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Be sure to read Anne Guignon’s related article, Saddle seating: Choosing the right design for the right reasons

Saddle stools are very popular. When properly fitted and adjusted, saddle stools support an ergonomic seating style called declined seating. If you’re not familiar with the term “declined seating,” you may know it as elevated seating.  In traditional seating, the user sits with their thighs parallel to the floor. In elevated seating the seat pan is tipped slightly forward, and the user sits with their hips higher than their knees.

Elevated seating supports the thighs and buttocks and maintains a healthy, neutral lumbar curve in the spine. It is a gift in that the body receives the benefits of standing and sitting at the same time.

Saddle stool seats have different shapes than traditional square or round seats—oval, triangular, and trapezoidal. They can look like a western or modified English horse saddle, a mini balance beam from gymnastics, or two oval disks perched side-by-side.

The overall goal

A properly fitted saddle reduces stressful posture and brings the user closer to the workstation, minimizing reaching distance and allowing the shoulders to relax. Other postural benefits include keeping the upper arms close to the torso and forearms parallel to the floor, which eliminates the dreaded chicken wing elbow and reduces overall musculoskeletal stress.

You should adjust your saddle first and then adjust the patient chair. Then, place frequently used tools and supplies close to you to minimize unnecessary reaching. This creates a safe working zone and allows you to make minor adjustments to accommodate various patient sizes.

More by Anne Guignon

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The changing landscape: Hygienists are becoming serious purchasers

Saddle height: The first critical adjustment

Good saddles contain both a height adjustment lever and a seat pan pitch mechanism. These controls typically attach to the hydraulic cylinder housing, which is located on the underside of the seat.

A properly adjusted saddle will be set higher than a traditional operator stool. To learn if it’s adjusted properly, the seat height should be around two inches below the groin when you stand next to the saddle. The correct height makes it easy to get on and off the saddle, positions the hips higher than the knees, and maintains an optimal lumbar curve.

With the seat pan at an optimal height, stand behind the saddle. Grasp the seat pan with one hand and mount the saddle from the back or the side. This technique provides complete control and prevents the saddle from scooting away unexpectedly. The process may seem odd, but it will become second nature after a few practice sessions.

Using a tripod stance

Most of us were taught to keep our legs close together when sitting in a traditional chair. Saddle seating is different and requires the user to sit in a tripod configuration with the feet flat on the floor and the legs spread apart. The actual width depends on the seat pan design, which ranges from a few inches to shoulder-width apart.

Balance your weight evenly across the entire seat pan to evenly support the thigh and buttocks. For optimal comfort, avoid sitting on the front rim. The saddle needs to support the thighs, not cut off the circulation in the back of the leg.

Finalizing the fit: Seat pan tilt

The next step is to create the ideal seat pan tilt. Saddle seats should have a slight forward and downward tilt, a feature that allows the hips to be higher than the knees. A 5- to 15-degree forward tilt works for most people. The tilt may feel strange for a first-time saddle user, so it’s important to stick with the process.

Sit on the saddle and unlock the tilt mechanism while keeping your feet flat on the floor and your weight balanced across the seat. Gently shift your torso backward or forward until the seat feels balanced. When you hit the “sweet spot” balance, the spine will now fully support the torso. Repeat the steps until the saddle seems natural, then relock the tilt mechanism. This can take a few tries to find the perfect tilt, but the adjustment quickly becomes intuitive.

Testing and positioning

It’s easy to test the adjustments. This is an especially important step if you’re sharing the saddle with someone else. While sitting on the saddle, raise your feet off the floor and point your toes at the wall behind you. A properly adjusted saddle will feel balanced. If the seat pitch is off, you will instinctively lean forward or backward trying to stay balanced. If this happens, repeat the adjustment settings.

Saddle seating is successful in every clock position except eight and four. To avoid unnecessary twisting at the waist, sit directly facing the patient. This encourages even weight distribution.

The devil is in the details

Saddles are a tool, not a miracle device, so stop and take a breath. Saddle seating uses different muscles and bones, so listen to your body. It takes time to acclimate. The moment it feels annoying, switch to your old seating for 30 minutes or so. Then get back on and strive to sit on it for about 15 to 30 minutes longer. Alternating gives your body time to learn the new system. It typically takes a few weeks to fully acclimate.

While it’s critical to not sit on the front rim, plus-sized clinicians should know there is nothing wrong with having a bit of backside extend beyond the rear portion of the seat. The key is having your sit bones supported. There are many different saddle seat pan shapes and sizes, so don’t let this detail deter you from using a saddle.

