The important points to attend to in an arch, apart from its strength, are:-

 1. Its height.

 2. Its width.

Nearly the whole of the wither injuries met in the Service are due to one or other of these causes. Either the arch is not high enough or it is too narrow; sometimes there is a combination of these evils, but more frequently they are single and an injury from a narrow arch is more common than that from a low arch.

The subject of injuries has yet to be dealt with in detail, but to prevent misconception it is desirable to state here that most of them are the result of bad fitting, loss of condition or other service conditions rather than errors in manufacture, such as the above remarks might appear to suggest.

Points of arch
The front arch extends below the sidebars; the extension is known as the points, and these are intended to help the girths and prevent the saddle from heeling over. They appear unnecessary, and are not present in the Modern Universal Pattern Military Saddle.

Rear arch
The rear arch is made of metal in all modern military saddles; in plain saddles and those of the Colonial pattern it is of wood strengthened with steel.