What happens when you combine 100 saddles, 25 Dover Saddlery associates, 12 Saddle Fit Experts, 8 horses and 1 big white tent? Dover Saddle Camp 2013!

We’re serious about saddles at Dover Saddlery, and we are equally serious about providing our employees opportunities to learn and gain knowledge. That’s why we recently brought key employees from all of our retail stores and from all of our call centers together for three days of intensive, hands on saddle training at a beautiful equestrian facility near our headquarters in Massachusetts. We affectionately called this seminar “Dover Saddle Camp 2013!”

Camp started with an introduction from Gary Severson, better known as the Saddle Doctor. Gary has an impressive resume as an equine physiologist and a lifelong independent saddle fitter, including some time as the official saddle fitter to the United States Equestrian Team! He provided an extremely thorough overview of saddle fit concepts, equine anatomy as it applies to saddle fit and correct use of shims and correction pads. Best of all, we used several different horses to visually demonstrate his points. It’s great to read about these concepts and learn about them in a classroom, but all the associates agreed that actually seeing the saddles on horses of varied shapes and sizes really drove the message home. Best of all, this overview provided everyone with a very strong foundation for the rest of the seminar.

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