The learning curve is bell-shaped

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 | saddle fitting

I just returned (well, three weeks ago) from a trip south to do a saddle fitting clinic and teaching seminar.  While there, I spent a couple of days with one of our long-time clients, a professional rider who is an international-level competitor and trainer.   She was having some training issues with a very talented (and ridiculously charming) young horse who was . . . ah . . . resisting the opportunity to progress to the next level, of which he was certainly capable.  Recently his saddle had also started slipping to one side.

After careful scrutiny of the saddle and the horse moving under saddle, I had no clear idea what to do.   His saddle seemed to fit well, but it was slipping right. We tried him in another saddle.  We tried some other stuff. Long story short: the problem was obvious but the reason for it was not. 

We discussed what mechanical fixes might be applied temporarily to put a patch on the slipping saddle problem, acknowledging that the root cause of the problem would require time and patience to determine.

A couple of weeks later, the trainer called to report that, along with changes to the horse’s schedule and training regimen, she had gotten creative in shimming the saddle with a Prolite saddle fitters pad as a temporary, easily reversible aid to keeping the saddle level while the horse worked through his one-sided issues.  The saddle was no longer slipping right, the horse was refreshed in mind and body by the changes to his program, and he was working with a vastly better attitude.

So because the trainer kept an open mind about a whole array of factors that could play a role in the overall problem, the situation improved.  Before long, they were back on track together.  

From the outset, what the client had said was, “I need help pin-pointing what is going on with this horse and whether the slipping saddle is the problem or is the visible manifestation of other issues.” Never once had she said, “The saddle is slipping; therefore the problem is the saddle.” 

That, dear readers, is the difference between a top-drawer professional who has what it takes to train young horses to stratospheric level, and the rest of us: owning the knowledge that the interface between horse and rider is complex, training and performance are complex, and there are not always big, convenient targets on which to pin the blame when things don’t go smoothly between rider, horse and saddle. 

We commiserated a bit about the bell-shaped nature of the learning curve in this business.  The novice realizes she doesn’t know a lot; the intermediate is confident that she knows quite a lot about a lot of things.  A rare few advance to the point where things that are obvious to the intermediate aren’t obvious at all to the real expert. 

1 Comment to The learning curve is bell-shaped

LaurenSprieser
February 26, 2009

Thanks, Colleen! Now if only we could invent a saddle that also keeps the horse BREATHING during very collected work… alas.

I thought your readers might like to know that after only a week in the ProLite saddle fitter’s pad (which I used to shim up a discrepancy in the horse’s musculature – like people, this horse is “handed,” and it was showing up in his physical development as a less-developed left side), his muscule tone had evened out dramatically. I think that the ProLite gave him the space to fill in the muscle he wasn’t building without the ProLite. He’s now quite even in his musculature on both sides.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.