I am considering a saddle that is 10 years old. its a devoucoux. I have been following the whole thread on the Antares with the tree that cracked after 2 years of owning it while she was trotting.
I am now wondering if its safe to buy an older saddle in good condition. I cannot afford a brand new French saddle because I will be in the market for a new truck in the near future.
I want a quality saddle that will last, but I am a bit fed up of the mass produced saddle as I feel the quality isn’t very good. I looked at a friends artisian from bevals and I had to tell her a nail was coming thru the leather. She hadn’t noticed. And its not that old. I looked at another friends M Toulouse saddle and she said she hated it. It was falling apart after 2 years. I cracked 2 trees on bevel naturals. So while I really have always felt comfy in that saddle, I am not interested in buying another one. I think their life runs around 6 years and then you have a saddle that is hard to just put in the garbage!
Anyway, I was wondering as the saddles age, do the trees crack or stitching rot and then the saddle falls apart. I am just a bit hesitant to take the plunge, because its a good chunk of change to plunk down, and find out that the tree cracks and a nail comes thru the saddle seat after 2 years like the girl with the Antares!
Well, my current Barnsby is a couple years old… and the previous one was going strong for me for over 8 years when I sold it after my last horse sold. She wouldn’t sell it back to me about 5 years later because she still loved it so much. 
As far as I’m aware (last emailed her about a year ago), its still going strong and will be hitting about 15 years old soon.
Maybe you need to move away from the french saddles to slightly sturdier less temperamental stock. LOL!
[QUOTE=TSWJB;7343280]
I am considering a saddle that is 10 years old. its a devoucoux. I have been following the whole thread on the Antares with the tree that cracked after 2 years of owning it while she was trotting.[/QUOTE]
This is like saying, “I’ve heard that 10-year-old Dodge trucks can have transmission problems. So now I’m really freaked out about buying a Ford truck because what if it has a transmission problem?” :lol:
Antares does, indeed, have a reputation for tree breakage. I don’t want to overstate it because it’s much like buying a car model with a a reputation for transmission problems: a small proportion of owners will experience catastrophic transmission problems that will cost them a lot of money, but thousands of other owners will never experience transmission problems and will value that car for its many other virtues. Many, and I’d even say most, Antares owners will never fall victim to the broken tree issue. But that’s little consolation to the Antares owners whose trees break.
I have other complaints about Devoucoux, like their weak customer service model and their recessed stirrup bars, but they don’t have a reputation for systematic tree breakage. That said, any saddle tree can break, and 10 years is a long time. Tack gets dropped. Horses roll or fall onto their saddles. Riders put saddles through high-impact work like show jumping, fox hunting, etc. Riders or horses move crookedly for years, potentially causing breakage or stress on one tree point or one tree bar. Microscopic hairline problems in a saddle’s materials–ones that even the most fastidious inspection process couldn’t catch–can slowly come to the fore. And at 10 years old, most brands’ tree warranties have expired.
If you’re paranoid about tree breakage, here’s some things to consider:
–use your hands and eyes to visually inspect a saddle for tree damage. (Kitt Hazelton wrote a great blog post about this: http://saddlefitter.blogspot.com/2010/07/used-saddle-safety-check-bargain-or.html ). If you are really super paranoid, you could pay to have a saddler drop the panels and inspect the tree. That’s usually pretty expensive, but it might put your mind at ease.
–buy a saddle whose use history you know, like a saddle owned by a friend.
–buy from a brand that has an excellent tree warranty and a reputation for good customer service.
With a 10-year-old French saddle, I would honestly be more paranoid about the panels than the tree. Repanelling is a very pricey procedure, and Devoucoux is a bad candidate for conversion to wool. Foam panels are designed to last about 10 years in the hands of an amateur/casual owner, but panels can potentially wear out in 1-2 years with very hard use. This is one reason that French-brand-sponsored riders often trade their saddles in every year or two.
