I’m thinking of ordering a brand new custom County saddle, but have heard so many horrible stories lately about the brand, including unqualified reps, poor customer service, long delays in production, wrong stamps on the saddle, wrong measurements, and even getting a brand new saddle that doesn’t fit or is not what should have been ordered and County not being very helpful. Anyone else heard of these experiences or had similar experiences? The saddles are very nice, but it’s hard to justify paying so much $$$$ for a new one if the process could end up being such a nightmare. Should I just look for a used County saddle on Trumbull Mountain, Pelham Saddlery, or MD Tack Exchange instead?
I was warned about issues when I was considering one a while back. My impression was that it really was dependent on your rep/fitter, so it may be more helpful to get reviews local to you, or specific to who you would be using to get it made.
I had an experience with a county rep that has left me with such a bad impression that I will never recommend the brand to anyone, regardless of who their rep is. (I think that the above statement is correct in that it is very, very reliant on who your rep is.)
That said, the rep I engaged with was so inexperienced, so uneducated, and so incredibly misinformed that the impression he made on me means I will never recommend the brand to anyone. Spend less money and find an Adam Ellis or a Patrick saddle. They’re english made, wool flocked, and in many cases substantially less expensive than what you’ll get quoted for an off the rack county.
The entire experience with the rep that I engaged with was utterly surreal. They gave me outlandish misinformation (you can make any saddle fit any horse, you never have to do anything with wool flocking for maintenance, as just two examples of some of the crazy) and clearly had no idea what on earth they were talking about to the point that I had zero faith in them as a professional and would not ever suggest the company.
Furthermore, the rep came out knowing people’s budgets and said they options for each person but by the time the demos came out and people were riding in them and trying to ask questions, the cheapest was 5k without any potential modifications.
It was a completely surreal experience and I still can’t quite compute that a saddle rep was giving such uneducated answers. It was, I suppose, a really aggressive go at a sales pitch but in doing so they lost all their credibility. There were four people out to try saddles with the rep (I was there on request of a friend who was one of them - they were saddle shopping but didn’t know what kinds of questions to ask). No one ended up doing any business with them.
2 Likes
Thank you both for sharing that information. @Edre Did you complain to the main office in Maryland about the rep’s incompetence? I would hope that County management would only allow high-quality reps, but if they had that person out trying to sell County saddles, that’s really concerning.
I encouraged the person who had contacted the rep to talk to the main office. I don’t actually know if they ever did, but they were the initial contact & had all of the original messages (especially those talking about price points ahead of time), I thought they were in a better position to do so. The rep came out with all the brand demos and had told my friend that they had been trained by another county rep, so someone had clearly green-lit this rep being in the field which is disappointing, but I’ve heard negative impressions of other reps before so I’m not entirely certain that my negative take-away is an anomaly.
That all said, the take-away I was reminded from that experience: saddle fitters can, regionally dependant, be hard to find but they are so worth it if you’re able to find one - especially for the amount of money that a person stands to be out if a custom saddle goes wrong.
I had a bad experience with County. I ordered a custom saddle for my horse and it was too big for me. I rode in it a couple times to test it. After a lot of back and forth with the rep and company they agreed to make me a new saddle. I got the new saddle and rode in it. It finally fit my horse and I but it turned out the leather they used was defective. The saddle was an orange color and would not darken no matter what I did. I called the rep and the person admitted the company had an issue with that type of leather and it was defective. County would not even refund my money or make me another saddle.
It is also very hard to sell County saddles because a lot of people prefer the French saddles. I bought a new custom CWD saddle and I haven’t had one issue with it. I will never ever buy from or deal with County again. I did end up losing a lot of money with my County saddle. Another thing is you wont be able to trade in the County saddle. I tried to trade my County saddle for my CWD saddle and was told they wouldn’t take it because it was not a French saddle.
If you want a County and know what you want, I would get a used one. There is a Facebook group just for used County’s and if you put in what you want someone may have it exactly. You would get a huge discount. You could also contact one of the resellers you listed. Hunt Country in NJ is another one. I just had a bad experience with County. Nice saddles, of they fit. It’s all about the rep, but you won’t know how good your rep was until you have the saddle.
2 Likes
I would not buy a used County, after having a defective tree in mine and having my BFF have a very bad fall when she tried a County on consignment that also had a defective tree.
I have had many clients and friends throughout the years have TERRIBLE experiences with County, and find the teenage sales girls at my local tack shop to be more knowledgeable and experienced than the County reps.
Consider this: of all the “custom” saddle companies, County is the ONLY one who does not take their own product back on a trade. They can recite their BS line “well everything is custom made for each horse and therefore we cannot sell used saddles”, but Voltaire, CWD/Devoucoux, Antares, all make super customized stuff that they seem to re-sell easily, so I don’t buy that line. I’m not sure if it’s laziness, lack of motivation, or lack of faith in their own product, but I don’t like a company that doesn’t take an interest in their own product enough to possibly make money off of the same item twice.
1 Like
That kind of ignorance would be enough to convince me never to deal with that rep or County.
1 Like
That sounds more along the lines of what I’ve heard from Devoucoux/CWD and Stubben “fitters.”
This is a very old thread - 7 years
1 Like
