Question About Orthoflex Saddles

[Wellspotted]

Does anyone have any experience with Orthoflex saddles?

I’ve just started riding a friend’s horse (gaited horse, low-level trail riding). My friend has 2 Orthoflex saddles and they are so unlike any saddles I have ridden in before that I feel really ignorant! I’ve ridden a little dressage, hunt seat, and western, and these saddles sit much higher on the horse than I’m used to.

What I’d specifically like to know is, how do you compensate for the saddle’s slipping? Girth is tight but saddle slips a little when mounting, and keeps sliding to one side (a few inches) when we’re riding (level ground, walk or slow gaiting, nothing rough). It makes me feel REALLY insecure but he says I just need to get used to these saddles and learn to compensate for their movement.

Any suggestions? I really like the horse (and my friend!) but I feel really insecure about this saddle slippage.

[pandorasboxx]

I had an Orthoflex Feather (english style) and never experienced the slipping. Does your friend use the “booties” which cover the panels instead of a regular saddle pad? I used both the booties and sometimes a combination of an Equipedic (wool felt bottom) with a Dixie Midnight (very thin, wicks sweat and prevents slippage). No problems with slippage.

E2A: I believe there is more movement with the OF’s but not really what I would call slippage beyond any slight amount that I’ve experienced in non-paneled saddles.

[Wellspotted]

Thanks, pandorasboxx.

This particular saddle is one of their trail or endurance models, I think–it isn’t English. He may have a bootie for it but the pad he put on when I rode was a really thick fleecy-woolly square one, with no girth loops or anything.

I’ve never had an English saddle slip like this one did, only my own western saddle, with a different thick pad, on this same horse.

I will ask if he has a bootie, or see if I can order one for when I ride. (Sorry, I’m sitting here laughing at the thought of asking him if he has a bootie!) :eek: :lol:

[katarine]

I can’t fathom that it fits. I don’t think it does.

I tried an OF Patriot, I think, a friend loaned me. It fit her nice, shapely TWH really well. It did NOT fit my narrow TWH for a second.

If you want to risk your neck with one slipping that much, a grippy pad and a breastcollar are your friends.

[CanterQueen]

I had a OF cutback model a few years back. Hated it. It sat me up waaay too high and forget about feeling anything the horse is doing (or going to do). I sold mine on eBay.

There was another thread on this forum about OF saddles. You might try searching for it, but I think the general thought was/is they just sit you up too far off the horse.

[Wellspotted]

Have any of you ever been told that if your saddle slips to the left when you’re mounting or dismounting, that you should lean over to the horse’s right side and pull/press down on the right side of the saddle (the flap) to compensate for the slipping to the left?

[CanterQueen]

@Wellspotted;3659809

Have any of you ever been told that if your saddle slips to the left when you’re mounting or dismounting, that you should lean over to the horse’s right side and pull/press down on the right side of the saddle (the flap) to compensate for the slipping to the left?

No. But if I mount from the ground, sometimes I do stand in the right stirrup a bit hard to get it centered – but we aren’t talking about a lot of slippage here, just minor adjusting. If your saddle is moving around a lot, I’d be worried.

[jeano]

not even an expert on this but a riding buddy has an OrthoFlex Patriot. I rode in it once and didnt especially like how it felt, but I think most of that was due to a hard, slick seat. (she has since dressed it up with a wool seatsaver.) What I have noticed is that it seemed to fit both my narrow as a toothpick TWH and the Wiiiiide load racking mare. So perhaps, just perhaps, a saddle that makes horses happier than humans. I have noticed buddy trends toward some extra padding under the booties, and that she tightens her (english) girth often. And uses a breastcollar. Her current mount is a HUGE MFT that’s built like a masonry sanitary facility.

[tabula_rashah]

I have two Ortho-Flexes: a Patriot and a plain-jane dressage model. I LOFF them both and will never own anything but an Ortho-Flex if I can help it:)

I don’t have any problem with slippage in any direction on mine if they are properly girthed and padded. Depending on what I am doing, ie ring work, flat trails, mountain-y trails, super long ride, I do pad differently. For ring work, and flat short trails- I usually will just put a regular pad on. For really hilly stuff or long rides, I usually use the booties over a skito pad.

[Guilherme]

If a saddle slips (Orthoflex or otherwise) it’s either improperly girthed or improperly rigged or it doesn’t fit. Adding “sticky stuff” to “stabilize” an ill fitting, ill rigged, or ill girthed saddle is not a terribly good idea. :no:

I didn’t the Orthoflex saddles I tried on two counts. First, they put you way off the horse’s back. This alters seat and leg, reducing the effectiveness of both. Second, there was a definable “loosness” in the saddle that further reduced the effectiveness of seat cues. A related effect was a consequence of Newton’s Laws. When you turned (particularly a hard turn) the saddle kept going in the original direction for a brief moment 'till all the slack was out of the flexible pannels; then the saddle turned to follow the horse. That might be OK in a trail saddle, but in a working or performance saddle it’s really UNSAT.

Since few gaited horses (or their riders) are classically trained the lack of seat and leg effectivness might be a lesser issue. The fit problem, however, is not.

