This thread is upsetting. Sounds like there is a lot of preying on well-intentioned horse owners’ insecurities in this French saddle market, including by some of the trainers, and it all sounds very exploitative. I hope people have some luck finding used or off-brand saddles that work for them. We have a bunch of saddles in our barn and the one I use the most, I have been riding in for 30 years. Close contact, wool panels, light weight. I think a lot of people would be better served if the pendulum swung back in that direction (less is more).
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Another fan of the SE01, another short person, though not of tiny body. My other saddle is a Stubben Edelweiss, which is semi-deep with a super forward flap and narrow twist. These saddles are very different, but each provides great contact with the horse. The big difference is the price: while I paid about $1900 for the used, really pretty beat-up CWD, I got the barely used Stubben for $750. Moral of this story for me is to buy used whenever possible and to try each and every saddle possible at your barn before forking over mad cash for a custom saddle. I did that once and nope nope nope never again.
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Well, I don’t have experience ordering a custom saddle, but I did purchase one used over the summer. It came directly from my CWD rep and I am thrilled with it! Love the price, the service, and the fit. I actually can’t believe the improvement in my position and feel. The saddle also fits my lease horse and he seems to go quite well in it (better than in the saddle I was using on him previously). Not sure I’ll ever be able to stomach the price of a brand new one 
but, I’d absolutely be inclined to buy a CWD again. Good luck with yours! I hope it’s everything you want/need.
ETA: Mine is also an SE01, which seems to be popular on this thread
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This is incredibly helpful! Thank you so much for taking the time to offer this advice - I think it is something a lot of us could use in the horse world. 
@Bending_Line I think there is some exploitation from the French brands by bad reps, definitely. I am hopeful the CWD rep is better than my experience with Butet. French brands are the most popular in our area but I have also heard of other reps being as bad (especially with communication, not putting in orders for saddles and so on). I think it is just bad people.
I used to own an amazing 2005 Butet saddle that I now really wish I had just kept for the amount I ended up getting for it and then had to spend on a “custom” from the new Butet rep. The Rep I purchased the '05 saddle from was one of the nicest people, rode horses and understood fit amazingly. The new Butet rep is an ***hole, to say the least. He screwed me over on more than just two bad-fitting saddles. Sent me the wrong-sized girth 3 times (I had to go over his head and exchange the last one with a manager in the US because at that point it had been almost a year since I got the first wrong one). I also purchased reins from him that I am very sure are plastic (either fake Butet with a Butet price tag or their leather goods are suffering in quality).
I don’t have experience with Voltaire but have heard very bad things about the two reps we had here (at least a few years ago - maybe they have changed).
So yes, I think ammie’s get exploited heavily which is sad because we are what makes the sport.
I would LOVE a wool-flocked saddle but where I live it can take weeks, often months to get a qualified fitter out and if the wool needs re-flocking, taking so long off to get it rectified is not an option right now.
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Yeah COTH horse care particularly is good for reading up on all the things you hope you never have to face and sometimes avoiding them.
A few years ago a “specialized hay dealer” was selling a system of 300 lb bales in nets anchored in the stall. Low sugar free choice hay. What could go wrong? Other than spending about twice as much on this compared to square bales.
Well, the hay was low sugar because it was half alfalfa and it was not low calorie. The horses were going through 30 lbs a day, getting stocked up because they stood there eating all day, and got obese. One of them went laminitic before the owner wised up. I predicted all that but I’m just another barn ammie so no one would listen to me anyhow. But that was a good example of knowing enough about alfalfa hay, obesity, easy keepers and metabolic syndrome to not even for one moment think of buying into that plan.
I didn’t care what they said about horses need free choice forage. Not an easy keepers in a small runout and not free choice alfalfa!!!
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If you check out the thread about someone who interviewing to be a rep you will see why. They likely have very tough sales goals to meet to eek out a living.
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@volvo_240 - This is a good point. It must be difficult to make a good living on saddle sales and I am sure the training is not what it used to be. More sell, sell, sell than garnering relationships.
OP, are you in Ontario?
I now know of 2 people personally who were sold brand new “custom” (ie. semi-custom) CWDs, from 2 different reps, that absolutely didn’t fit when they arrived. The rep and company refused to do anything about it.
