I love these comparison pictures! This one is so interesting to me because Billy looks so much leggier in the three year old picture. Which of course he is, since he has grown a few inches from two to three years old. Inches taller and inches wider as he continues to mature and get thicker and thicker through the chest and shoulders. AND he as lost his baby belly. Finally!
In the two year old picture the saddle has several shims under the front of the saddle and the middle as well. The saddle is actually sitting just perfect on his back in the three year old picture without shims. It’s amazing how a little growth spurt, causing his front end to catch up with his hind end can change how the saddle sits.
This growing- front then back then front then back- is totally normal for horses. Billy’s growth hasn’t been as extreme as I’ve seen some horses exhibit, but obviously if one had started riding him hard as a two year old his body was not yet ready for that. It could have caused him stress on those legs, tends, shoulders and back. Causing undue stress in those areas could have caused him to have a hard time carrying himself correctly which would have caused his posture to deteriorate, no matter how well the saddle fit. When a horse learns to carry himself incorrectly it is very difficult to teach them to carry themselves correctly. Incorrect posture is the cause of many many behavior problems in horses, because when a horse is carrying itself incorrectly this causes pain in different areas of the horse’s body as it carries the human.
It’s amazing to me how many behavior problems could be alleviated if the human would just give the horse time to mature.