Princess and the pea with dressage saddles over here.
This is a 18/34 prestige x helen straight off the rack. Is it worth keeping for 2 weeks to show my fitter or send it back? Also I think my stubben equisoft girth is doing him no favors
The saddle looks pretty close, and they can be adjusted. Well worth having your fitter take a look, I’d say. The girth is way too short by about two or three holes on both sides.
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Re: Girth the fitter said do it up loosely so it actually does go up 2-3 holes but I think he needs a more forward contour as well?
I don’t see any red flags for bad fit from those photos. Can you slide your hand down the shoulder with even pressure, no pinching? And the same if you reach under the panels on both sides and slide your hand from front to back, no big air gap under the seat?
Be careful of some of those forward contour girths, as they don’t equalize the pressure on the sternum.
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Any suggestions for alternates? His jump girth is the ventch contour so I was going to order a ventech contour dressage girth
Am I the only one that thinks it is too far forward and resting on his scapula?
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It looks pretty close, and it’s certainly worth having the fitter look at it. It does look a little pommel high, and whether that’s a tree issue (too narrow) or can be altered through some adjustments to the stuffing, is something the fitter can determine. (It might also be that in real life, the pommel doesn’t look too high).
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I agree, it does look a bit too far forward.
As for the girth, whatever you go with needs to be longer than the Stubben. Even girthed loosely, it is too short. The Stubben (and some other girths) are meant to take the pressure off the sides and that means the buckles and their long straps need to be up far enough to allow that. Positioned as low as they are, they would need to come up a good three holes on each side, and should be fairly close to the bottom edge of the saddle pad.
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I’ll try it on the weekend with a bigger prestige girth. There are a bunch at the farm. Thank you!
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Agree about the too far forward. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve moved a saddle back. I’d be buying that $400k horse I looked at yesterday (for no good reason as that may as well be a $1m to me!).
Also, no one has mentioned, but in the first photo taken from the rear, the saddle appears to be sitting crooked - off to the left to my eye.
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It doesn’t look like you could get 3 more holes up on each side without cutting said horse is half…
Looks like it is worth having the fitter out to see and I think you do need a longer girth.
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I need to look at my own saddle to make sure I’m not making stuff up, but in the first picture it looks like the panels are shaped in a way that may put more pressure on the outside (they appear to sweep up towards the spine) which may cause pressure points/pressure line. I’d like to see the contour follow the width-wise contour of the horse’s back either side of the spine. Does that make sense?
However, I don’t necessarily see the placed too far forward issue. With the caveat that you need to get your hand in there to really feel it, if I look at stirrup bar placement, it looks like it’s at least an inch behind where I picture the scapula to end.
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I saw that too.
Girth is still way too short.
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any thoughts on the two models? the shop owner thought the helen was better for more upswept panels
The Helen looked like a better fit to me.
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To me, the second saddle looks better–it seems like the working center of the saddle (where you would actually sit) is in a better spot relative to the horse’s back. In the first saddle, the working center seems too far forward.
Have you ridden in either or both? Any thoughts on how they feel to you?
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