I am always seeing saddle fit discussion for Tall Narrow withers, but right now I am wondering, in regards to my own horse of course, if wide withers can accompany a tall wither. I am also becoming confused at defining these characteristics. Clearly if a I see a high with a high wither, I can identify one but still leaves me wondering:
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Where do you draw the line between a high wither or not? Or how would you a determine a horse to have a high wither? (Ex. Does having the wither pocket = high withers?)
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What do you consider Wide? A 5" tree? 6"? Measured actual tree width or dot to dot.
I am kind of ready for a different saddle, and while I would love to spend the big bucks and get nice, professionally fit saddle, the horse in question is one I am not 100% sure I should allow myself to get spendy on and if I can get by with a sub $2K (or quite a bit less 
nicely used saddle, I should probably go that route.
I don’t really have access to an independent saddle fitter in my area. County rep probably makes trips to our area, but there’s the scary price tag. My current saddle is a toulouse with a genesis tree. There’s one tack store in my area that does saddle fitting and this is what they were able to set me up with. This was a little less than two years ago. The horse has had some time off, is 5YO now, and I think has grown a bit in all directions. I use a bendy thing to get my horses wither profile and I use that to set the gullet width on the saddle. It actually seems like a really decent fit and I feel like that panel is making full contact. Horse has been a complete stick in the mud under saddle. Obviously training can factor in here, but when I ask for trot and horse keeps saying no, she will often reach around and bite the girth, bite the saddle pad, her own shoulder. etc. Yesterday I stopped riding and switched saddles. A friend has a Trilogy dressage saddle, wide tree, about 6" so saddled up with that and a nice half pad. I’m not going to say it was night/day difference but I was able to ride about 3 circles of trot almost right away, vs 15 min before, I was struggling to get 3 strides of trot.
So I don’t like this toulouse saddle all that much to begin with and I was never a huge believer in this genesis tree, but before I bash it too much, I have to admit that it has been handy in quite a few instances. BUT - the only thing you change on this saddle in regards to fit is the gullet, and that’s just kind of weird also. You have a hinge in the top of the gullet and all you are doing is widening the points of the tree. I feel like I also need the top of the gullet to be widened for this horse, an upside down U vs this upside down V. I guess that is my question of the wide wither. like even without muscle, I think my horse might have a wide wither bone. Is that a thing? This other saddle I put on yesterday, the tree shape is much more parallel to the withers and I think this more comfortable for my horse.
I have been browsing Black Country saddles pretty hard but I’m still to chicken to buy something off of my own opinion. Some of their saddles seem to have a wider gullet at the top. I feel like it is difficult to find a close contact saddle that has this more parallel tree shape vs the v shape. Am I making sense or am I making stuff up and making this overly complicated?
