12/02/2004: "FQHB – Originally Posted October 25, 2004"
HUH? FQHB – the acronym for Full Quarter Horse Bars – that I’ve decided is what it’s going to take to fit Indy’s broad back. FQHB and a saddle designed for them from the start.
As I was discussing in the previous entry, it really doesn’t make sense when you think about it – that you can take any saddle and just shove a much wider gullet plate into it and expect it to be like a saddle that was designed for wider bars. Besides, there’s a lot more to it than just the width of the gullet. In fact, the ANGLE of the bars to the horse’s back is much more important that gullet width alone. No matter how wide apart the bars are, if they meet the back at too steep and angle, they’re still going to dig straight down and perch on the horse’s back instead of fitting onto it with a flatter, more comfortable and stable meshing.
Not only do FQHB have that flatter angle, they are wider at the center than at the gullet, to better fit the horse’s middle without having the gullet become too wide and sit down on the wither.
Anyway, we shall see. I have ordered an Abetta western saddle with FQHBs. It should fit. It looks like a very nice saddle on Abetta’s relatively new endurance tree. I’ve heard a lot of good comments about this series, so here we go again, folks.
The saddle should be coming any day now. It would be nice if my ribs were recovered enough to at least put it on Indy’s back…