That is the key. If the tree isn’t the right shape, panels cannot make it fit.
Jeeze Louise. You can most likely fit your horse off the rack with a used saddle. I don’t disagree that your horse will grow and you may well need another saddle in the future, but two custom saddles? I have never bought a custom saddle (most of the french brands have only one tree size) and have always found a saddle that fits my horses. I am scrupulous about saddle fit and have my saddles checked twice a year.
Some of the newer jumping saddles can be ordered with foam panels.
Right!
Just to confirm the person that told me re. the two saddles was the independent fitter, NOT CWD rep. The fitter wanted me to buy a custom Ergox2 saddle now, and as his top line changed, buy another in about a year from now.
Good to know. I have contacted the company to see if they have someone in Canada. While I am looking for used saddles may as well look at them too!
@hj.eq.xc Would you mind sharing what model Stubben you bought. I’ve been considering a Stubben lately.
I used an independent saddle fitter for 20 years. He always shook his head over the overwhelming advice to go custom. He said that 95% of the horses he saw could be fitted off the rack with modifications to flocking. He also advised to always buy the demo model if it fit because there was no guarantee that a custom saddle would come close to the demo.
I was in the same boat a year ago I was very happy with my saddle fitter worked out wonderfully
Most of their saddles are wool, but as far as jumping saddles go, I think a few of their models do come in foam. I know the Portos Elite does and in my working with them to find a saddle, custom was discussed and I am pretty sure they could put foam on other models as well.
I ABSOLUTELY understand not trusting a fitter to flock the saddle correctly. If they aren’t capable they will do serious damage like any ill-fitting saddle. I know people get very divided on the wool v foam thing. In a perfect world, I am wool all the way, but it isn’t a perfect world and a foam saddle first of all won’t kill your horse and second of all, a well fitting foam saddle is worlds better than an incorrectly flocked wool one. It comes down to fit before fill.
I read this too…what I understood, its not that bridging is “good” its that due to the flex in the Stubben spring tree, if a saddle is slightly, very slightly, bridging, it isn’t an issue because the flex of the tree is designed to flex slightly so when girthed, the panel is able to come in full contact. That said, full even contact along the panels is always ideal. I think it was more of a “don’t always panic when you see this” because it CAN be ok in very specific situations. It depends though on the tree material and panel fill and the amount of gaping.
I do not believe that the pros don’t care about the horses either. Of course they do. I also am not in those circles like a fly on a wall so I couldn’t say for certain whether or not their horses are back sore/lame etc. That said, it is shocking how many people do not know how long their saddles tree points are, where the trapezius is, or what width is appropriate for their horse. Pros are not really all that different and saddle sponsors are not something people are willing to just toss away. My gripe is really more with the people that fit those saddles on the horses. We have gained more knowledge about how saddles affect equine anatomy and it is ridiculous that many companies are ignoring that. Riders should not have to be responsible for all the details and knowledge on fitting a saddle. They should be able to trust the fitter is doing everything right by the horse and it is very common to see saddles that are not properly fit and it is on the fitters. Mclain Ward isn’t putting his CWD on his horse and being like “haha the saddle is crushing your wither.” that isn’t the case at all, I think that the knowledge of horse anatomy is very limited among average people especially when it comes to muscular anatomy. When things are normalized (like prioritizing rider comfort over horse comfort), the red flags disappear. A lot of my point is generated more toward the blame being on the saddle companies who train the reps to sell their saddles no matter what. Saying these are “custom” saddles and can fit every horse is a complete lie. They know what to say to calm the average question or concern. My CWD fitter didn’t know what I was talking about when I asked her about why the tree points were sitting on my horses trapezius. When you search up “tree” on CWD you get zero results. “Carbon fiber jumping platform to make me a Grand Prix rider” gets 17 results. People don’t “care” because they do not KNOW. Is my experience jaded, yes. But it has made me look at saddle fit in general and saddles used by the biggest names in sport in a totally new light.
Kindly run away from this person. No horse, maybe unless its tracings are taken while emaciated at a kill pen, will go from a Narrow/Medium to a Med/Wide. A lot of what is around where the tree width is taken is bony, the withers, scapula, shoulder area, and won’t be bulking up like the hindquarters and back would when the horse gains muscle. the muscle around that area is a lot thinner (hence why weight shouldn’t be put on it) and will get stronger yes, but not jump that much in size if correctly fitted.
Best of luck with the second hand CWD. Keeping my fingers crossed for you!!
I have a Portos Elite NT tree with long points. The NT tree is available in the short points and a long point option. I was lucky the second hand saddle had the long points! My boy is a 16.3 Dutch Warmblood, quarter horse cross. He is a sporthorse. He has a big front end, big shoulder, big movement, and a little too athletic on some days. However, when he was fitted, he fit in the 27cm tree, the narrow for Stubben because up around the wither and scapula area, he needs a tree much narrower than you would think just looking at him. However, I LOVE the saddle, the most comfortable and secure thing ever because it doesn’t bury me in a deep seat and allows me to ride where I need to. I also loved the Phenoix elite, and I rode in the Monoflap and they also make their XC saddle with a double flap option which I almost bought but decided against going custom. I liked them all but I love the Portos elite. Highly recommend!! They can also adjust the tree up or down one size if you buy one second hand and some leather detail changes. I ended up with basically a custom saddle at second hand prices and it’s absolutely amazing, couldn’t recommend more!!