Some people complain about hip discomfort and others feel that saddles create too much pressure in the pelvic area. Hip discomfort is a sign that the seat pan is either too narrow or too wide for the user. Pelvic pressure is common with saddles that are bulky at the front end. Sometimes the pressure can be eliminated by refining the seat pan tilt, but typically pelvic pressure comes from using a design created for workers who sit in a more upright posture than for someone in dentistry.

An improper seat pan tilt or slick scrub fabric can contribute to the sensation of falling off. On occasion a user complains about inner thigh pressure, which can be a symptom of too much foam padding on the saddle or an improper height or tilt. Finally, some people say saddles cause skin irritation. This means the saddle needs adjusting or the clinician is using their inner thigh muscles to keep from falling off.

Clinicians who follow these suggestions love their saddles and feel healthier. Who doesn’t want to be elevated every time they work?

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It’s the end of an era on Lake Street in Minneapolis.  

The Schatzlein Saddle Shop, a family-owned store which sells an array of Western apparel, riding equipment and other goods — announced it’ll close after 115 years in business. 

The shop is a pillar of the Minnesota horse community and beyond, offering leather repair and other services at the store in addition to merchandise. 

The closure was announced Sunday in a Facebook post: 

Dear friends and valued customers, 

It is with a heavy heart, we have decided the time has come to close Schatzlein Saddle Shop.

Schatzlein’s has been doing business on Lake Street for 115 years and now is the time for some of the family members to retire.

It’s been an incredible ride. Ultimately we would love to stay open, but at this time it is not possible. What’s carried us on so long are all of our valued and loyal customers who have shopped at Schatzlein’s for so long.

We will be sad to see the store close and will miss seeing each and everyone of you and know you will too.

We can’t thank you enough for all your support over the years. We wouldn’t have made it without you

Thank you again from the entire Schatzlein Family.

The store’s liquidation sale begins Monday, with 25% off regular priced items and an additional 20% off clearance. 

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Oct 02, 2022

Change of Rein: Rosie Smith’s Journey from Reining to the #2022AEC

Rosie Smith’s rose gold accented helmet matched her perfectly tidy bun of red hair as she took the third spot in the USEA Training Rider Championship at the 2022 USEA American Eventing Championships (AEC) presented by Nurena Feeds. Every little detail came together while aboard her trusted partner of nine years: the 20-year-old Connemara Irish Draught named Seamus (by Corrcullen, RID). But Smith’s first jump, back when she was only 15 years old, wasn’t with an English saddle.

“I was actually at a reining clinic at the Golden Spike event center, which hosts a recognized USEA event, and I was done with the clinic and just out hacking with my friends. We wandered onto the cross-country course and I was like, ‘What are all of these logs and stuff out here?’ and then we thought, oh they’re jumps!” said Smith. “We did some jumps with our little western horses in our western saddles. It wasn’t the prettiest thing but I thought it was so fun, I was hooked.”

Smith actually started riding western at age three and she got her first pony when she was eight. By complete coincidence, Smith’s piano teacher had horses and had stumbled upon an internet ad for a cheap pony. The deal was if Smith’s parents bought her the pony, the piano teacher would let her keep it at her farm. Any horse person would know that those two words (cheap + pony) are a recipe for disaster, but luckily Smith’s parents weren’t horse-people and so they bought the pony for Smith to do 4-H with.

“He was actually a retired junior rodeo bucking horse when I got him, so you can imagine how that was,” said Smith. “I fell off him every time I rode him. He was terrible but he taught me how to ride really well so I’m forever grateful to little Hercules.” A couple more naughty ponies later, Smith said she earned her first “good horse”—a reining horse named Nick who had been to the World Championships in Oklahoma a few times.

She thought, “I have this super awesome reining horse, I should do some reining.” So she did, and they were a stellar team. So stellar in fact that Smith also did some barrel racing with him and now, every winter, she takes him out to do skijoring—a sport in which a person on skis is pulled behind a horse. But whatever happened after that impromptu jump post-reining clinic?

“I took some lessons with Nick and I did one schooling show with him in Intro and he was such a good boy—jumping was not his thing,” said Smith. “He tried so hard for me. I ended up leasing a Warmblood after that.” With the leased mare being a bit on the older side, an injury to the mare forced Smith to explore other options but it wasn’t too long before Smith found herself with two horses. One was Seamus, who actually was a failed adult amateur horse, and the other was the colt of the retired mare.

Smith’s world has slowed down a bit since the AEC at Rebecca Farm, but slowing down for Smith isn’t exactly what we would call a vacation. She is actually studying at Colorado College in Colorado Springs and majoring in Organismal Biology and Ecology. She’s on the pre-med track and has dreams of becoming an emergency room doctor, so she can afford to keep riding of course.

