[QUOTE=Tee;8365618]
Air Ride… what’d you think it was? LOL[/QUOTE]
I know right?
A few thoughts.
First, a pad does more than deal with impact. It should offer pressure dispersion. (Some materials actually concentrate the pressure.) I will be interested to see if she tests for that.
Second - 1 1/2" to 1 5/8" of padding under a western saddle? That is excessive! I know a lot of ropers use up to 2" but if you need more than an inch, your saddle doesn’t fit well.
Third - despite her insistence that pads need to be contoured to the horse in one of her videos, hers aren’t. They are flat. For $600 I would expect more.
Yup, she’s entertaining, but there are a few too many questions for me to go buying her pads.
Well even if she does sell saddle pads and is trying to get some more customers, the PC pad still isn’t good. My mom was going to buy one of these for her older QH. Glad she decided to wait a bit, now we can look at something else.
$600 for a pad with no description of its construction…
What?? She sells pads? When someone has an agenda I don’t take their words seriously. I thought she was a random person that was knowledgeable about materials and was passing her wisdom on to the unsuspecting consumer.
I do appreciate hearing what she had to say, I just wish she was upfront with her affiliation to other types of saddle pads.
[QUOTE=Aspen1;8367270]
A few thoughts.
First, a pad does more than deal with impact. It should offer pressure dispersion. (Some materials actually concentrate the pressure.) I will be interested to see if she tests for that.
Second - 1 1/2" to 1 5/8" of padding under a western saddle? That is excessive! I know a lot of ropers use up to 2" but if you need more than an inch, your saddle doesn’t fit well.
Third - despite her insistence that pads need to be contoured to the horse in one of her videos, hers aren’t. They are flat. For $600 I would expect more.
Yup, she’s entertaining, but there are a few too many questions for me to go buying her pads.[/QUOTE]
I was surprised by the thickness as well and the lack of contour on the Pendleton pads as well. I DO really like the wither cutout on her western half pads though. Apparently her website isn’t finished so that’s why there’s no info on there.
Her amazon account has more info:
Jen X was created because something was missing in the equine industry. That any difference found in design, color, and cut are worthless if they don’t focus on the one thing that truly matters - the material. Every pad, panel & insert on the market is filled with foam and materials adapted from the sleep industry, home improvement, or 3000 year old traditions… like wool. That’s why we created a foam of our own. Created specifically for the equine industry, the foam in Jen X product performs perfectly at 102 degrees - the temperature horses average when working. Most other products reach peek performance at 68 degrees making their product useless & limp at 102. It makes a difference. That means your horse will experience full range of motion. That every ounce of energy and firing of muscle goes into their performance instead of to sheltering their backs against the weight of a rider. It means immediate engagement of the hind end and a complete engagement of the glute muscles. Superior shock absorption allows for greater stability in the saddle - like riding in velcro. Stability = correct posture, longer more productive conditioning with less stress on the joints and back. Painful back? Painful hips and knees? Shock absorption combined with proper posture while riding allows the rider to build healthy supporting muscles instead of grinding on old injuries and painful joints. Working with the world’s top riders means we settle for nothing less than cutting edge ergonomic designs. And to keep up with the constantly changing demands of the equine industry, the textiles are the latest too. But when you get right down to it, the primary focus is and should always be the material. After all, just because our competitors use the same foam found in an astronaut’s seat cushion doesn’t mean it’s the right stuff for you. You deserve the best, your horse deserves the best, and we are the best. Get the best your horse has to offer. Get Jen X.
Lots of fancy words, still doesn’t say what it’s made of or where it is made. Foam and wool are bad, just not ours…
Hasn’t convinced me to give up my 5 Star wool pads, just another interesting viewpoint in my book.
[QUOTE=trubandloki;8366288]
I am older than you are and I felt the same way when I realized she was associated with selling a different brand/style of pad.
I thought it was cool that someone was dissecting pads and giving their thoughts. Not so cool when it is not really as unbiased as it seems.[/QUOTE]
I sure would have appreciated it better if she went ahead and openly disclosed what product she sold.
I disagree with her assertion that the “paint roller fleece” is better than a wool pad. That kind of fleece is very abrasive IME when it is compressed and becomes at all worn.
The other thing I wonder about is that she doesn’t consider that a saddle pad is under compression. That will matter with some materials and not others.
I learn from what she does and I am glad to watch the videos, and it’s helped me to understand indeed why I hate some specific pads I’ve tried. I’m also glad that someone besides me hates the way half pads end halfway under the front panel. But, I hope someday she will show some videos of the material she likes and talk about that some too.
