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Balanced Riding Adjustments
Balanced riding is very strongly dependent on the front to back tilt of the saddle seat. The saddle seat tilt and the position of the rider's seat bones (the lowest part of the pelvis) on the saddle seat, relative to the hip joint, affect the rider's sense of balance. If this balance is not right the rider feels either tipped forward or tipped back. Feeling tipped forward produces a strong feeling of insecurity, whereas tipping back may feel secure but puts the rider behind the movement of the horse (the "chair seat"). The FnE adjustable saddle uses both the front and the rear adjustments to set the seat for balanced riding.
Being able to adjust the tilt of the seat is particularly important for women riders. This is because the female pelvis varies considerably in depth as well as width, a fact often ignored in the saddle fitting process. In contrast the male pelvic structure is far less variable and the seat bones and femur usually align vertically when sitting in the shoulder-hip-heel position of balanced riding. For the woman rider this is not always the case as the female seat bones tend to be set behind the line of the femur. This means that a woman rider sitting in a level saddle seat will often find that her seat bones are raised by the rear of the seat, giving her a sensation of tipping forward, and if she struggles to achieve the shoulder-hip-heel position of balanced riding the result will be hyperflexed lordosis, back pain, swinging legs and as likely as not pubic bone soreness. Adjusting the seat to tilt up a little bit at the front usually solves the problem.
With the FnE adjustable saddle it is very simple to find just the right seat tilt for each individual rider. Sometimes an adjustment change of only 1mm makes the difference between balanced riding and feeling very insecure. In combination with the adjustable stirrup bar this ensures rider balance irrespective of whether the horse is croup high or wither high and irrespective of the rider's own build.
This is well illustrated by a comment from a long term FnE user in the USA: "I have felt guilty giving riding lessons in an FnE and the student gets a correct seat very easily and then can't reproduce it with any of the vast majority of saddles available." Marlene Moss, USA
