SADDLES AND SORE BACKS. 195 



due to the roller being too tight. Grooms in a private stable 

 pull the body roller tight to keep the blanket in its place, and 

 if the pad of the roller is old, the roller itself comes down on 

 the spine and produces injury. 



In those blankets where the roller is stitched to the blanket 

 and no pad used, the stitching which confines the roller to the 

 blanket may be sufficiently coarse to produce injury. More 

 commonly it is due to the roller being too tight, and this will 

 occur on the picket line after a heavy dew. In such cases 

 the roller is so tight as to be unbuckled with great difficulty. 



When the saddle surcingle is used to keep on a blanket, it 

 is a common source of injury ; it is always so tightly drawn 

 that if without a pad it cuts its way into the skin and if v/ith 

 a pad the latter so soon flattens under compression that the 

 surcingle is not kept off the spine. 

 No surcingle should be used without a roller, and if none is. avail- 

 able, straw, grass, hay, or stable rubbers should be placed under 

 it, close to the spine on either side, so as to save the ridge of 

 the spine. 



Injuries on the Back below the Spine may be due — Injuries 



7. To the burr of the side bar resting on the blade-bone, fig. 36, j^ack 



No. 6. below the 



8. The upper edge of the side bars pressing into the back, through spine. 



the front arch being too narrow. 



9. Through the lower edge of the bar pressing into the back, 



fig. 36, No. 7. 



10. Through dead continuous pressure and thin pannels or blankets. 



11. Through the " fans " resting upon the loins, fig. 36, No. 8. 



12. Through the sweat flap of the girth, or if pannels are worn the 



pannel flap, getting accidently bent upwards when saddling up 

 in a hurry or in the dark, fig. 36, No. 9. 



13. In the same region an injury also occurs due to the pressure of 



the girth attachment with its studs ; this is caused by tight 

 girthing, but especially tight over-girthing. It may be pro- 

 duced by any pattern of V-shaped girth, or by the buckles on 

 ordinary girths, though, as a rule, when the latter occurs, it 

 is due to thin pannel flaps. 

 From what has been said, it is obvious that the cause of a sore To 

 back can only be determined by seeing the saddle on. It is most determine 

 desirable that saddling should be done by the man who rides the horse, gQ^^ -^^"^ 



(B 10948) N 2 ^ 