I’d fit an Orthoflex the way I’d fit any other saddle.

I am really skeptical about the effectiveness of the “flexible concept.” There are U.S. patents for “flexible tree’d saddles” that date back well into the 19th Century. The Army tried a version at least once and abandoned it. Orthoflex is out of business. Those facts are pretty convincing to me.

Good luck working with your project.

G.

[tabula_rashah]

[QUOTE=katarine;3659625]

I tried an OF Patriot, I think, a friend loaned me. It fit her nice, shapely TWH really well. It did NOT fit my narrow TWH for a second.

QUOTE]

Really? You don’t think my saddle fit Chip? I thought you liked riding wayyyy back there:lol:

[Wellspotted]

That info about the flex features of the saddle are really interesting! Thanks for posting about them. It sounds exactly like what this saddle was doing when I rode in it. Plus I could get no feel for the horse at all, and I can’t get my leg on him at all. Maybe this is why he’s not halting well off my seat, either?!

The trainer bought the saddle for trail riding but these days we are doing more ring work, and it’s either this saddle or an all-purpose one with a broken tree! :eek: So naturally I’m riding in this trail saddle.

Next time I’ll try to use a different pad and ask about the bootie.

BTW, Orthoflex isn’t out of business (or else they’ve changed hands). Their Web site is up and active, and I’ve received replies to questions … the site is being worked on, so maybe someone new has taken over.

[katarine]

yeah, you like the rumble seat look eh???

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockandracehorses/2509928445/

[Wellspotted]

[QUOTE=katarine;3661477]
yeah, you like the rumble seat look eh???

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockandracehorses/2509928445/[/QUOTE]

:eek: :lol: :eek:

Anybody see Black Beauty? On that first ride, did that saddle look too far back?

[amdfarm]

My friends each have an Orthoflex and I LOVE them and have showed in one of them several times. From what I understand is you mount w/ the cinch not completely tight and once you’re settled in, you tighten it. I’ve not had one budge yet. My friends also trail ride and do ranch work in theirs, rope cattle, reining and the like. They’re used on quarters of all ages and types and the Percherons.

[system]

Slip, they don’t slip.

It is odd you say it slipes, it must not fit the horse. I have an OF cut back and you can put it on the horse and stand in the stirrup w/out it being cinched and it does not move. OF’s first vidoe on the saddles showed this as an example, and I did try it and it worked. I have put this saddle on many a horse and not once has an OF ever slipped. Very odd.

[Eclectic_Horseman]

First of all, the Ortho-flex company went through THREE variations of its patented panels BEFORE the company changed hands. So there are lots of variations of the different saddles all out there under the Orthoflex name.

I have an Ortho-flex Exmoor Elite saddle which I think was 2nd generation panels, and the saddle was designed as an English all purpose saddle by a British saddle maker. When I bought the saddle, it was made to the measurements of the horse that I was buying it for and my own measurements. It has worked to various degrees with every horse that I have used it on since, although I have needed a crupper with young horses, and I have used the neoprene shims that came with the saddle to customize the fit on different horses.

I would say that if the saddle is slipping to one side then the panels are incorrectly angled for the horse that you are using it on. Either that or you aren’t girthing it correctly. When I bought my saddle, I was told that it had to be used with a solid girth (no elastic!) because the panels flex. If you are using a girth that has elastic that is probably your problem. With all the “give” in the panels when they warm up, and an elasticized girth, there is nothing to hold the saddle in place.

[Malda]

How long ago did they make the Feather? A friend has one and I’d love to buy it. It has the balance of a good dressage saddle with the flex panels that don’t put you up high off the horse. I wish they still made them. I’ve ridden in a current model, Endurance Cutback, and it was awful. Poor balance and really high off the horse.

You’re the first person besides my friend who’s familiar with the Feather. No one else has even heard of them.

Erin

[QUOTE=pandorasboxx;3659342]
I had an Orthoflex Feather (english style) and never experienced the slipping. Does your friend use the “booties” which cover the panels instead of a regular saddle pad? I used both the booties and sometimes a combination of an Equipedic (wool felt bottom) with a Dixie Midnight (very thin, wicks sweat and prevents slippage). No problems with slippage.

E2A: I believe there is more movement with the OF’s but not really what I would call slippage beyond any slight amount that I’ve experienced in non-paneled saddles.[/QUOTE]

[pandorasboxx]

I was told the Feather was made around 94/95 but can’t be for sure. I spoke to the original maker of the Orthoflex, Len Brown, by phone, in order to get information on it. They are not easy to find so if you find one, treasure it.

I was very lucky as I found one for sale online that had been in the tack storage of a dressage barn for years with very little use and looked practically new. I used it for endurance for a couple of years and loved it. Fantastic saddle but as my back issues grew worse, the seat became too hard to ride for any distance, even with a seat saver. I had to sell it three years ago in order to afford the new saddle.

I know someone who has one that is extremely worn and yet somehow she manages to keep repairing it, not wanting to give it up.

[Ozalynda]

I am eyeing one for sale online. A patriot with a “panel system 3”. Anyone know what a panel system 3 is and if that is good or bad?

Cheers, Lisa