Mary and horses

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks for the info and the pictures, Betty. I've never before seen a saddle with a slot and was curious what the function was. This is what I found out:

"The original MnClellan was designed for the Thoroughbred type of horse. A horse with fairly high and narrow withers. Also, the reason for the full length slot in the center was because under battle conditions horses would lose quite a lot of weight and this prevented the saddle from making contact with the protruding backbone. It is also for this reason that "slot" goes up so far under at bottom of the cantle, much higher than any of the western type stock saddles"

http://truewest.ning.com/m/discussion?id...c%3A106525