County stirrup bars

[Huntin_Fool]

Y’all, after looking and looking and trying and sending back, I tried a saddle that fits me and the horse. BUT look at these weird stirrup bars. I’ve never seen any like this. It looks incredibly dangerous. Dear Lord, I am so sick of looking for saddles.

I think someone replaced the bars on this saddle -they definitely look homemade. I don’t think the saddle shop noticed, but I don’t think they should sell the saddle like this.

What do y’all think???

Regards,
Huntin’Fool

[SonnysMom]

How old is the saddle? I remember on real old saddles there was the lever you could flip up.
I think it is very expensive to replace stirrup bars.
I think what you may be seeing is the first generation of stirrup bars after the lever style. Therefore a little deeper and squared off than the newer open kinda swooshy shaped.
If I had that saddle I would make sure to use stirrup leathers that aren’t too thick so they can slide off in an emergency.
I had one dressage saddle that was really hard to adjust the stirrup length. I was always afraid that the stirrup bars were so tight that they couldn’t come off in an emergency.

[Huntin_Fool]

Sonny’s mom-there is no way a stirrup leather would come off that square bar! In my opinion.

And the bar with the lever is alive and well-that’s what County uses now-per the County rep-it was a fairly brief experiment with the non-lever bars. I know what you mean re the swoosh-it’s better than this square one!! Also Steuben uses the levers and I think several others. The ‘swoosh’ is used by French saddlers apparently.

Anyway, I agree about the narrower leathers and safety stirrups are an option too of course.

Thanks for replying!