“I love eventing, it’s just my passion,” said Smith. Her 4-year-old colt joins her at college this semester and she has plans to event him separately from her captain position on the IHSA collegiate team. And as for Seamus, Smith is going to see how he feels in the spring after a long season off. She moved him down from Preliminary this year just to have fun with him as he ages and she’s happy to keep doing whatever keeps him happy. “He’s been in the top three in every event I took him to. He’s a superstar, that horse.”

They do say that bad horses make good riders but there’s something to be said about those good riders returning the favor and producing those naughty horses into tried and true companions. Smith spoke about each of her steeds, leased or owned, with a fondness that can only come from a mature horsewoman who genuinely loves the horse first and sport second, embodying the eventing spirit to a T.

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If you go by the schedule, Canadian Night at the National Finals Rodeo isn’t until Thursday.

But you could make an argument that every night in this year’s saddle bronc riding has been one for Canadian cowboys.

Six of the 15 qualifiers hail from the Great White North.

Two have combined for three wins in the NFR’s first six rounds.

As Corb Lund, the country and western crooner from Alberta who will sing “O Canada” before Thursday’s performance will testify, the home and native land is commanding lots of true patriot love at the NFR.

“We have all been buddies since we were little, and we’ve been talking about (competing in Las Vegas) since we were able to walk,” Logan Hay, 25, said after winning his first career NFR round Monday at the Thomas &Mack Center before collecting his second Tuesday with 87.5 points aboard Duane Kesler’s Chucky.

“Now that we can put those dreams into action, it’s pretty amazing.”

Hay is a son of Rod Hay, a 20-time NFR qualifier in the saddle bronc, and the nephew of Denny Hay, who won three Canadian titles in the discipline. Logan Hay’s brother, Dawson, also is riding at the NFR, along with compatriots Zeke Thurston, Layton Green, Kolby Wanchuk and Kole Ashbacher.

Ted Stovin, a Canadian rodeo enthusiast who operates a website dedicated to the sport, says the six-man saddle bronc contingent hearkens to the 1960s when Alberta’s Marty Wood was winning world championships in the event.

There also are Canadians competing in bareback riding (Orin Larsen, before he missed Monday and Tuesday with a broken thumb), team roping (Jeremy Buhler) and bull riding (Jared Parsonage), and Curtis Cassidy was ranked 14th in the all-around standings entering the NFR, giving his homeland an additional presence.

Seven of the nine qualifiers hail from Alberta, the rodeo-centric province north of Montana that hosts the famous Calgary Stampede in July and sends its best bucking horses to the NFR. Another thing the Canadian cowboys have in common is that most played ice hockey, which should come as no surprise.

Rod Hay grew up with Clint Malarchuk, a former NHL goalie who finished his career with the Las Vegas Thunder of the old International Hockey League. Logan Hay played bantam and midget hockey before switching his focus to rodeo. He recalls his dad and uncle firing pucks on Malarchuk during one of their frequent Las Vegas visits.

There is no mention of goals and assists or even high-sticking penalties in Zeke Thurston’s PRCA biography. But the 2016 and 2019 saddle bronc world champion also remembered receiving a hockey stick under his Christmas tree when he was a young boy.

He admitted to not being a good hockey player. But he became a world class bronc rider, and his two gold buckles have been an inspiration for youngsters back home now pulling up bootstraps.

“I was the first one to kind of accomplish this dream we’re all after,” Thurston said of the current crop of Canadian saddle bronc riders after winning Sunday’s go-round and placing in the three before that. “I felt like I kind of paved the way for a lot of those guys who are following in my footsteps, and they’re doing a great job. I’m proud of every one of them.”

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.

Steer wrestler lights up dark T&M with go-round win

The lights went out Tuesday at the Thomas & Mack Center, but it didn’t preclude National Finals Rodeo competitors from delivering some high-voltage performances.

A power outage during the steer wrestling go-round caused about a 20-minute delay before Tristan Martin, one of three bulldoggers forced to wait for the lights to come back to full intensity, set the fast time of 3.5 seconds.

Later, tie-down roper Shad Mayfield of Clovis, New Mexico, set the sixth-round NFR record by stopping the clock in 6.5 seconds.

“It was probably a good thing because we were all pumped up back there, jitterbug excited,” said Martin, of Sulphur, Louisiana. “The lights go out for 10 or 15 minutes, and we get to chill out and look at everybody up in the stands.”

It was pretty much the same for the horses, Martin said, after starting the second half of his NFR with a victory.

“The horses get to relax a little bit, slow down, focus and do our job,” he said. “Loosen their saddles a little bit and just pet ’em, and it’s all good.”

