I am just curious if these brands are worth their $200+ price tag?
The footbed on my Compositi Flex stirrup irons broke last night. I have had them for 4+ years so I am not too sad, but I am now in the market for another pair of irons. I was looking at maybe splurging on the Herm Sprenger Bow Balance irons, but also came across the Lorenzini which are pretty cool looking. A couple of reviews said that the wide foot bed helped with ankle and knee pain. I am just not sold on the price tag.
I’ve never broken a stirrup iron. I’d take one breaking as a sign to go back to normal Sprenger stainless steel irons with zero moving parts. Fancy lightweight ones sound dangerous. If you buy boring ones, you’ll be able to give them to your grandchildren instead of replacing them in 4 years.
If you need some special design because of physical issues, ok, but otherwise, I’d stick with the tried and true.
I think when I was still jumping I had Royal Rider or Lorenzini stirrups. It escapes me now. I found the wider bed helped with my knee pain. Riding in the hinged or flexible stirrups never worked for me, the ‘spring’ in them transferred more tension to my knees and ankles, and I felt like I could never find my proper stirrup length.
I have both JIN and Lorenzini and prefer the Lorenzinis, but I also have a bad leg I broke in 4 places and had surgery last year. The Lorenzinis are much more secure for me, but I enjoy them both.
I have the Jin Kinko stirrups and love them, but I didn’t pay full price for them. I think I got them something like 50-60% off on TOTD (paid maybe $80?) which made it worth splurging on them and taking a chance. They have more weight than the composit stirrups I had before (though less than a traditional fillis iron) and the wide foot bed helps with my knees and ankles. I am similar to bitranchy that the jointed stirrups seem to work against me - wide foot beds are much better. Probably the only con for me is that the tread is pretty sharp - great for keeping my foot in the stirrup on xc, but does scratch up my leathers if I run the stirrups up without putting a bag over them first.
My dressage trainer has a client that has Jin stirrups on her saddle and she does not like them.
I have the wide stirrup bed composite ones. I like the wide ones for extra support but I routinely trail ride for 2.5-3 hours. I think the extra support helps with keeping my feet, knees and shins from getting sore. I don’t feel like they are too light if I drop them and need to pick them up again.
This is what I have. https://www.vtosaddlery.com/product/CRWTSI.htm?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2P_riM_41wIVElgNCh2QtQLZEAQYBSABEgLz-vD_BwE
I had a pair of cheap flexi ones that broke on me after a year. My horse likes to paw in creeks. He routinely gets the stirrups wet. The bikechain that was hiding under the rubber boot rusted and broke when I was cantering while warming up for a clinic. I decided to not replace the flexi ones as I did not want to risk that again. The way the rubber covers the flexible part there is no way to routinely inspect it for rust. This may not be a problem with higher end ones (or with horses that don’t paw in water) but many of the higher end ones seem to have too much flex. These had a little bit of flex but not enough to cause instability just enough to take up some of the concussion.
I splurged on the Stubben Maxi Grip irons when I started riding several horses a day and discovered that my feet would go numb when riding with shorter stirrups for long periods of time. I like the stability they offer as opposed to jointed irons and they are lightweight without feeling flimsy. I was hesitant to shell out the money, too. I probably wouldn’t have tried them but my local tack shop offered to order them for me and let me try them for a week with the option to return them if I didn’t like them.
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