[QUOTE=tollertwins;8366509]
Poron XRD is also in the Toklat Matrix pads…and been there for awhile…[/QUOTE]
I have the Matrix pad with the Poron inserts, and love it. Poron has also been long used by the treeless saddle community.
Friend of mine whose horse I ride on a semi-regular basis has one of the Professional Choice Air Ride pads, and it crackles like it is full of bubble wrap. I have never been impressed with the crackling noise, or the actual material that the outside of the pad is made of.
[QUOTE=aktill;8368047]
Hasn’t convinced me to give up my 5 Star wool pads, just another interesting viewpoint in my book.[/QUOTE]
Me too.
[QUOTE=aktill;8368047]
Hasn’t convinced me to give up my 5 Star wool pads, just another interesting viewpoint in my book.[/QUOTE]
Me three.
5 Star all the way!
You know, though… She’s not afraid to say when a brand got it right. I watched her Ogilvy pad review, and it’s pretty fair. She’ll say why she likes things, what she doesn’t like… A lot is going to come down to personal preference. I have a horse that ADORES her memory foam stuff, so what my horse wants gets the deciding vote. But it’s good to be educated. I wish she was more up front about the fact that she sells things, but where she’s not pushing HER product in every video and building it up in comparison to the other products, I’m mostly ok with it.
If she wasn’t looking to eventually sell things I doubt she’d make videos. Only so many hours in the day.
Fine by me, everyone has to make a living.
[QUOTE=beau159;8369695]
Me three.
5 Star all the way![/QUOTE]
WHY is EVERYONE so obsessed with 5 Stars? I had one for a while and sold it. It was well made and all but no different than any other pad I’ve owned.
I do like that she took the pad apart and showed what was on the inside and at least talked about how it was sewn and about the fleece, whether it was relevant or not. I don’t care that she sells pads, she didn’t say anything about her pads nor was it advertised anywhere. Sadly I do own 2 of these pads, one a gift, the other my mistake. They are like cardboard, very stiff and the material on the top is flimsy. I can’t bring myself to pay the $$ for a 5 Star but have an older Todd Sloan wool pad that my horses and I both love.
I appreciate reviews regarding products from differing points of views.
FYI, having worked in production (not for saddle pads, but similar materials) just because something looks like “just styrofoam” doesn’t mean it hasn’t been custom formulated and gone through a ton of testing to make sure it fits the specs in terms of shock absorption, heat dissipation, rebound speed and who-knows-what-else. Her videos are loaded with half-truths at best. I would take them with less than a grain of salt.
BTW, from my past career as a science teacher I learned that most bowling alleys have “retired” balls that they will give away for free, so go get some and experiment away!
[QUOTE=MyssMyst;8370235]
You know, though… She’s not afraid to say when a brand got it right. I watched her Ogilvy pad review, and it’s pretty fair. She’ll say why she likes things, what she doesn’t like… A lot is going to come down to personal preference. I have a horse that ADORES her memory foam stuff, so what my horse wants gets the deciding vote. But it’s good to be educated. I wish she was more up front about the fact that she sells things, but where she’s not pushing HER product in every video and building it up in comparison to the other products, I’m mostly ok with it.[/QUOTE]
Agreed. I watched all the videos and appreciated her approach and comments. She’s not saying “this pad is stupid, you should buy this one.” She explains what is good or bad about each pad and why it’s good or bad.
Am I going to take what she says as the gospel? No, but I’ll take it into consideration.
There is a nice video on this product page from Riding Warehouse for the Toklat Matrix pad:
She drops a ball on different saddle pad materials (including the Poron XRD) on a wooden table, and in this case you can see the bounce and also hear the reaction from the table, which is kind of interesting. Her results are a little different from the videos with the bowling ball on concrete.
I have to say, Toklat kind of fell down on their marketing here, 
because I had no idea this pad existed before this thread came along, and I’ve been looking for something like this. I’m going to buy one for a particular saddle that seems to fit perfectly but has a lot of bounce that bothers the pony… just trying to decide between some of the options for the ortho inserts versus the extreme-pro inserts.
There is more to padding than just impact. I know you can’t break an M+M inside an impact gel pad when you hit it with a hammer, but I also know that when you use that pad, the gel moves away from the pressure points, letting them come through to the horse. In other words, it doesn’t disperse pressure, which is the biggest job of a pad. Maybe some day she’ll post videos about how the different pads distribute pressure - or not. Those I would be more interested in seeing.
