Saddling Blowups 

Richard Boatwright Mr. Boatwright (and the rest of the B1 Community) - I'm puzzled by some recent behavior by the 7 year old gray horse I've got. Recently he has started blowing up with the saddle on once saddled. 

What it looks like:

I've included a video, but he generally starts blowing/snorting once I saddle him. Once saddled, he'll pop once I start moving him around a little bit. This started a few weeks ago. He was tied and popped a cork - I was unable to see anything that scared him or pushed him back. Since then he's been 100% consistent in some kind of blowup when saddling. Once he wraps up he rides around just fine. This is entirely new - he's never bucked doing warmups since his first few rides.

Video: https://youtu.be/fUi__L1UbGc

What I've tried/am trying:

• Different saddles, cinches, stirrups, back cinches, tightening back cinch, moving back cinch.

• Warming him up before saddling.

• Currently I'm on day 5 of putting him in the round pen and attempting to get him to think about it. In these sessions I attempt to associate the saddle with rest and work him without it, then put the saddle on him and let him rest, etc.

What I'm thinking of trying:

• Getting him checked for 'beans'

• Saddling him from the off-side to see if it's an issue with seeing movement there. 

• Continuing the work with the saddle is rest approach (he has seemed to lose some of the intensity in these).

• Any ideas you or the group at large might have.

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