SADDLE GALLS. 101 



also be brought about by the irritating effect of the panel, girths, 

 or by the part becoirjing unduly heated. 



The girths cause hurt, usually, by pressing upon a fold of skin, 

 or by being kept too long in a tight condition. 



The use of a panel is, by its softness, to enable the back to bear 

 with impunity the pressure of the hard tree of the saddle; in all 

 cases of saddle-injury on the upper part of the back the tree must 

 be looked upon as the chief cause of hurt. Hence attention, in 

 the first place, should be directed to obtain a tree which will 

 accurately fit the horse's back, and thus afford the desired evenly 

 distributed pressure. There is little or no good in trying to 

 remedy faults in the shape of the tree by stuffing, the employment 

 of which, except in inordinate quantities, can only mitigate, not 

 wholly obviate, undue local pressure. 



The modern custom of using felt panels, instead of panels stuffed 

 with flock or curled horse hair, is not an uncommon cause of sore 

 back, on account of the comparative hardness of the felt. Felt 

 panels being less bulky than the other kind, enable the rider to get 

 closer to his horse, and saddles fitted with them can be used with 

 impunity for short periods, as at polo and steeplechasing, but they 

 are not applicable, as a rule, to hunting, especially if the rider is 

 a heavy weight. Felt is too hard for the panels'of side saddles. 



The withers become galled, generally, as follows: — (1) By the 

 downward pressure "of the gullet plate; (2) by lateral pressure on 

 both sides, when the arch of the gullet plate is too narrow, or when 

 it has become blocked up by, for instance, too thick a numnah 

 (felt saddle-oloth) ; or (3) by too much weight being put on the 

 near side of a side-saddle. This disturbance of balance is in- 

 separable from the practice of rising in the trot, and is also 

 caused by the lady using too long a stirrup and sitting too much 

 on the near side, in all of which cases, the injury — supposing that 

 the arch of the gullet plate is sufficiently high not to press on 

 the top of the withers — will be inflicted on the off side of the 

 withers. To diminish the drag to the near side, which is only 

 too common among users of side-saddles, the distance between the 

 points of the tree of a side-saddle should accurately correspond to 

 the thickness of the body of the horse at that part. The greater 

 ,the distance between the tree and the horse's back, whether caused 

 by too much stufBng in the panel or by the use of too thick a 

 numnah, and the slacker the girths, the less resistance will the 

 saddle offer to a lateral pull. The amount of stuffing in a paiipl 

 should be strictly limited to its purpose of interposing a soft 

 cushion between the hard tree and the tender back, and a side- 

 saddle should be girthed up tighter than a cross-saddle. Not 

 infrequently with horses ridden by ladies, the off side of the back, 