I want a quality saddle that will last, but I am a bit fed up of the mass produced saddle as I feel the quality isn’t very good. I looked at a friends artisian from bevals and I had to tell her a nail was coming thru the leather. She hadn’t noticed. And its not that old. I looked at another friends M Toulouse saddle and she said she hated it. It was falling apart after 2 years. I cracked 2 trees on bevel naturals. So while I really have always felt comfy in that saddle, I am not interested in buying another one. I think their life runs around 6 years and then you have a saddle that is hard to just put in the garbage!
If you’re fed up with mass-produced saddles, then you’re doing the right thing by stepping up to handmade saddles built from top-quality materials. But really, it’s asking a lot for cheaper Argentine-or-Vietnamese-made saddles to last more than a few years. I think if people saw how some of these saddles were made–out of very cheap materials, usually on machine assembly lines with almost no human intervention–they’d be shocked that the saddles turn out at all. :lol: Some Argentine saddles are very nice, but others are practically disposable.
As for the Beval Artisan, a lot of mid-range tack has problems in its first few manufacturing runs. I hope that Beval makes things right for your friend, but you can avoid her problem by not buying mid-range saddle models until they’ve been on the market for a few years.
Anyway, I was wondering as the saddles age, do the trees crack or stitching rot and then the saddle falls apart. I am just a bit hesitant to take the plunge, because its a good chunk of change to plunk down, and find out that the tree cracks and a nail comes thru the saddle seat after 2 years like the girl with the Antares!
In the good old days, rotten stitching was a common problem. But in the last 10 to 15 years, almost all saddlers switched to synthetic thread, which is generally stronger than cotton thread and is not as poorly affected by exposure to oil and dirt. If you look closely, the vast majority of older saddles that fall apart are falling apart at weak points in the leather, not the stitching. For an older saddle, be especially fastidious about checking the saddle seat and the knee rolls.
A final word of advice: don’t back yourself into a corner. If you are uncomfortable buying a 10-year-old Devoucoux, there’s lots of other ways to spend your money. For example, let’s say this is a $2200 saddle. That’ll get you into a Pessoa or Ovation with a lifetime tree warranty. It could get you into a British benchmade saddle that’s built just as well as the Devoucoux but is only 2-3 years old. It could get you into a used Prestige or Vega that’s perhaps 5 or 6 years old but has a lifetime tree warranty. You could buy a non-trendy brand that is designed to survive nuclear apocalypse, like an older Stubben/Berney Brothers/Passier/Barnsby/etc. I’m not saying those routes are better than the Devoucoux, just that you have lots of options.
I think it depends on the manufacturer and materials, like anything.
I have an ancient Kieffer Munchen (30 years or so) that is uuuuugly and has a hole in the flap from a rear block but it is tough, sound and fully usable.
Similarly, I have a Passier PSL-E that is at probably 15 or so years old and in amazing shape. German saddles seem to be very sturdy, albeit less cushy than the french saddles. I’d buy another older saddle from either maker in a heartbeat
jn4jenny, thanks for the kind words on the blog post - glad it’s helpful!
Older quality saddles that haven’t been abused or in some sort of wreck shouldn’t have tree integrity issues. I’ve seen 20 year old Passiers, Albions, Frank Baines, Whippys, Tony Slatters (the list goes on) with perfectly sound trees. However, some tree breaks are really hard to detect, while others are fairly blatant; it’s best to have a competent saddler or fitter take a look at the saddle and, if necessary, drop the panels to check the tree.
thank you very much jn4jenny! you gave me a lot to think about! I really don’t know what kind of saddle I want. I always bought my saddles from Bevals. I do like the Beval natural, but the first tree cracked after 7 years and the second saddle the tree cracked at one year. they did replace the tree, but I hear it squeaking again and while I don’t feel the tree cracking thru, I am just not sure if the saddle is going to hold up. I have no idea what I am doing to break the trees. I have never had any falls, I keep them on a saddle tree, and take care of them. the saddles seem to fit my horse. No rubs or anything.
