Your opinions on interchangable gullets?

hApPiNeSs

hApPiNeSs

& Sharman :)
Jun 28, 2004
1,544
1
0
35
Cornwall
You probably know I am planning on going treeless in the summer, but I am still very worried about the lack of weight distribution (as I am near the weight limit on Happy)

The main reason for this is that her weight tends to go up and down a lot, so her saddle does not fit perfectly all the time, which I am very consious about, being so heavy on her (even if we are only hacking lightly)

Do you think that a treed saddle with an interchangable gullet would be more suitable? or are they not that great?

any thoughts would be much appreciated

These pictures probably wont be any use, but here she is with a wide tree - which is wide enough. but when she puts weight on in the summer it gets a *tiny* bit narrow

Hap7.jpg


may i just add that the saddle had slipped forward in this second pic as we were jumping, and I had forgotten to tighten my girth enough :eek:

Ha6.jpg


would it be more helpful if I got some pictures of the comformation of her back, and some close-ups of the current fit of her wide-treed saddle?
 
if you were going to wintec route, youd need a wintec wide, as the normal wintecs are useless on native types.
my friends has a wintec wide and it fit her horse ok (now now, its awful, saw him yesterday and he had muscle wastage and a huge white hair patch on his back:( ) he has a very stright back tho.
 
The wintecs aren't very good for natives. The gusset is about 1-2" too narrow on the normal wintec for Daffy (or I would have one for an everyday saddle) but the wintec wide, which would fit, would be too wide as it only goes down to extra wide.

You can try one on for fit, but I'm not sure it'd be suited.
 
Personally I don't like the idea, you only adjust the front of the saddle but not the rest so you still could have the rest of the saddle not fitting even when the front does - well thats the way my brain processes it.

BUT, My friend has a wintec and she does endurance at advanced level and has ridden up to 50 miles competatively on hers with no problems.

So I think really it depends on your horse alot, if they are the right shape for the saddle its a great idea just to cope with the seasonal fluctuations in shape, but if your horses back is not the right shape just changing the gullet won't make it fit.
 
Fish are little inserts that go in the saddle to alter the width slightly. Either that or wintec type gullets would be ideal for a horse that just changes size slightly from winter to summer as long as you can find a saddle with them that is the right shape all over as it's only the width at the front that the gullet plates or fish change.
 
yes, well her actually back stays the same shape - she just gets a little fatter/thinner. she doesnt tend to get muscle wastages or more built up muscles, as her worklaod stays pretty much the same :)

is the griffin a good idea in my case?
 
The Thorowgood saddles are a better designed saddle, but the change in width is minimal and not particularly useful - it more just lifts/lowers the front, changing the balance. If her change is really minimal, it's be fine, but she really put weight on, the chnage won't be enough.

Like others have said, normal wintecs are useless, but the WIDE's are a nice saddle. The x-wide gullet (white) is a very narrow x-wide, and I'd have said it was just a wide - Pink takes an xx-wide in Thorowgood, but has had to have the x-wide gullet bent out by at least 20degrees on her wintec.

If she's only changes shape slightly, the lack of change in the rest of the tree with a wintec shouldn't be a problems - they're fairly well designed anyways. But they don't suit a lot of horses, do you'd need to try one.
 
Happiness

our new little pony has a Griffin Pony Club saddle which is the widest in our tack room - pretty amazing given we have two "extra wide" already (an appy and a fell).

Her saddle comes with Fish - I think the fish just adjusts by half-sizes, whereas the replaceable gullets are doing full size changes ?
 
I was thinking about a wintec for my new boy as hes going to develop lots of muscle and change shape now i've got my hands on him ;) However i soon changed my mind when i spoke to a saddler and chiro. The saddler said that the only saddles you can change the gullets in are the dressage ones at the point is much further back. With a normal GP changing the gullet can alter the balance either forwards or backwards (dependnig on whether you go narrower or wider) and the saddler said she would only fit one for me on the condition that i swore not to alter the gullet!! She said physios and chiros agreed with her.. so i rang one and she said the same :(

I now have a thorowgood one (i was going for 2nd hand leather ideally but none fitted my silly pone!) and its lovely :) Really comfy and legend paces have opened up :D
 
Personally and this is just from my own experiences, but I had 2 Thorowgood and 1 Wintec saddle so each of my horses had a synthetic saddle each, 2 of which had interchangeable gullets, NEVER AGAIN!

Point Number 1: the nuts that hold the gullets in place loosen and as time goes on they loosen more quickly, they even had lock tight stuff on them but it still happened.

Point Number 2: 2 of my 3 horses had back issues due to the saddles because of the inflexibility, unlike leather these saddle just dont seem to move with the horse

Point Number 3: 1 of my horses is extremely wide, the saddle changed shape so much when you put the widest gullet in that the flaps of the saddle ended up sticking out rather than wrapping round the horses side, so the girth had to pull in the sides of the saddle to lay them against the horse so the saddle became more of a square shape

As I needed to buy 3 saddles at once I went for this option for the expense reason, BIG MISTAKE i have now replaced them and gone back to leather, a local saddlery shop has now refused to sell these saddles..now that says something!

Sorry cant comment on treeless but I have heard better stories about them
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
newrider.com
Top Bottom
Back