Are treeless pads really necessary?

[shelby]

Are triple layer, sooper dooper, NASA inspired, get a second mortgage treeless saddle pads really necessary :confused:?

Many of the old style treeless saddles didnt have a gullet. We were encouraged to buy exorbitantly expensive things to ensure spinal clearance. Im ok with the spinal clearance bit, but not the price.

However, many treeless saddles now have gullets. So why the need for expensive pads.

'To protect the horse from the riders weight/seat bones' I hear the reply. Well....if buying more padding would reduce my weight, believe me, I would have a shed full of sadddle pads :rolleyes:. How will putting a wodge of stuff between me and my pony help her carry me more easily. Isnt it more to do with my balance and position I ask?

How does a piece of foam (or whatever) sticking out in front and behind me help my pony? Im not even sitting on it!! My treeless has padding where I sit.

There are no nasty tree edges see-sawing into my pony or bridging and digging in at the 4 corners any more, so why the need for a triple layer, sooper dooper, etc, etc, treeless pad?

(Sure if you have fiberglass pommels and cantles, some protection from these is required, but if you havent, then ....????)

Please, dont report me to the RSPCA, at the moment I am using a Suber Pad under my treeless, lol!

[Zingy]

'To protect the horse from the riders weight/seat bones' I hear the reply. Well....if buying more padding would reduce my weight, believe me, I would have a shed full of sadddle pads :rolleyes:. How will putting a wodge of stuff between me and my pony help her carry me more easily. Isnt it more to do with my balance and position I ask?

It's not about reducing weight. It's about distributing pressure more evenly. Without doinng that, you will have pressure points under the seat bones, around the area where the stirrup leathers attach and, I would think to some extent, where the girth attaches.

[MelanieD]

A suberpad should be fine under most treeless saddles, its enough superduper padding that you don't need any of the superduper treeless pads :) Just a plain normal numah OTOH might not be enough depending on the saddle. If the saddle is designed to be used with more than just a plain numnah underneath than its likely that just the saddle alone wouldn't distribute pressure well enough.

[newforest]

i hav the barefoot pad and i use it under my libra trek as well.
they are expensive so i bought just the one.
when i had a treed saddle i think i had all colours of numnah so possibly spent the same in long run.

[westphalenlover]

New Forest, do you like your Libra Trek? I've got one and love it, just wondered what other peoples opinions/experiences are?