Help, How Does This Saddle Look? *Picture Heavy*

devonlass said:
Bridging!! That is the term I was looking for in reference to the whole gap/pressure thing with the girth straps,thank you for that!!

Do you really think it's sat high at the front?? See now I thought it was quite close to his withers,especially as someone else mentioned these saddles sink quite a bit once a rider is on board,but hey ho this is what I meant when said there will be 20 different perspectives lol

In regard to the panels at the back,I have to say owning one of these saddles myself that the panels are pretty much as flat as you can get at the back!! I think the problem is that because the saddle is on a dark background it looks like they end pretty much at the seem that is visible,The panel actually extends under that a fair bit and can't actually see from those pics where they meet the horse (or I can't anyway,but that could be my eyes lol),I suspect if the OP was to put a white sheet under the saddle and take pics could get a lot better idea of where the panels actually sit on the horse.I have just looked at my saddle like this,and panels definitely look flatter than in those pics,so can only assume it is the lighting and background in the pics.

Have to say I am not seeing a terrible fit here,agree it's not perfect,especially how far back it goes over the ribs,but there is nothing glaringly obvious to me that is wrong enough to suggest very poor fit.I have seen far,far worse;) A few minor niggles I can see,but nothing that would stop me riding in it,especially if it was placed a bit further forward.

FM is there anyone at your yard that knows a bit about saddle fit?? Would be a lot better for someone to actually see it rather than trying to judge fit by pics,are lot's of poking and prodding things that are helpful to determine saddle fit,so someone having a fiddle around could put your mind at rest a bit:)
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I agree yes it is sat close at front, when i say high at front i dont mean the gap between horse and pommel, i mean that the pommel is sat to high in respect to the cantle, meaning the seat of the saddle isnt sitting level and therefor of poor balance. Just cause its close at front doesnt mean its to wide just a poor fit for that horse. You have to look at the saddle as a whole and as to why it is sitting close. And I will stick to my pannels opinion

Here a similar pic of a pannel with a stitch, les pointed but would still not be gr8 for such a flat back

http://www.farmersguardian.com/Pictures/inline/j/o/f/Saddle_correct_behind.jpg

Here we have a close contact system, no stitch and much flatter wider pannels

http://www.mysaddle.com/saddles/versaillespanelCln.jpg

I also disagree that a "not perfect" fit is ok to be riding in :rolleyes:. This horse is showing unusual behaviour, most commonly known as a side effect of discomfort, so teeth, shoes, back and tack etc etc. I dont see why an uncomfortable horse is made to carry on working for our pleasure :mad:. Horses are a prey animal and will do all they can to cover up weakness to protect themselves, when we start seeing a problem its either cause they cant compensate enough to cover it up or because they really have had enough.

Skin can comfortably take 1.5lbs of pressure per square inch before u effect blood flow and muscle health, (the whole skin goes white with pressure thing) A well fitting English saddle, perfect size, pannels perfect width and distrubution of weight with an average weight rider on top for saddle and horse puts on 7lbs of pressure per square inch. So imagine the damage that can be caused with an ill fitting saddle, muscle wastage (dead muscle), nerve damage, reluctence to work and mental ill health. We are sat on the most vunrable part of the horse, we really need to be doing the best for it.

I have to totaly disagree with moving the saddle further forward, it will then be sat on his shoulder restricting movement and pinching, A saddle should never ever be placed over the shoulder, also by doing this you will change the fit of the pannels making brideging aparent or worse and making the pommel sit even higher than the cantle putting the saddle and rider even more off balance.

We are the only ones who can protect our horses and unfortunatly the ones who can cause the most problems. Mistakes happen and well fitting saddles can become poor fitting saddles, but once a problems is identified I feel its unfair to carry working the horse before doing something about it. We wouldnt ride if our hat was to tight and uncomfortable, or if drive if the seat made our backs sore, so why is it ok to take an animal and expect them to put up with it, sorry but its an issue that really bugs me. Just cause youve seen worse doesnt make it aceptable. :mad::mad:
 
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Ahh I see MM on the pommel issue,sorry my mistake as to what you were meaning:eek:

I was not aware the horse had been exhibiting unusual behaviour?? I am aware OP has had some spooking issues,but don't know any more than that,must have missed that post,will try and keep up better in future lol