One person was blamed for her horse’s new misbehaviours, which only started with the new saddle (ie. different rider, same problem; changed saddles, all issues resolved). The rep was incredibly rude to her and told her she was a terrible rider and she was ruining her horse. There were witnesses to this on more than one occasion (rep being rude). He is no longer the rep in our area. She ended up having to dump the $$$$$ saddle for a big loss and bought something else used that fit her and horse well.
The second person received the brand new saddle and it was nowhere close to fitting. Rep basically said it was fine and wouldn’t do anything about it (different rep from the first situation). Offered to give them CWD accessories free so that the buyer could sell these items and make some of their money back WTF?!? Buyer ended up selling the saddle and bought something else.
Based on these two known experiences, plus everything else I’ve read on here, I would absolutely not buy a CWD unless it was used and I had an independent fitter give it the okay. Even then I probably wouldn’t, as I prefer a flocked saddle that can be tweaked as needed.
I had a CWD that I rode in for years and really liked. It had pro panels and fit a number of horses well. I had an independent saddle fitter that I trusted check the fit on the horses I used it on, and it was given the green light on 3 different horses.
I will say that there is absolutely no reason to buy a brand new custom french saddle, of any brand. They are all available used in almost any configuration under the sun. There are a number of reputable used high end sellers to choose from.
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Yes, I am in ON.
That sounds so so horrible! I can’t believe the rep would say that - what an ***hole!!
Do you think you could DM me both of the rep names? I know one has since stopped working for the company (male) and there is a new rep that started I think at the beginning of the year and she’s who I have ordered from. She seems to be trying hard right now but time will tell.
I am just hopeful at this point that because my trainer is sponsored by them they will take better care of me but I am also not naive enough to know this to be a certainty.
Are you in ON? Can you DM me who you use for independent fitting? I have tried 3 different ones (1 doesn’t watch you ride, 1 said my saddle fit when it didn’t, 1 I have posted about in this thread), a 4th who books up months out (who I am still going to try when she is available and the saddle comes) and I know of one other one who books months our but cancels if the weather isn’t perfect which I can’t rely on - especially if the saddle were to need adjustments.
How often are you getting your saddle flocked? Trust me, after all this wool has been on my mind but I am worried and not having it adjusted as soon as it is needed.
Thank you!!
There are plenty of people that love CWDs and their experience with CWD. There are also tons of horror stories, and truly, you will find more horror stories than praise on the internet because its 2023 and that’s where we all come to whine. LOL
Your experience with CWD will depend solely on your rep and his/her capabilities. I loved my CWD SE03 that I custom made for myself when I worked for the company. That and a Mademoiselle were also the only two saddles I rode in, in our entire line, because they were the only two that fit my pelvis and made me comfortable. I also made it for myself as a rep for the company (that did learning both inside and outside the company, and that rode competitively for years), so I knew exactly what I wanted and NEEDED.
If you have a CWD you’ve ridden in and loved that fits your horse, contact known consigners (Redwood, Double Oak Tack in TX) and ask for those configurations used/demo if you aren’t fully trusting your rep. If you’re worried about custom fit, then I would definitely make sure you fully trust your rep to do a good job before I ordered custom. If you want a true custom panel experience, I’d look into a flocked saddle brand of some sort that feels similar to the model of saddle you like from CWD, but remember you need to reflock your saddle! Don’t just buy a flocked saddle and then never reflock. It needs to be looked at AT LEAST yearly, though I suggest quarterly having your person out to make sure nothing’s shifted or compressed too much.
Saddles are very personal. You will find a lot of CWD hate online. You will also find supporters. I like CWD saddles pre-2018. I don’t like the new ones. I don’t like County or Voltaire (for me personally), but I love a Butet. You might be very different from me and love BOTH of those saddles for your body/pelvis and HATE a Butet.
Try all the saddles you can! Call all the reps that will come out for free. Read the internet forums/FB but also trust your gut some too. Ask your friends, your trainer, your competitors who they had good experiences with.
Trust me, even independent fitters have an agenda 90% of the time, because at the end of the day most of the time someone is carrying a certain saddle brand(s) they are being paid to push. If a saddle doesn’t feel right, don’t try and make it work. Trust your gut. It’s a process but you will find the perfect saddle for you and your horses, and it might be a CWD but it might not be.
