What do you guys think of this? It’s certainly a different perspective on saddle fitting.
https://len-browns-innovations.myshopify.com/collections/saddles/products/salient-dressage
Yeah my friend from college has the orthoflex dressage saddle
http://img.equinenow.com/slir/w600/english_saddles/data/photos/12096_1.jpg%3F1382807287
not a new concept, but never one that has widely caught on.
your example looks slightly less funky :lol::yes:
Well, he’s a Western saddle maker primarily.
This saddle seems to use a Western tree and cantle, the flat flaps of a saddleseat saddle, and the knee guards of a bullfighting saddle. The end result is a bit like an old fashioned cavalry saddle.
He says it can fit any horse. Does he mean that he thinks one saddle and one tree can fit all horses? If so, that’s a red flag.
OK, watching the video…
He’s conflating warmbloods and Lipizzans in terms of fit! Very different horses.
Also, as I watch the video I see that it is meant to be used with a special balance pad and shims. This is a very Western-style solution: the saddle fit is more general, and you pad it up to fit with blankets.
Other Western saddle makers will fit the tree to the horse first, and then build the saddle. They can have a stack of over a dozen trees sizes and shapes to choose from. This fellow’s Western saddles also come one tree size, with shim pads.
It’s interesting to see someone try something new, but for me, what he’s saying and doing goes counter to how I currently understand saddle fit.
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I’m with Scribbler. With all of the innovations in saddle fit and still-ongoing study of same, I think this guy is a bit behind the times. I think I’d rather go with a treeless than this thing.
Len Brown developed the original ortho-flex flexible panel saddles. They came in both English and western styles, but the western were a lot more popular. Reactor Panel (https://www.reactorpanel.com/) saddles, which are also flexible panel saddles, had more English style saddles and were more popular in the English disciplines. But I don’t think the style ever really caught on anywhere in a big way, although there are still some manufacturers out there (Timberline, Reactor Panel, American Flex).
I don’t recall the details, but Mr. Brown became disillusioned with the flex panel design and started working on a different approach. The current stuff, as linked to by Rusty15, is, I think, maybe the 3rd iteration of his current approach. It has always been difficult for me to assess his product because I’ve always found his web site to be nearly incomprehensible/undecipherable. But others might have better luck. 
http://thecorrector.net/index.html
(I’m familiar with this because I did the “saddles and tack” section of an old, now defunct, mule info web site and some manufacturers market flexible panel saddles to mule owners.)
Nosuch, I see what you mean about the website. i clicked on his saddle fitting myths, and he is wrong about a number of things, such as that most saddles are too curvy and rock on the horse, so no one gets a good fitting saddle. Not true. You just keep shopping for a saddle that doesn’t rock and that fits your horse!
None of it builds my confidence in him.
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$3,390 for that thing?!
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What I think:
- No way that shape & width is going to fit pinchless on every horse
- I like the shape of the seat -- looks much like a Western seat, which I've often thought looks like it would put rider (possibly) in a correct position for dressage (balanced) seat
- Stirrup leathers do not appear to be hung in right position for dressage balanced seat
- I believe a spring tree (preferably polymer) and wool panels to be essential for minimizing impact of dressage to horse's back
- Light weight is good
A friend tried a treeless on her draft mule but decided that he wasn’t comfortable and went back to her Orthoflex, which she thought was a better fit. I use a treeless (Sensation) on my mule and he doesn’t complain, but he’s a very stoic mule so I’m not sure I’d be able to tell if the saddle was uncomfortable for him.
I’ve enjoyed reading the responses here. I’ve never heard a bad thing about his pads or girths, so when I came across this saddle I was curious. Some of what he says makes some sense to me, some of it seems very questionable. I just don’t see how we can be the only person in the world who is right and everyone else is wrong about saddle fit.
I have to say though, if that saddle was more like $1500 I’d probably try it just out of curiosity. If anyone else watches the video and wants to weigh in, I’m always open to more opinions.