With all due respect no saddle is ever going to fit perfectly,not ever.Even made to measure ones will never be a perfect fit.I see no terrible fitting issues with this saddle that are going to cause the horse pain,other than the sitting too far back issue,which IMO can be helped by moving the saddle a bit further forward,and again IMO the saddle can go further forward without impeding shoulder movement,especially as the wides are cut back to accomodate big shoulders.I have my saddle further forward than this without any issues,and yes his saddle has been checked and fits very well;):)

As to the panels at the back we can agree to disagree,I am only going on the shape of my own exact same saddle,which I know is flatter cut than appears in those pics,so am assuming the pics are not showing it too well.Although I am basing that on the fact that all the wides are cut the same of course,if not then my apologies and I stand corrected.

Anyway I'm not going to get into a fight about it,everyone will have their own opinion,and saddle fit is always going to be something people disagree on,I also don't think anyone can judge a saddle 'not fit to ride in' from a pic,I'm certainly not going to worry OP with such suggestions anyway.
 
Vicki100 said:
Im no expert, but treeless might be a possible route to go down?? :D:p
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I was thinking this,as this horse is never going to be easy to fit IMO.Very short coupled,wide and just generally big all over bless him.Treeless would help with the weight bearing/seat size issue as could distributed over a larger area.

Would also not be such an issue with changing shape,as OP could adjust herself accordingly.

Newforest on here is a bit of a treeless guru,perhaps OP could drop her a PM??:)
 
I am in a similar position - big girl with wide horse with short back - I'm tall as well which doesnt help.

I ended up having to go treeless (a Freeform with a Mattes treeless pad with pressure relief panels for the "bigger" rider) as it was less of an issue if the saddle sat over the shoulders slightly or a bit far back at the cantle.

I had a wintec wide and was very happy with it - for a while. He changed shape though and it started to bridge so I had to rethink things.

I am now toying with a WOW as I can have a 17" panel and an 18" seat - with longer flaps. Its pricey but I am almost out of options.

My freeform is great to hack in but my hips are missing a twist and I dont find it easy to school or jump in it:(.
 
Looking at the saddle and the horse the first thing i thought was how small it actually looked on him overall.
It's not sitting level so this will tip you and create pressure points.
The flaps are not in contact with him.
The photo from behind i personally don't feel there is enough there, weight bearing panels wise. The panels that are there are not completely in contact with his back.

It's good to see there is no pad, as you shouldn't use a pad to make a saddle fit if it doesn't fit.

When i did have a x wide saddle on my pony i felt i couldn't actually get my legs on / to the point i didn't always know where they were flapping the saddle itself made me feel as if i was on a lot bigger than i was.

Lovely horse though, wow bet they are so comfortable.

If you wanted to go treeless entirely your choice, i did consider the wh saddles first before i did this. My pony is also short coupled and i had trouble length wise. The length of a treed saddle is for your leg length, so if you are long legged you will need the length. But the working hunter types are straighter cut so this did allow for the saddle to sit a little further forwards and not interfere with shoulder movement.

I rode in it once hated it, went treeless:)
 
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FM - If you can spend a little time looking on Ebay or something then there are some nice saddles made by Barry Swain - here is a link to show you the shape of the tree/seat. I'm not suggesting that you go for a dressage saddle btw or to buy a new one (they're quite pricey) but you will pick one up for about £300 which could then be sent to their workshops and adjusted to your horses width.

There are other brands which have similar trees to this - some old Colman Croft (remember those!), some Ideals and Lauriche. Basically, as a rule, with a square cantle you get a flatter seat and therefore a flatter tree. You don't then get the large gusseted panels which can dig into the back muscle, because the tree is flatter. With a gussetless panel, the overall saddle length is shorter so you might find that an 18" of this type is shorter in the panel than that of the 17.5" Wintec or other similar gusseted saddle. Remember that any panel which protrudes past the end of the tree serves no weight bearing purpose.

As another said - no saddle will ever fit perfectly. So we just have to do the best we can but using the most suitable style for the horses back.

Hope these pointers help?
 
