My trainer rode in the Perfection. I also used one (Perfection) on a mutton withered flat backed paint gelding, fit like a glove.
I didn’t find x brand is great for y breed of horses when I was saddle searching to always hold true. I’ve found that to be both wrong and right over the years for a few reasons. There are variations within breeds of horses. Some saddle brands have many models and/or many customization options. Generally, you cannot, IMO, say there’s no way x brand will work because I tried one saddle from them. I think in some instances you might be able to, but many brands have different trees, panels, seats, flaps, and so on.
I like Black Country and Amerigo. My horses have too, but neither of us like or fit all of their saddles. There’s one Amerigo model that I rode in that I really didn’t like, neither did my horse, but I can’t say x brand doesn’t work because of that one model, because other models within that brand did work. So don’t be too quick to write off saddles in that way. However, there are times when x brand really just doesn’t work for y horse, but there are so many options within brands nowadays.
I also found input from these forums to be “meh” when I was searching. I don’t think that’s because people aren’t knowledgeable, I think it’s just that when I said, “horse has a very short and flat back” people didn’t know how short or how flat (and other details matter too). Even when I posted a picture, there were just miscalculations. Or they were comparing to their horse who was just a tad different or moved differently. So for recommendations, it’s been very hit or miss.
Now, for analyzing fit with pictures of a saddle on a horse, that’s a bit better for a few reasons.
I know the saddle struggle all to well. I tried remote fitting and that was a flop. So I’m hesitant to go that route, but I understand that can be fitter dependent. It’s the same with in person though. I used 2 highly recommended fitters in my area and one just had methods I wasn’t comfortable with (I can’t blindly order a saddle without a trial from a brand/model I’ve never sat in or put on my horse, the fitter had no inventory at all), and the other resulted in both me and my horse being sore after spending $6k on a saddle. So I get the frustration, truly.
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Hmm interesting. To me there is a significant difference in height between her wither and her back. Most horses aren’t built like that. Either they’ve got curve to their back so the back of the saddle is close to even with the wither, or they’ve got a low wither and a flat back. That’s why there’s different depths of panels on more custom saddles. For example Aviar have three panel thicknesses exactly for this reason - because some horses need more panel depth than others.
My grey doesn’t have much wither so he is basically just flat and doesn’t have the same difference in height.
Both of my PRE’s have had a much higher wither than back. It’s not “sharkfin” or atrophy, everything up there is just higher. Especially with age and proper work/development. I wouldn’t say it’s soo unique, and there are plenty of dressage saddles for that build because I think many dressage horses can tend toward having a more “uphill” build of sorts.
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