I watched the video. I am not particularly interested in riding in an English saddle that requires a lot of shims and pads to fit. Even if I was getting a Western saddle, I would want the saddle to be a basic good fit. I like that English saddles have padded panels; I was rather horrified when I rescued my old Western saddle from the 1970s, after I’d gone through buying and fitting English saddles as a re-rider. The fleece had deteriorated, making it very clear that the fibreglass tree was right there against the horse. If I was going to use it again, obviously it would need repair, but it isn’t anywhere near a fit for my horse.
At our horse expo one year I made a point of talking to all the local western handicraft saddle makers. Apparently this is still a cottage industry, in the way that English saddles are not in North America. And the prices were not that steep compared to English saddles, until you went in for a lot of carving and silver.
All of the saddle makers said that the first step would be visiting you with a selection of trees, and building up from the one with the best fit. They had stacks of at least a dozen trees at their booths. No one at all was claiming one size fits all.
So I don’t even agree with his fitting ideas on Western saddles, let alone this jousting/cavalry/endurance hybrid.
I’d like to sit in it just for feel…strikes me as odd overall.
Had.
The panels are connected to the tree with ball joints, and when those wear out, there is too much play and the panels rub the horse. Not good. The only way to fix it is to replace the ball joints, which I had to do when the saddle was about four or five years old while I was at uni (with LadyJ!). It had to be shipped to Orthoflex, who I think were in PA.
Unfortunately they wore out again a few years ago and now living in Glasgow, shipping it back to the US was no longer an option. No one in Scotland had a clue what to do with it, although one intrepid local master saddler gave it a go, to no avail. He fixed it so the panels didn’t move at all, which isn’t really the point. In the end I had to retire it and I ended up replacing it with a Thorowgood GP because it fit my horse and it was cheap, the only two things I cared about at that moment.
The Orthoflex had its good and bad points.
The good was that it worked for my horse (and the previous horse) for over twelve years and I didn’t have to faff with readjusting or buying new saddles whenever a horse changed shape.
The bad (besides the ball joints wearing out) was that it was like sitting in a plywood board and it gave you the worst chair seat in the world.
These days there are better options. I bought mine in 1999 (I think). If money were no object, I’d go for one of the more modern reactor panel ones that look like normal dressage saddles, or a leather tree thingme.
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Had.
The panels are attached to the tree with ball joints, which eventually wear out. When those ball joints get too work, the panels move more than they should and rub the horse. Not good. The first time they wore out I was in college (with ladyj!), the saddle was four or five years old, and I had to send it to Orthoflex, who I think were in PA, to get repaired. The second time they wore out was a few years ago, and now that I’m living in Glasgow, sending it to the US wasn’t an option. No one in Scotland had a clue about the saddle, although one local saddler attempted to repaor it, alas to no avail. He fixed the panels so they didn’t move at all, which isn’t really the point. In the end, I had to retire it and ended up with a Thorowgood GP saddle because it fit my horse and it was cheap, the only two things I cared about at the time. RIP Orthoflex.
It had its good and bad points.
The good was that it worked for my horse for almost twelve years without requiring readjustment or buying a new saddle whenever she changed shape.
The bad (other than ball joints wearing out) was that it felt like sitting in a plywood board and gave you the worst chair seat in the world.
There are much better options now, but when I bought it in 1998-ish to fit a horse (not the current one) that was changing shape regularly (well, they all do) and would not tolerate a saddle that wasn’t 100% right, it made a lot of sense.
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I keep trying to post a response on the thread, as I’m LadyJ’s friend who had the Orthoflex, but my post keeps disappearing!
My thoughts exactly. If I’m paying that much for a saddle, it better be nicer looking that that thing…
@Caol Ila For some reason, the system was marking your post as possible spam and it went into a queue for moderator approval. I just approved your first submission of the post. Sorry for the confusion!