So now I am trying to decide what I want, and I am being influenced by friends to buy French. not sure why I want a French saddle? I think because I don’t have an idea of what I would want otherwise. All this talk of tree cracking is worrying me though and while the saddle looks like its in good shape, it is 10 years old. I was wondering if maybe the tree falls apart just like a riding helmet does after a few years.
My Butet is going on 18 years old and (knock on wood) completely sound and squeak free. All depends on the use of the saddle… Was it ridden in hard for 10 years? Or was it a weekend warrior? All depends…
I personally haven’t had a tree “wear out” on me, but that’s not saying much. I’ve had everything from Crosby’s to Antares to Bevals, and have had solid luck with each one. But I’m very careful and baby my saddles to the best of my ability. They were all ridden in 4-6 days a week on multiple horses. I usually have the leather wearing through before anything else goes!
[QUOTE=TSWJB;7345398]
I do like the Beval natural, but the first tree cracked after 7 years and the second saddle the tree cracked at one year. they did replace the tree, but I hear it squeaking again and while I don’t feel the tree cracking thru, I am just not sure if the saddle is going to hold up. I have no idea what I am doing to break the trees. I have never had any falls, I keep them on a saddle tree, and take care of them. the saddles seem to fit my horse. No rubs or anything.[/QUOTE]
It was probably just bad luck. The Beval Natural is a mid-range saddle, but even so, I’d expect the average one to last 10 years at least.
All this talk of tree cracking is worrying me though and while the saddle looks like its in good shape, it is 10 years old. I was wondering if maybe the tree falls apart just like a riding helmet does after a few years.
It’s not really much talk at all. 
The chatter seems louder to you because you’ve had particularly rotten luck with saddle trees.
We can’t tell you what you can or can’t live with, psychologically speaking. It’s reasonable for most people to expect 15, 20, even 25+ years of service out of a typical high-end handmade saddle. Some brands with reputations for durability can go even longer, like 30 or 40 years. But looking at a 10-year-old saddle is like looking at a car with 100,000 miles on it: you can’t know, even after a good mechanic’s checkup, whether that particular car will go to 150K or 200K or 250K. Just like there’s no guarantee that a brand-new car that checks out “clean” won’t prove to be a lemon. My trainer’s Devoucoux is 14 years old and still solid as a rock, but that will have little bearing on whether the 10-year-old Devoucoux you’re looking at leads a long and happy life.
Think of a saddle tree like the skeleton in a human body or the chassis on a car: it’s not designed to degrade, but it might “give in” if it’s exposed to enough trauma and/or already had a structural weakness to begin with. There’s not an expiration date on them like there is on riding helmets. Riding helmets wear out because the foam degrades. That’s why I was saying you should be more concerned about the saddle’s panels than the tree.
My friends 1997 butet is amazing, its my dream saddle (even though I dropped over $5000 on my new saddle). Solid as a rock.
I have had my custom Antares for 10 years and have never had a problem with the tree. I am also not a light weight rider by any means.
I have had a late 90’s model Crosby Collegiate Ruiz Diaz made in Aregentina that held up fantastically to daily hard use and jumping, over more expensive Crosby Excel H saddle of same era… leather not tree - for 15 years. I had a 30 year old Stubben that was regularly hunted in with a sound tree and fabulous soft leather. I love my current, unfortunately for sale because too wide, Moritz, I just sold the Moritz I got as a teenager with plain flaps that was still sound and lovely… and all these are ‘middle of the road’ saddles as far as price goes. I have many friends disappointed in the Pessoa’s recently. Love the older Beval Butet’s… held up to hard use very nicely. From what I have seen, the Antares have not fit a lot of horses, although riders love that seat trap, and the trees are suspect. So much depends on use, care and original quality of make, you can’t say a 10 year saddle is worthless, its too blanket. I have no problem with a 10 year old saddle from a manufacturer I like if I can see its been cared for and its in good condition.
