I’ve been looking for this exact discussion, so thank you!! I have a full sheepskin Thinline Trifecta, and have been considering making the switch to an Ecogold, but was worried it won’t carry as much shock absorption. My gelding is rehabbing from a tear in his supraspinous ligament, so while I really like (and he seems to like) the Trifecta for that protection, it does get a lot of heat buildup which worries me. He does have a custom Black Country saddle, but I requested it be made with room for a half pad for my sensitive princess 
I really wish there was a way to try pads out before buying. 
I currently use a Mattes on my mare and would love to try to full sheepskin Thinline. I have the ultra thinline that I really like but can’t use on anything as it doesn’t work with the other padding options. I know I can feel the difference in MY back with the ultra thinline…wonder if the horses feels the same.
[QUOTE=laurendrew;8822727]
I’ve been looking for this exact discussion, so thank you!! I have a full sheepskin Thinline Trifecta, and have been considering making the switch to an Ecogold, but was worried it won’t carry as much shock absorption. My gelding is rehabbing from a tear in his supraspinous ligament, so while I really like (and he seems to like) the Trifecta for that protection, it does get a lot of heat buildup which worries me. He does have a custom Black Country saddle, but I requested it be made with room for a half pad for my sensitive princess :)[/QUOTE]
I did use a Thinline Trifecta shim pad for my horse when I needed to tweak his saddle fit to his musculature, and there was no change in sensitivity to palpation between the two pads. Your horse’s mileage and needs may vary. I agree that the Trifecta seems to get quite warm. I worry less about that because the sheepskin is a breathable material.
Gel/prolite/impact pad on horse’s back first - underneath the cloth pad?
Sorry to so much abbreviate your quote. Mainly I’m addressing the picture, which is like the picture I found on a blog reviewing the Invictus, and showing the pad under the saddle and on top of the cloth saddle pad.
My problem is this:
What about the cloth pad that’s supposed to go underneaththe thin gel/prolite/etc. half pads? I want to protect the spinal processes of the horse – give them room to breathe, move, relax – and seems to me the cloth pad is [possibly] the thing to worry about here.
I’d really like to put something like the Invictus on the horse’s back *first. Then the cloth pad.
Once you place the saddle on top of of a standard cloth saddle pad, the panels pull it down on either lateral side, causing it to stretch tight across the backbone.
Once you pull the girth tight, the saddle panels are pulled down even *more,*effectively pulling and clamping the pad onto his backbone. (The saddle itself becomes a clamp, which is a bit disturbing as well).
With high-withered horses, OK, you can protect the withers by pulling the cloth pad up and through the pommel cutout. But then what happens to the gel/prolite/etc. pad that’s balancing on top of the cloth pad?
What happens to it’s cushioning, weight-distributing properties when it’s no longer lying flat but pulled up through the pommel along with the cloth pad? How to you keep the gel/cushion pad straight & balanced, with its panels evenly under the points? (they get smashed together for me, and not evenly).
So I’m wondering – how bad would it be to put the thin cushioning gel/prolite/impact pad – directly on the horse’s back, first thing? Will it retain it’s nonslip properties? Or will it slide out from under the whole kit? (I’d think not, given the weight of the saddle plus clamping action of the girth plus weight of the rider?).
If we could put something like Invictus on horse first, it might give more protection to the spine itself, rather than just to the muscles on either side… It’s what I would have done, except for seeing the pictures of it on top of the cloth pad.
P.S. I knew I wasn’t the only one who worried about this when I saw a GP dressage rider – Portuguese I think – with his cloth saddle pad somehow attached all the way up under the gullet of his saddle. You could see air all the way through. The pad was somehow adhered to the panels, not touching the horse’s backbone. Tucked under the panels somehow? (I tried this! Seems possible but couldn’t really get it to work).
Are you saying you don’t pull pads up into the pommel? EVERY pad, no matter what it is absolutely should be pulled into the pommel to avoid exactly what you are talking about. There isn’t a pad out there that should just be laid on the horse’s back, saddle put on and then girthed. If someone is doing that, they are tacking up wrong.
[QUOTE=RugBug;8823777]
Are you saying you don’t pull pads up into the pommel? EVERY pad, no matter what it is absolutely should be pulled into the pommel to avoid exactly what you are talking about. There isn’t a pad out there that should just be laid on the horse’s back, saddle put on and then girthed. If someone is doing that, they are tacking up wrong.[/QUOTE]
I’ve always pulled the thin cloth pad up and through. It was a poorly worded sentence - in truth I’ve yet to meet a horse with really low withers.
“There isn’t a pad out there that should just be laid on the horse’s back.”
Would this be the consensus then? Because some of them (Invictus, for example) say they will conform to as well as protect the horse’s back. I was thinking it might make more sense to put the protective pad down first, thus protecting the back from the stiffer cloth pad as well as from the saddle pressure.
