# Riding with fender style stirrups vs. english stirrups and leathers



## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

It may be your stirrup bars are farther forward on this saddle, which makes you reach for it with your feet and bring your heel up. It would be more noticeable when posting.

A lot of English riders use the jack in the box style of posting, like my daughter used to do in our western saddle:










You can see the fenders are too far forward for her body size, although she always insisted in riding THIS saddle. So in posting, she's pulled the stirrups back to get them under her but the force of doing that raised her heel.

I have always preferred a more subtle way of posting. I think of it as rolling onto my thighs and barely getting my butt out of the saddle. Done like that, it doesn't matter how far forward the stirrups are, because you don't end up standing in them.

A video of your riding would help, but that is my guess from the picture. Good luck!


----------



## Joe4d (Sep 1, 2011)

stock saddles by design put you in more of a chair seat. Adjust the stirups so your thighs are the same angle and a couple inches from the poleys. then sit back and enjoy the ride.


----------



## Saskia (Aug 26, 2009)

Thanks for the replies. I think the leg position is certainly a factor, and just something that I have to get used to. But part of the problem is that the stirrup almost feels like its twisting away from my foot, so I can't put the ball of my foot in because the stirrup isn't straight across? Does that make sense? Or am I going a bit crazy?


----------

