11/15/2025
If you are horse shopping and know that you need a narrow -twist-thigh-seat- really anything with the word narrow, dont buy a creature that looks like this.
This is my potato chonk princess who is a delightful sofa if you also like a wide twist. To put her in a narrow twisted saddle would be physically impossible, or outright cruel. The only compromise would be to build up the saddle sooooo tall that you compromise stability.
To understand why, lets look at the sketch. Everything in blue and teal shows where and how a proper tree would fit her, giving clearance for her spine and ligaments, and allowing the saddle to wrap around her for ample security without sticky pads. The red is what a narrow twist would look like if put on her back. You can see how that would inhibit her topline from lifting, and put pressure on the structures that cannot take weight. It also doesn't look terribly stable.
Us fitters have some tricks up our sleeves to make things more accommodating, like stirrup bar placementsand seat bellies, but a true mismatch where horse and rider are on opposite ends of the spectrum is an impossible ask.