I actually disagree. I have seen horses go from Medium to an XW+. ISH coming off of saddles way too narrow for him and his muscling needed to recover. It took a year, but it happened. Race horses coming off the track routinely gain a tree size or two in the first 6 months of training off the track due to the change in their program. I do a lot of back rehabs with my clients where they gain a tree size or 2 due to being in saddles too narrow among other issues.
Yes nutrition can play into changing of the tree sizes. However there are a lot of other reasons why too. Moving up the levels, they can fluctuate both getting wider and narrower. Growing horses. Fox hunters routinely need to change tree sizes as the get fitter during the season. Changing how they are ridden can change it among other reasons.
Thanks so much, that is the same model I’m considering, including the NT!
I should have prefaced, a horse that is moderately under muscled but properly fit will not be expanding multiple tree sizes. From everything the OP said, her horse is under muscled, probably a lot due to her saddle fitting nightmare she has been dealing with, but is still rideable and just needs topline and fitness. Flocking and paneling will change to accommodate the new muscle but fitting such a horse with a saddle a few tree sizes too big because you expect him to “fill it out” is improper.
Of course, if a horse is fit in a saddle too narrow they will magically “expand” multiple tree sizes when suddenly fit with a tree that was proper for them. Like a horse that is ridden in a saddle too wide, putting an appropriately narrower tree on doesn’t mean the horse lost a lot of muscle in the 2 second saddle switch. If I get myself into a size 4 pants in the morning and put on a size 10 in the afternoon, I didn’t gain a ton of weight that one day, I just was incorrectly fitted at the beginning.
To be honest, in my experience with the hunting world, people are not changing the tree’s on their saddles throughout the year to accommodate fitness. I have never heard that, never seen that and none of my hunting friends do that. It would be ridiculous. Not only is it expensive but few saddle companies allow for such frequent changes to the gullet unless it’s like the dover brand easy change system.
If a horse isn’t mature, they are of course going to be changing but hopefully their ridden career isn’t started so early that there are massive changes happening to those structures that would require such a massive tree change.
I still stand by what I said, and unless there are extenuating circumstances like being chronically ridden in a tree much too narrow or much too wide, going from super skinny and zero muscling to being round and muscled up in a healthy manner, or going from obese back to a healthy weight, there, I would expect some change in tree size. But for the average unfit but healthy and a bit under muscled horse, tree size, especially when measured as unspecific as the N, M, W system, tree change should be minimal if at all when properly fitted. I am more familiar with the Stubben system for tree measuring, 27cm being narrow and working up to 32cm for the widest. Change in tree width, like from a 28 to a 29 is very specific and a more accurate, small adjustment.
I think we are saying a lot of the same thing, just in different ways. You mention a lot of extenuating circumstances like getting a horse out of an improperly fit tree and for horses coming off the track. The racing saddle trees are incredibly small and place all weight right behind the wither, it doesn’t extend out to the seat on most racing saddles. They get very little, if turnout at all, are fed high grain diets and usually are comparatively very young so of course when their entire world changes, their body will too. In regards to your hunting point, I do not have your experiences, I am pulling from my own and changing the trees out regularly absolutely isn’t a thing in my area. IMO no horse should have their condition drastically fluctuate to that extent. It is incredibly unhealthy to go from hunting fit (which is very fit for the first and second flights) to so unfit that the tree is vastly the wrong size and needs to be changed.
Yes we are saying the same thing and I was responding to the absolute nature of the comment.
I would say about 15% to 20% of my clients change tree sizes on any given year. That is one of the reason why I have adjustable saddles in my lineup. If I feel like the horse has the potential to change sizes/shapes, that is a conversation I have with my clients when discussing saddle fit and when they are purchasing a saddle. This is a timely post where you can follow the changes of one individual horse’s journey over 6 years. The horse is a TB but bred for sport and was never race trained. He has been in the same program with the same owner for all of this ridden life. Meghan is a fairly new saddle fitter, so these changes mostly happened before she was a saddle fitter.
Yes you are correct they don’t change their saddle over the hunting season, but how many have to add shims or pads during the season? I have had multiple fox hunters in my career who have also bought adjustable tree saddles to accommodate the changes of their horses though out the season.
My mare was fitted for her full bodied look. Saddle only needs cloth pad. A few years ago she lived on a field for a winter and trimmed down a bit. The saddles started to shift too close to the withers. I put on sheepskin pads, problem solved. Mare plumped up again, back to cloth pads. I feel like the basic tree shape stayed right for her, she just needed a bit of padding.