TBH I think the best person to advise you on this will be your saddler! It doesn't look horrenously bad to me, I agree with devonlass in that could do with the narrower gullet. Hard to tell withouth actually seeing it in the flesh... I am happy to come pony poke though ;) ;)
 
Woah - I've had a couple of days where I couldn't get access to a proper computer to post a response and I now feel like I have information overload!! Thankyou so much for all your thoughts and opinions and the links for different saddles just to show me what might be going wrong and what options I need to consider. I'd love to think that the issues we're having are completely down to the saddle, sadly I'm not that optimistic but I obviously need to get this sorted so as its been ruled out and isn't posing a problem. While I had no illusions of knowledge, I never realised how much there was that I didn't know about saddle fitting and it just encourages me more to seek out professional help to come and as Devonlass says - poke and prod about a bit!
I will post the verdict when I finally pin the lady down to come out and check thankyou for the suggestion of coming to have a look Kit&Holly, I may call on you in the future if you're around but at the moment I'm going to see what this lady says. I now see that this isn't going to be a straight forward situation, and may take a bit of work to find the best solution, so a different real life opinion will be much appreciated aswell!! I'm reminded of my Plus Size Model thread, having issues with finding stuff to fit such a big horse! Here we go again!!
Treeless, I've read some of the threads from Vicki and PF trying to get the best fit and I really need to investigate this a bit more, the only thing I have heard (and please don't pounce on me!) is that its closer to riding bareback, and while that may be a good thing over all, my balance is still being called into question and while I'm getting lessons I think my comfort zone is a treed saddle - although I'm sure thats just perception and probably not true - the fear of the unknown!
 
Looking at you and your horse as a combination, I wouldn't recommend the treeless route for you.

Remmy has just about put everything into focus with eml.

In one of your photos you say the saddle isn;t far enough forwards, IMO the saddle was too far forward in all those pics.
 
I agree 100% with this too

Wally said:
Looking at you and your horse as a combination, I wouldn't recommend the treeless route for you.

In one of your photos you say the saddle isn;t far enough forwards, IMO the saddle was too far forward in all those pics.
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Saddle definitely too short for you. You should be able to fit a hand's breadth between your rear and cantle. Your weight def too far back as saddle is now.
 
Might be worth considering a saddle with a half panel - like the old pony saddles? There is less bulk for you under the saddle so your leg is longer, and if you really want knee blocks then look to get them on the saddle flap rather under it.

It might be also worth looking into companies/saddlers that stock saddles that are made for the american market as they are much more geared up to riding draft horses, so have a better range of 6" + bits, and saddles that are shaped to fit very broad horses.

I've found using 'humane' girths are good for saddles which have 4 straps as they are designed to 'split' and distribute the weight better.

And if you do need to use girth extenders, ideally you need to have them on both sides with a shorter girth so the pressure is even on both sides :eek:
 
Finally finally had my saddle fitting done today.
My Wintec Wide - poo poo'd I'm afraid. Mostly due to my rather sizeable backside.:eek:
I now have a very beautiful Kent & Masters Cob Saddle on the extra wide gullet (still one more to go up to extra extra wide gullet apparently.)
From a couple of laps in the school all I can say is I feel more secure and comfortable, no longer perched on a tiny seat. The cantle is flatter so much better and as its adjustable, saddle fitter is coming back in three months to check - just paying mileage for next trip so very happy with the service.
Unfortunately because of flip's back its only a 17.5" despite my bum needing an 18". But there is more room because of the flatter seat as a few of you suggested. She did say I could try the WOW or taking two saddles and choosing seat from one and flaps from the other but both costly options. (And I've read some stuff about WOW saddles - marmite)
So anyone want a very very seldom used Wintec Wide let me know!! Away to check out ebay selling.
Thankyou for all your advice, opinions and suggestions. I'm sorry I didn't get an explanation as to what was specifically wrong with the saddle I had (I was all in a tiz about getting on my boy, what with our ridden issues). All I know was that it didn't fit me, and doesn't seem to have fitted him.
 
Glad you got sorted :)

I'm having similar problems with my boy - he can only take a 16inch saddle while I need a 17 inch - my saddle fitter said there was nothing he could do for us :(
I'm now dietting booooo! and going down the treeless route again for a bit and just sticking to walk.
 
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