@sheltona01 Well it might help if I got the name right… 
Silhouette Sapphire.
The saddle fitter would choose a tree that matches my gelding’s needs, so while the rails look super steep in the photo here, they wouldn’t be in real life.
I am also very very skeptical of buying a semi-custom saddle AT ALL, I’ve had really nothing but horrible experiences with “custom” saddles… and especially taking a chance on a lesser known brand is something I’m not sure I’m up for…
Well, the resale will be pits if you don’t like it. Not being unkind to the brand, that’s just how it is. That said if you like it and you have a good fitter, “unknown” brands can be a good value.
I did not know Sillouette had reps here in the states.
The rep is here in Canada, and I’m not sure if she’s a true “rep” of the brand, or just carries them as she likes them?
Totally! A risk either way… gah.
Could you buy the demo you sat in? Unless I hate a saddle I tend to lean towards whatever the horse likes. Going new and custom with a small brand is stacking risk but being able to buy the actual saddle you sat in at a demo price could be something worth considering.
I found my County Perfection to have a good close contact feel. The County tree is flat too, which is why it didn’t work for my apparently curvy horse.
OP, I think “rail angle” means something even different, LOL.
I have a sausage with a narrow heart girth. She is an engineering nightmare to fit. Lots of saddles “stop fitting her” about where the stirrrup bars and waist of the panels are. (The waist of the saddle is the narrow bit of the hour glass shape they make.
IMO, they stop fitting her there because the angle of the rails is wrong, and then the panels follow suit but also, in so many saddles, are thick and broad there. In other words, the mare’s back changes from “normal horse” to round sausage very quickly in that section as you go from front to back.
So to me, she needs the rails of the tree to also get flatter, faster. If you were standing behind the naked tree and looked down it from the cantle, you’d see those steel rails being closer to horizontal than vertical just behind the stirrup bar.
I wish we have more vocabulary in English world. In Western world, the front-to-back curviness is called the “rock” of the tree.
Last but not least, the best-fitting saddles for this mare are a Tad Coffin Wide dressage (of course it is) and a Lovatt and Ricketts XW (hoop tree?) Berkeley. Both of these saddles fit around her rather than perched on top of her. She also has an Icon Flight with pony panels which I like and she says is “fine” in a “meh” kind of a way. She is a good sport about saddles, thank God, but when I put the Flight on her and see how far it sits above her back. IMO, pony panels make a real difference in how any Custom Saddlery saddle with a half-way right tree will fit the horse. I have both/all of these saddles because they have some form of a cut-back tree and put me father behind the withers than I want to ride. Sigh. It’s hard to find a forward-balance saddle that’s not French or Italian. And IMO, the Brits are best and building Sausage Trees. Sigh.
If you want to borrow my Lovatt and Ricketts to try, I’ll lend it to you. Or you might be able to get a demo from Adrienne Hendricks/Hendricks Saddlery in Eagle, ID, I have found her to be a good and honest saddler (she fits saddles as well as does legit, in depth repairs to them).
when i took one of my mules to a custom saddle maker she had something like 50 different trees, just trees only, to set upon him. Even the one i thought was (finally!) a great fit wasn’t ‘quite right’ two trees later, she’d refined the fit. And i built my saddle from there.
(fwiw, never considered me in the equation…i’ve ridden in some pretty wonky saddles, and a whole lot of bareback.) Though he is with me forever, if i died and he got a new home, his saddle would go-with.
I’d second this as a flatter option, but definitely NOT a narrow twist. I couldn’t bear trotting more than a 20M circle in one because of the twist. Some of their other models are narrower in the twist, and their trees do run wide, so if you’ve got a fitter for them in your area, might be worth a try.
Habe you tried albion? My flat backed andalusian likes the platinum. I have Velcro knee blocks so I can put them where I want, or ride without them.
Saddle shopping is a rabbit-hole from which one barely ever emerges alive. I just get Stuebbens, and so far they have fit the horse and fit me (I’m short and, thanks to a picture that my sister just sent, apparently I am a beer keg with legs; thank you, big sister) and I feel like I am coming home when I sit in mine, and the wool flocking is adjustable, etc. and they tolerate all kinds of weather and trail riding and polish up nicely, and I just put my hands over my ears and squeeze my eyes shut when anything fancier or more-high-tech or more in-fashion gets shoved in my face.
That is so very kind, @mvp - and very helpful to know. I hadn’t considered Tad Coffin yet.
The odd thing is that although he is a PRE and will be quite broad, he isn’t Cob- type round, or needing a hoop tree - thank god. I think that might be a deal-breaker for me! Hahaha!
No I haven’t tried Albion - I’ve heard mixed reviews about them, and we don’t have a rep or anyone out this way that has any for me to try, unfortunately, but may be worth bringing in to try…
I’ve been riding both my mutton with Arab and my sporthorse type Standardbred with some wither and very flat back in an Equipe Emporio. Downside is that the panels are latex so limited adjustability. Upside, narrow twist and monoflap keep me very connected to my horse. I had tried many wool flocked saddles and my horse preferred the lightness (if that’s the best way describe it) over the perfect fit of the many County saddles I had flocked.
I’m not sure mine needs a hoop tree, either… at least in the head of the tree. But by the time you get to the stirrup bars and waist of the saddle, with rails that follow the steeper angle of the headplate of the tree, yeah, you need a hoop tree. The regular width withers is what makes the Icon Flight (with the help of pony panels) fit up there.
I had one trainer declare both of my saddles too wide for the mare (showing me by looking at the very front of the saddle) and declaring that the fit in the headplate was all that mattered. Cool, but when saddles want to roll side-to-side on this sausage from that middle point, back, I think that trainer is plain, old wrong.
I’m not a pro, but I have been saddling horses of different shapes for a long time and I have never fit a saddle so bad for so long that I have caused a back problem.
In any case, you should know that Tad Coffin’s dressage saddle isn’t much of a dressage saddle. Be prepared to really learn to ride, LOL. But his saddling philosophy seems to be to build 'em as though horses were round-ish in that section of the back. Panels are thin, which helps my sausage-fitting cause, He’s a nice guy who is accessible. He’s proud of his saddles and will send you a demo to try.
Also, I remember County to be another company that tends to design a saddle to sit down, around a horse’s back. Their trees are known to be on the wide side in any given size. But if you have a good County fitter nearby, don’t mind spending money to have a rep come out, it might be worth a shot. Again, I think County’s idea of a well-fitting saddle is really different than is, say, that built into the design of a Custom Saddlery saddlery saddle.
That totally makes sense, thank you.
Coincidentally, my all time favourite close contact jumping saddle is a pancake flat, practically-nothing-there Butet Premium with a P seat… but not sure I want that much… uh… freedom in a dressage saddle on a 4 year old that likes to show off his athleticism regularly
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