That is definitely kind of the direction I am coming from. Using a half pad under the saddle while building the horse back up or for general use is definitely something I do and lots of people do, fox hunters and jumpers alike. The key is still maintaining the best fit possible for the saddle whether using a half pad or not. However, I think that it has become a lot more commonplace than necessary for people to order wider and just “pad up” in situations where it is not really appropriate which I am sure you have seen. That transformation is super interesting. Seeing how the horse seems historically to show weakness behind the withers and how it was built up so nicely in the final photo despite all their set backs was amazing. It was also interesting to note that the horse kept his more prominent wither, even when he had a nicely built topline. Horses can show a wither and be muscled well! It drives me crazy when people think a back isn’t strong or well muscled unless the wither is almost non-exsistent, like a pony back. Anyway though, your response was super interesting and I always love hearing other people’s experiences and takes on saddle things!!
Yes! it is normal for horses to fluctuate within reason like humans unless there is a specific goal like losing x amount of weight and/or putting on muscle/gaining weight, most fluctuation is minor and half pads are great for that. That is why tree shape is so critical and it sounds like what you have works really well for your mare. Usually a pad or flocking change is good to mirror muscle change but the tree must respect the lesser changing anatomical structures like the wither and spine and placement of the traps and lats to truly be a well fitting saddle.
Yes Meghan has done a great job with Sharps and it is super interesting to see the changes. I have been working with them since he was 4. He has always been in a good program, but the real changes came after the injury. It was because even thought Meghan has always been attentive to his physical needs, she took a step back after the injury. She changed because of his rehab work his fracture and spent a lot of time making sure he was strong enough in his hind end and back for his work. The most interesting time for me was when he was 7. You can really see the postural changes in his back between the two pictures. That was the year that he was struggling a little bit. I think because she was just pushing him a little to much for what his body could do with the final growth spur. He started developing some not so nice compensation patterns in his body. However you can see how she addressed it and how much better it was.
Yes on the wither thing, you have to look at the underlining structure. Sharps will always be a high withered horse no matter how well muscled he becomes. Some horses will never have much of a wither. They just don’t have the bone structure for it.
Yes, people tend to now always want a half pad which you have to fit around. Now if the horse looses a little topline or such, you have nowhere to go with the saddle.
Interesting about the half pad. I’d say especially in H/j the various shock absorbing pads have been heavily sold and advertised to the extent many riders think they need them. However unless you get your saddle fitted to accommodate this, a pad of any significant thickness is going to throw off the saddle fit.
When my mare slimmed down and the wither gullet wobbled, I kept using the fleece pad for a bit too long after she’d plumped up again. My equine body worker noted wither pain she thought could be a “tight saddle.” Oops. I stopped using the fleece pads, pain went away, I felt bad about that but horse is fine now
You really have to dig into the half pad advertising and really know why you are using one. They can be very detrimental to the horse. Coming from an engineering background really helps because I took a lot of classes in physics. There is a place for them, but I do think they are misused a lot.
What you did is a perfect example of when it was really helpful. Now image if you have continued to use the pad after your mare filled out.
Now that this thread has taken a turn, I have an interesting story. Purchased a horse with high withers who was a bit asymmetrical (less mass on the right shoulder), and congenitally slightly crooked withers. Somewhat sensitive to saddle fit, most commonly manifesting in trouble holding the canter and coming through behind, but occasionally the wrong saddle would also create a distinct head bob on RF (I tried a lot of saddles as what I had didn’t fit).
Funnily enough, a CWD I had for another horse wound up working for him for a while with new panels. I got several back tracings done. He fluctuated in weight and fitness due to seasons and some health problems. The first thing that changed was he got more symmetrical. But he also seemed to get narrower at the same time. Eventually stayed symmetrical and got back to his original width.
Then we figured out all of his health issues and really worked on proper conditioning over one year, and his width went up a whole centimeter. He also seemed a little straighter (less curvy) on his topline.
So I order him a new saddle, as a new model was introduced that works great for him, and he also tends to like a thicker pad and could no longer use that with my CWD. I was also getting ready to send his dressage saddle out to be widened 1cm.
About a month after ordering the saddle, he has a bad paddock accident and fractures the right scapula. The fracture starts up at the dorsal cartilage and then travels vertically and exits out the caudal aspect of the scapular body. Complete, questionably mildly displaced fracture.
Saddle of course arrives while he is on complete rest. He is still rehabbing almost 15 months later. I did not sit on his back until about the 6 month mark. He had been hand walking in a surcingle for a while and then hand walking in his new saddle. During the whole time, he got a lot of bodywork and passive motion exercises as well as core work stretches, to address soft tissue trauma and try to prevent adhesions and callus in and around the scapula.
I haven’t traced him again yet, but based on how everything has been fitting, he seems to be at least the same width that he was before injury when he was the most fit and strong and widest at the tree he’s ever been. Possibly a little bit wider. I think a little asymmetric again thanks to injury on the already “bad” side, but not as much as in the beginning years ago.
He is also fatter, but he does not have a fat roll on his prominent withers. But I have to think that all of the work around his shoulders and on the spinal support muscles and sling muscles have to have played a role in his topline and saddle fit throughout this awful, slow rehab process.
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