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Sent you a (looooooong) PM! 
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It’s true that there are horror stories about every brand of high end saddle. It’s not true that there are the same number of stories about each brand or that the stories are equally bad. There’s a reason why. At least for a period of time the problems really were top down at CWD and that was a huge difference. A bad rep or two can happen to any company. A company that itself engages in bad behavior, has terrible policies, and continues to hire bad reps is different.
I’ve never ordered a custom saddle, but I think CWD is no worse than any other french brand. None of the french brands with foam flocking are truly custom, as others have said. They have one tree shape, and that either fits your horse or it doesn’t. Obviously some reps are more honest than others, and may tell you they can make something work even though it won’t. So it is ultimately up to the owner to know enough about saddle fit and the shape of their horse’s back to know if a french brand will fit their horse. Anything super wide, curvy, short backed, huge withers or shoulders, will probably not work in a french brand.
I currently have a used CWD Mademoiselle that I love for myself and works well for one of my horses, but discovering it may no longer be a good fit for my young appendix who has really bulked up since we first fit it to her. I would say if you have tried a CWD on your horse and they seem to go well in it and you like the fit for you as well, then you are probably safe (at least until your horse changes shape). The real drawback with the foam flocked saddles is that there is no way to adjust if your horse changes shape, so if you have a young horse or under muscled horse when you buy, you are likely going to have to replace it at some point.
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Except for maybe Delgrange, those can be tricky to find used. They are not mass produced like most of the other French brands, but that’s part of what makes them special. Super nice saddles, I’ve been looking for a few months now for one used, no luck.
OP, I have a barn full of horses in CWDs. Everyone happy. But, like any other brand I am sure it’s heavily rep-dependent. Our rep here in the NY/NJ area is excellent and comes 1-2x a year and reassesses fit on all our saddles since horses are constantly changing shape. We also pay close attention to saddle fit in between her visits as well, adjusting pads, shims etc as needed.
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When I was looking for a new jump saddle I took my mares back tracings to a very reputable mobile consignment fitter who specialized in high end French saddles. She been a brand rep previously. She straight up told me that virtually no French foam saddle brand would fit maresy, with the exception of maybe one model of Equipe. She had no incentive to lie to me and lose a sale, she had no backlog of British or German wool flocked saddles to sell me. I appreciated her honesty.
Passier and County suit us. And maresy is not exceptional, she’s got a nice “English” back, she’s a stock horse that can fit a County used on a fat thoroughbred.
Anyhow if I fell into the clutches of an unscrupulous commission driven sales rep and didn’t know better, they could promise the moon while knowing there was no chance of a decent fit.
Oh, but our (former) CWD rep says this isn’t true! Why, you just simply have them shave away some of the foam! I don’t know what you’re supposed to do if you need it back at a later time. Actually I think that’s when they get you to buy new panels.
Equipe is actually Italian, same factory as Amerigo, although they are foam and the Amerigo is flocked.
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I’m not sure exactly the adjustability of the newer panel type that CWD uses, but you can take away and add back to some extent, as I have done it with my saddle. There are a couple of different foams in there to start with, and some adjustments can be made to a point. Mine has been adjusted 3 times, including taking away and adding back in different areas. It’s now to the point where I’d have to buy new panels to change it again. Which would require changing to the newer style of panel, and I’m not at all interested in doing that.
I have to say that I’ve been riding in a Mademoiselle for the past 7 months and it’s definitely the saddle that fits me best. I’m lucky that the standard panels with the RT shoulder cut out have also managed to fit my horses.
I agree with what a lot of people have said in that it’s a very personal thing - what works for some won’t work for all. I’m also someone who has put down a deposit on two custom saddles only to pull the plug before production started, so if you’re getting cold feet AND it’s possible to cancel the order without being out too much $$, I might try that rather than getting stuck with an 8k+ saddle that I don’t want the second I get it.
One thing about CWD is that there are a bunch of them out there on the used market. If possible. maybe try to get a used one in the configuration you need and try it out rather than go full custom right out of the gate? Was it an unusual panel/seat/flap configuration that would be tough to find used?
