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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We’ve been getting a lot of questions about riding socks so we reached out to our good friends over at Mountain Horse® for some helpful information! Let us know what you think!

Fact: All equestrians wear boots. It doesn’t matter in which discipline you ride or the type of boots you ride in, we all wear boots — cowboy boots, paddock boots, tall boots, work boots, muck boots, groom boots. And since you wear boots, you’ve got to wear socks. When it comes to the comfort of your feet, socks are almost as important as the boots you wear. Many times, we blame a shoe or boot for “not working right” when, in fact, it’s probably the sock you’re wearing.

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In honor of Helmet Awareness Week we will be sharing valuable information about helmets with all of you all week! The first installment covers how to properly fit your riding helmet.

Does your riding helmet fit well?

A well-fitting riding helmet should fit snugly and not rock from side to side or from front to back. As helmets age they may not fit as well and may need to be replaced. Alternatively you could consider a helmet replacement liner. The first step to make sure that you get a helmet that fits is to measure your head correctly!

A little while ago we actually put together a post on How to Measure your Head for a Helmet. Follow these guidelines to measure your own head or ask a friend to help or go into any Dover Saddlery store for a helmet fitting. After you know your correct size you can have fun choosing a new riding helmet from the huge selection at Dover Saddlery.