Other sixth-round winners:

Rocker Steiner, Weatherford, Texas, in bareback riding (88.5);

Chad Masters, Cedar Hill, Tennessee, and Joseph Harrison, Marietta, Oklahoma, in team roping (4.0);

Logan Hay, Wildwood, Alberta, Canada, in saddle bronc riding (87.5);

Shad Mayfield, Clovis, New Mexico, in tie-down roping (6.5, set Round 6 record);

Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi, Lampasas, Texas, and Emily Beisel, Weatherford, Oklahoma, in barrel racing (13.57, tie);

Tristen Hutchings, Monteview, Idaho, in bull riding (88).

Quoteworthy: “I’ve never really seen anything like it at such a big rodeo. But I grew up in Louisiana, so we always have rain delays and (lightning) delays.” — Steer wrestler Tristan Martin, on dealing with a 20-minute power outage before setting the fast time Tuesday.

Up next

What: National Finals Rodeo

When: 5:45 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday

Where: Thomas & Mack Center

TV: The Cowboy Channel, RFD-TV; Channels 603 and 345 (DirecTV); Channels 231 and 232 (DISH Network)

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Cowboys. Saddles. Chaps. Riding jeans. Boots. Western hats. There’s very little that a good dose of cowboy-ism can’t improve. From Pride Parade apparel to the sheer swag of walking into a meeting after going for a ride, sweat rolling down your brow and the stink of fine leather goods on your clothes, cowboy-ism is truly the salt of life.

And no, I don’t mean the classic ‘merican ideal of the cowboy, with its terrible “Manifest Destiny” adjacent history. I mean the basic premise of ranching, a staple of all kinds of people the world over, from the gauchos of the pampas to the vaqueros of California. The soul of it comes down to the core lifestyle of tending to one’s community—rearing animals, upkeeping chores and the like—while having the endurance and strength to protect such precious things. That shit bangs. It’s raw, it’s real, and it’s grounded in the natural world around you. What’s more, it involves the power that comes from riding a beast that could easily kill you, while wearing jeans that fit ever so nicely. Tell me, is there anything sexier than living an honest life on the range and looking good while doing it?

Episode 6 of The Last of Us answered that question with a resounding: “No, there is nothing sexier Madeline, and fortunately, we have Cowboy Tommy for you to think about for the next few days.”

We get a little taste of the range life when Joel and Ellie meet a Native couple who’ve been surviving on their own for years, hunting and keeping to themselves. We then see them set off to wander the great out yonder in the peace that Winter brings. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, an entire posse of horsemen in Western saddles emerges, immediately bringing the duo to a halt. Yes, I know, it was supposed to be a tense scene, but I was grinning with the same enthusiasm I had the first time I rode barrels. Hell yeah, I thought, this show’s becoming a Western.

It’s a difficult thing to ultimately pin down, why Westerns are so damn cool. I think it could be analogous to why silly movements like the whole ‘cottagecore’ thing took off: we tend to romanticize lifestyles that are fairly divorced from our own, and bring us a very simple, yet fulfilling sense of satisfaction. I’ve worked on ranches and ridden on them, and I can vouch for how great I feel at the end of a good day’s work. You have to be present and in the moment. You have to be engaged with your natural environment because any little slip-up results in a job poorly done. This is especially true when working with animals, who can sense your hesitation and will absolutely NOT listen to you if you don’t show you’ve got a spine. That’s where the empowerment comes from: prove you can hack it, and you’ve essentially cut a deal with the elements.

Bearing this all in mind, I’ve always hoped for more pieces of media with these kinds of themes. I don’t think people realize that these themes can be divorced from traditional American historical narratives, since again, these themes are present all over the world, and there are all kinds of histories with “cowboy-ism” attached. For instance, I loved Nope in large part because it showcased Black American range life, which often goes unexamined (this is a great article on the subject, for reference). And yes, it was largely a silly spooky alien movie, but it was also incredibly badass because of the themes it used. Those scenes when OJ would ride out into the danger zone? Poetic cinema. Loved it.

So, it not only made a lot of sense for a world like The Last of Us to incorporate these themes, but it also made the world even more compelling for us to explore as viewers. Yes, the hypotheticals of the fungal apocalypse are thrilling to explore on their own, but adding a Western touch makes them feel a lot more grounded. Realer. Cooler. We trade in some “zombie-isms” for a taste of Buster Scruggs. Never a bad move, in my honest opinion.

I can’t wait to see more of Jackson and to see whether or not these themes are expanded upon in future episodes. Especially now that they have a horse of their own. A horse with no name. My god, this shit writes itself.

(featured image: HBO)

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