Lol. I was about to say the same thing!
I think the velcro blocks seem like a neat idea, but I wound up just texting JRD and they’re coming out next week. They’re my preferred saddler by far, but I was under the impression they’re hard to get out to the farm. Mehrdad texted me back immediately and is sending his staff out Thursday, I’m so relieved. In 2019 I bought a Bella from him sight unseen, without ever having ridden in one of his products, and it turned out to be the best saddle I’ve ever sat in. I’m excited to have them out and pleasantly surprised that even if I’m not with a sponsored trainer JRD is extremely responsive to my needs, I was clearly mistaken about their availability.
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Have you ridden in Custom? That’s their whole design ethos - deep seat and huge thigh blocks welding the rider to the horse. It’s not a size/fit issue, it’s a design preference. Some people love it and that’s great for them, but it doesn’t work for me.
I managed to find an old used German made dressage saddle for resale in a feed store, for $95 US (Cloister Schonfeld, I think), it was cheap because the calf skin covering had a big wrinkle in it on the flap and I had to have a billet resewn.
It fit me fine. With intelligent padding it fit the horses fine. But the knee roll was not fine at all, there was no way my leg would ever get that straight.
So one day, after hearing me cuss out the saddle one too many times, my teacher went to the rolls, said it looked like she could get them off easily, and I told her to go ahead.
Then I stopped having problems at the top of my thigh. It turned out to be a pretty comfortable saddle after all.
I was so glad that I “butchered” that saddle, not that it was worth much anyway.
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I love to hear these experiences folks have had with saddlery. It’s such a nuanced aspect of riding. Thanks for sharing, now I’m tempted to buy that trial saddle and pull the blocks off 
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Follow-up question on this thread: if you were coming to dressage from H/J land and were used to riding in a fairly flat seat close-contact saddle, would you look for a first dressage saddle with less to it, seat and block wise, generally, or did you find it easier to get used to the new position in a saddle that locked you in a bit more, so to speak?
IMHO being locked in is just not a good idea. Also you will be adapting to longer stirrups over time and drastic knee rolls won’t allow shorter stirrups.
That said, if the saddle is big enough to move around in, if it fits you, even a high cantle and larger blocks should be far away from you enough so you can move.
Let’s see how well he responds after you have paid for the saddle and need work on it. If you want a JRD save yourself a ton and look at used saddles in NorCal. They are a dime a dozen here and go CHEAP. I am not kidding. bayequest.com is one site, facebook has used saddle groups, even craigslist.
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LOL I’m quite familiar with the used market, the last saddle I purchased was a used JRD. If I could get away with another used one I would, but I need some very specific stuff. As for JRD’s availability, I’m not hugely concerned at the moment as they have many clients at this barn and we’re only about two hours away. But, if I moved back to LA, etc. I could see it becoming a problem. It was a close call between JRD and Equipe, but I decided to go with a known quantity and I’ve always had very pleasant experiences with the owner. He spent a lot of time working on my Thoroughbred last year and in the end said I should keep using my existing saddle, it was nice not having to wave off a hard sell approach.
