No one wants a horse that bucks.\u00a0 With a horse that is very good at bucking, it’s not a question of whether you will come off the horse, it’s a question of how long it will take.<\/p>\n
If you ride or work with “other” horses, chances are that you will come across a horse that bucks.<\/p>\n
Every healthy horse bucks.\u00a0 Yet horses do not enjoy prolonged bucking, and only do it when they feel it is necessary.\u00a0 If you watch healthy horses at play, you will see them throw in a buck after rolling, after a good race around a field, or when hitting a patch of soil that feels different under their feet.\u00a0 They will often buck after jumping playfully over a ditch or log as well.\u00a0 What you don’t see are happy horses in their home environment bucking multiple times in a row just for fun.\u00a0 They may buck once or twice, then they move on.\u00a0 More than that is quite tiring and is due to either discomfort or sometimes from venting their frustration after being kept in a small space for too long.<\/p>\n
From this we can deduce that any horse we come across that bucks multiple times in a row has some resolvable issue that we need to discover and take care of.\u00a0 Bucking (except for the occasional joyful buck) is not the problem, it is a symptom of the problem.<\/p>\n
There is no such thing as a “cold backed” horse.\u00a0 The term is used for horses that buck either when they are first cinched up or when the rider sits in the saddle.\u00a0 If a horse only bucks when the saddle is on, either the saddle doesn’t fit, the horse finds the saddle uncomfortable and\/or frightening, or the horse has a sore back.\u00a0 Owners often laugh and say their horse is great, calm, well-meaning but cold backed.\u00a0 If they really thought about it logically, they would realize that a great, calm, well-meaning horse is only going to buck if the saddle pinches them or their back is hurting.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the horse will buck while being lunged under saddle before the rider gets on, and then will not buck while being ridden.\u00a0 This is sometimes because the area of the back gets numb where it is being pinched, the horse accepts the pain, or they get used to the feeling of the back cinch (often you will see a supposedly cold backed horse is being ridden with a back cinch and the real issue is that they dislike the strap so far back near the area where bucking straps are put on rodeo horses).<\/p>\n
If a horse begins bucking the second you sit in the saddle, you should get off immediately and assume the horse has a back problem or the saddle is a very poor fit for the horse.\u00a0 I have seen a few horses that bucked or reared when the rider sat down; without any intervention other than a new saddle, these horses never displayed the behavior again.\u00a0 If you are going to ride horses in a saddle, you need to learn how to assess for saddle fit.\u00a0 Saddles that do not fit will cause the horse pain, whether the horse shows it visibly or not.\u00a0 There is no excuse for hollow areas behind the shoulders, white hairs or atrophied back muscles.\u00a0 Any horse being ridden in a well fitting saddle will have round, strong back muscles on either side of their spine (unless they have other severe hoof, back or leg problems, in which case they often shouldn’t be ridden anyway).<\/p>\n
I recommend the following resources to learn about saddle fit:<\/p>\n