Tack Tip - Expedient Bareback Pad

One of my readers wrote to ask about riding bareback and how much of that would or could be detrimental to the horse. 

I would be concerned about too much bareback riding particularly on an older horse with the lack of back muscle that would support weight concentrated on a smaller area that would come from bareback riding as opposed to a saddle with bars to support and spread out the weight.

The friction from your pants or chaps sliding around on his back couldn't be good for him. But I think it all depends on how much and what type of riding you are doing. I have a hard enough time sitting a horse in a saddle to think about challenging myself riding bareback. I don't ride bareback much and haven't been bareback for more than 20 minutes over the past 20 years. And that would be cumulative minutes! But I recognize the training value of learning a bareback seat before moving to a saddle and some people, either because a lack of time or whatever, just like to pull a horse from a pen in halter and get in a quick bare back ride.

I thought of the John Wayne movie "Big Jake" where John Wayne's character's son was getting ready to mount a horse bareback and John Wayne said "put a blanket on that horse".  The son replied "I don't need a blanket", and John Wayne said "It ain't for you, it's for the horse!"
  
I have a very well made bare back pad which I bought at a Craig Cameron clinic for my wife - the picture at right. It's a contoured bareback pad made from suede leather stitched onto a 1" thick 100% wool felt pad. It has D rings and a latigo for securing the bareback pad to the horse's back, and a hand loop near the withers for safety. I would recommend anyone who rides much bareback should have a quality pad such as this one. However, it does cost $250 and that's alot of money to some especially if you don't ride bareback much.

An expedient bare back pad can be made from a old felt pad (a contoured pad likely works best), a cincha and a latigo - see picture at right.  I'm sure you can use other type pads, but a contoured pad stays in place better, less so on mutton withered horses.  A blanket covered wool pad would be my next choice, but again a contoured pad will work the best. 

Simply place the pad on the horse, configure one end of the latigo to one of the D rings on the cincha - you can see that connection in the picture above, then drape the latigo over the pad and connect to the other cincha D ring buckle on the other side - see picture at right.

You may have to punch new holes in the latigo to secure it to the cincha buckle.  Your latigo will likely have a lot of excess.  You can double it up and store it in the keeper on the cincha, or you can cut the latigo to a more manageable size.   



Once you use the expedient bare back pad, you will have an idea on what you need to do to make it more safe and/or easier to use. If you want to get fancy on it you could sew a latigo or an alike strap over the pad, and you could fashion an hand hold with a section of old belt or another latigo strap on the pad near the withers.