A friend just ordered a new Dev with the D3D panels. A search here didn’t provide much.
She borrowed one of their saddles for a weekend at an event and fell in love. She said it fits her TB extremely well. It is a +4, whatever that means.
Would love any thoughts/experiences with these new panels. Also any pros and cons.
The D3D panels are similar to the other French brand “pro panels”. Basically just Devoucouxs version. There is a D3D and then another D3D that is for horses with higher withers (that’s my understanding).
I ordered a Devoucoux Chiberta with D3D panels last year and after 2 attempts they still couldn’t send me a saddle that wasn’t blemished/ defective. That said I was able to get a refund and happily gave my money to another French company that was able to provide me a saddle of better construction.
My issues were not really with the saddle fit but rather the quality of the saddle and the companies customer service. If the D3D panels work for your horse they are great but they won’t fit every horse (as with all saddles).
I am one of the few people on this board who’s consistently been happy with Devoucoux’s product, and I’ve had two of their saddles. You might try the eventing board for more information on this particular panel style; Devoucoux has more traction with that crowd and I saw a few threads when I was doing research before purchasing mine.
I have a horse who is tough to fit because of both his conformation and his preferences for what he wants on his back. He has a short, curvy back with moderate withers and wither hollows, and he is very clear that he wants a wide gullet and at least four fingers of clearance between his wither and the saddle when I’m sitting in the tack. He had done well for quite some time in a Devoucoux that had been custom fitted to him, but a new training program had resulted in serious topline redevelopment and the saddle no longer fit. I called the rep to have new panels built. The rep misunderstood me (I suspect quite intentionally) and had me try a D3D4+. I am fairly educated in saddle fit for a lay person, I knew what I wanted made, I knew it would fit him (similar build to a saddle that had worked well for him in the past) and I DID NOT want a new saddle. Unfortunately for my wallet, this particular panel ROCKS for my horse in a way no other saddle has (and if you do a search, you’ll see I’ve had a real saga of saddle fitting with this guy.) I tried the panel configuration that I wanted, and that I knew would fit- and it did fit, but it was no comparison to the way he went in the D3D. My 19-year-old horse has discovered two more feet of stride and my vet, who told me I was a fool to buy a new saddle, said at his next routine visit that his back was in better shape than it had ever been in the 9 years she has treated him. Particularly, he has a substantially better range of motion in his shoulders, where he was apt to become constricted. This saddle also sits acceptably well on the shark-finned TB model as well as the mutton-withered QH type, which was a bonus for me as my previous saddle, having been custom-fitted to Tip, did not fit anything else in the barn.
My experience is that Devoucoux reps are pushing this saddle hard (I know a couple of people who have purchased it because their horses were “so hard to fit” when a very standard Devoucoux fit would have suited the horses well,) but I really was not looking for a new saddle at all. I kicked myself for a bit after purchasing it, because I recognized that the rep was being a salesman first and a fitter second, but my horse really did tell me he liked THIS ONE and I’m glad I listened to him.
