands offer training in aid of marketing their saddles.

Some time ago, unhappy with the limitations of what I could learn where I was, I began to make the pilgrimage to Walsall frequently, to badger saddle makers, more experienced saddle fitters, and tree makers, crassly mining their collective centuries of experience for a fleck or two of precious insight. The effort has been more than worth it, and this is quite odd because, in Walsall at least, almost any saddle maker you talk to will give you a completely different story about the right way to do things.

Eventually I endured the Society of Master Saddlers’ week-long ordeal in the UK that is required as a pre-requisite for the assessment to become “qualified” by the SMS as a professional saddle fitter. (Tip for those of you who would go down this road and want to succeed under the polite scrutiny of the examiners: Think first about what happens in your real life as a saddle fitter, then say or do the opposite.)

The UK’s Society of Master Saddlers is a sufficiently interesting body that it probably merits its own daytime TV drama. I’m not going to get bogged down there, however; I’m going to restrict myself to writing about only some of the many aspects of this subject that I feel insufficiently knowledgeable to discourse upon.

In any case, the SMS is the only body in the world that confers internationally-recognized professional saddle fitting credentials. Becoming officially qualified and eligible for membership in this august body as a professional saddle fitter isn’t necessarily a token of great achievement in this field (trust me on that!), but it is not without value. The QSF course provides a platform of basic knowledge and procedure for saddle fitters already in the profession, and attaining this qualification is a sign that the saddle fitter is committed to an established standard of professionalism. Why else would he or she put himself or herself through this expensive and un-fun initiation? Moreover, it can be a useful entrée into the clubby world of the British saddle industry. Making the effort to become qualified (it’s not a small one) probably scores at least a little street cred for an outsider in Walsall.

Nevertheless, the real learning takes place (for me at least) over a long period of time; picking up new ideas from other saddle fitters and from saddle makers in Walsall; trying them in the field; coming back with more questions; seeking out new sources of insight. One of my favourites has been the managing director of a large British saddle tree manufacturer. An absolutely lovely man, to whom I am immensely grateful for helping me to understand the critical basics of tree design and technology, I hasten to assure him should he hear of this that I am not at all offended by his mild observation that my grasp of the geometry of tree design will always be rudimentary, notwithstanding repetitive tutorials on the subject.

If this leaves you wondering whether you are reading a blog on saddle fitting written by someone not particularly well qualified to write it, I’m afraid the answer to that is yes. Unfortunately, whoever should be writing this instead of me hasn’t done it yet. Had this knowledge, this deeper way of looking at saddle technology and saddle fit, been readily available when I started in this job, I think that I would have been quite a bit better at it, a lot sooner.

Tags: saddle fitter training, Society of Master Saddlers

5 Comments to On becoming a saddle fitter

halfpassedout
September 25, 2008

Are there any credentials beyond this Qualified Saddler designation? If it’s a not-necessarily-meaningful distinction, how can we seperate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to picking a saddle fitter, especially when looking at fitters who do have this distinction?

HalfHalt
October 13, 2008

Judging from your description being a saddle fitter certified by the SMS is a lot like an instructor certified by USDF. At our barn we have a very hard working “working student” going thru the process of getting the certification thru 2nd Level which I would have never thought to be so demanding. I hold a new respect for anyone with the certification.

HalfHalt
October 13, 2008

Before getting way too deep into the saddle fitting subject I did not know there were different certifications of saddle fitters. What is the Master Saddler’s Association? I see certified saddle fitters by this organization and was under the impression it was in connection with the SMS.

ravenwood
October 15, 2008

There are a few organizations who are certifying Saddle fitters.

Schleese has developed something with the Canadian government for saddle makers and i BELIEVE saddle FITTERS as well. However this is ONLY available to those working for THEM.

Society of Master saddlers (Www.mastersaddlers.co.uk) is considered on a world wide scale the ‘place to go’ and has fitters attend the assessment from far and wide (Canada, USA, sweden, denmark, germany, South Africa, scottland all in the year i was there!) currently the highest (and only) certification via SMS is “Qualified Saddle Fitter”. They are in the midst of developing the “Master Saddle Fitter” now that the QSF has been around long enough. SMS Qualified Saddle Fitters

Master Saddlers association is a US based association. It has some similarities to the SMS course in that it requires 2(??) Years of apprenticeship before the final certification. Their fitters are referred to as “Certified Saddle Fitters”

Great site!
Krystl Ahrens
SMS QSF

Colleen
October 21, 2008

Ravenwood:

I am SO glad you brought up the proposal for an additional SMS qualification beyond the QSF. I would love to know what you think about that.

As I understand it, the proposal is basically to broaden the qualification by requiring that the candidate be a) an SMS Qualified Saddle Fitter; b) an SMS Qualified Saddler; c) show “proficiency” in riding skills; d) show some written commendations from a small handful of satisfied customers as a testimony to effectiveness in the field. I think this is an accurate summary of what the proposed “master” qualification would entail. If not, please correct.

I gather that there are quite a few SMS members very opposed to this proposal, and I will try to summarize the two major lines of arguments I have heard against it.

First, does it not make more sense to focus on improving the standard of the existing qualification before making up some new qualification that will vastly narrow the pool of potentially qualified candidates without actually improving the overall standard of saddle fitting?

This line of argument continues something like this: Yes, it is helpful for a saddle maker to be a qualified fitter, and for a saddle fitter to have good knowledge of saddle design and construction, and for anyone involved in either making or fitting saddles to have a knowledge of horses and of riding. I don’t think anyone disputes that part.

Then here’s where it gets tricky: SMS Qualified Fitter and SMS Qualified Saddler are defined certifications; the standards for qualification are specific and are established and adjudicated by a panel of professionals in this field.

But who is going to define the standard of riding skills for the “master fitter” candidate?” Is it sufficient to ride around on a school horse for ten minutes? Should the standard be competitive success at at least an intermediate level? Does it count if one’s apex as a rider occurred at some previous point in life — like, um, maybe fifteen years ago in my case? Would a brilliant fitter who was once a professional grand prix rider but now hobbles around on arthritic hips be precluded because he is no longer sound? What is a “reasonable” standard and who will determine it? Who will sit in judgment? Could this even get any more subjective? Being so vague and subjective, does this not do more harm than good to the established professional standard?

As for the final bit — the glowing recommendations from, I think it is supposed to be five satisfied customers — oh please. That’s just silly. It would be vastly more revealing (and a thousand times more interesting) to get 5 deeply unsatisfied customers to vent about their experience with the “master fitter” candidate in question. The mark of a true professional is how he or she has dealt with the train-wrecks that hit everyone occasionally, not the day-to-day promenades in the park.

The second argument against the proposal is pretty straight-forward: years have been spent making the QSF the highest professional standard in the world, and now some “insiders”, with one blow of the gavel, want to turn it into a “second class” qualification.

This — the argument goes — will essentially kill the program and terminally piss off those who have taken the trouble to play the game. At its root (so it is argued) this isn’t about the long-term welfare of the SMS, it’s all about tailor-making an uber-standard to suit a clubby cabal of insiders so they can look down from the heights and feel superior to the riff-raff who are “mere” Qualified Saddle Fitters, or mere Qualified Saddle Fitters as well as Qualified Saddlers, but not polished riders with enough spare time and enough discretionary income to keep a few field hunters on tap or a dozen or so polo ponies in their string.

Care for a spot of class warfare anyone?

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