+1 for Stubben durability
Older Stubbens which have not been abused seem to be practically indestructible. I am looking at two of mine that are 20+ years old a piece and they both look and ride fantastic. I have only had reflockings done and one set of billets replaced. The dressage saddle in particular is a high mileage workhorse and has been through backing young-uns. I know that these saddles haven’t been in any accidents though and I still test the trees for twisting or cracking. Just my two cents…Stubbens seem to be out of favor at the moment but they are one brand that definitely has durability on their side. I hope when I bring home my new Stubben it’s as tough as these two old birds.
I bought a Kloster Schonthal last summer, I don’t ride English very much any more but I wanted something to pop on my lease horse when I wanted a challenge/something different. I’m sure its at least 20 years old if not older. The owner previous to me had it re-stuffed about a year before I bought it, tree was/is sound, leather is in amazing condition, and it had thigh and knee blocks exactly where I needed them. I paid $240 for it with fittings. It would absolutely horrify me to pay upwards of $1500 and have a saddle that wouldn’t stand up to normal use.
[QUOTE=Raincityrider;7360053]
Older Stubbens which have not been abused seem to be practically indestructible. I am looking at two of mine that are 20+ years old a piece and they both look and ride fantastic. I have only had reflockings done and one set of billets replaced. The dressage saddle in particular is a high mileage workhorse and has been through backing young-uns. I know that these saddles haven’t been in any accidents though and I still test the trees for twisting or cracking. Just my two cents…Stubbens seem to be out of favor at the moment but they are one brand that definitely has durability on their side. I hope when I bring home my new Stubben it’s as tough as these two old birds.[/QUOTE]
I have several old Stubbens still in active use, including my childhood Rex, bought for me in 1964. I am interested in purchasing one of their newer models, perhaps next year, so I would be very interested to hear how you like your new one.
Saddle trees can “wear out” over time. I’ve seen saddle trees with dry rot (very old saddles), and I’ve seen components - sometimes a spring bar, stirrup bar or a head plate, but more usually a rivet - give out. In the latter case, it’s often on an older saddle, though I did see one endurance saddle lose 2 rivets in the head plate to rust after “only” four years. But in those 4 years, the rider had put close to 7,000 miles on the saddle, often in miserably wet conditions; in spite of outstanding care, the wet took its toll. Happy to say the saddle mfr. had it re-treed under warranty, and the saddle is still in use.
I am riding in an old (17 year old) Passier. It is a dressage saddle but has no sign of giving out. I did have it reflocked though. The one big benefit to wool vs foam. I have a lovely L’Apogee that I have had for about 7-8 years and with regular use has held up just fine. The one thing I have learned is , I will always buy a wool flocked saddle. Once the foam either packs down or gets hard the entire panel has to be replaced with the wool they can strip flock it and you are good to go…
Dewey- I will definitely report back. :yes:
Thanks! Do you mind telling me which one you got?
On the fence re the Biomex or regular Genesis D so I have not yet placed the order. (That and DH surprised me with an AP saddle for Christmas so now I feel a little…um, excessive. Long story short, he is not horsey and it was his way of telling me to start another youngster once my old guy is fully retired. It was a really sweet gesture. :o ) Anyway, I have heard mixed reviews of biomex; some people actually found the non biomex saddles to be more comfortable over time. Personally, the newer models all feel softer than my current saddle so I am not sure it’s worth the extra spend. On the other hand I am not getting any younger…
[QUOTE=Raincityrider;7365859]
On the fence re the Biomex or regular Genesis D so I have not yet placed the order. (That and DH surprised me with an AP saddle for Christmas so now I feel a little…um, excessive. Long story short, he is not horsey and it was his way of telling me to start another youngster once my old guy is fully retired. It was a really sweet gesture. :o ) Anyway, I have heard mixed reviews of biomex; some people actually found the non biomex saddles to be more comfortable over time. Personally, the newer models all feel softer than my current saddle so I am not sure it’s worth the extra spend. On the other hand I am not getting any younger…[/QUOTE]
I should have specified I am replacing my Dressage saddle as opposed to my jumping saddle. - Not as exciting a choice in the h/j forum I know. :winkgrin:
