Saddle Fitters in MA - Metrowest Area

[Posting_Trot]

Last year I had a great experience with Smith-Worthington saddlery (based in Hartford CT). They have detailed instructions about how to do a wither tracing on their website, and they will make recommendations about what saddles to try that are likely to fit. (They are exclusively representing their own saddles, though; but they do have several different models).

They’ll send trial saddles or, since you’re pretty close, you could actually go and pick them up, which is what I did. Before you take the saddle on trial, they’ll check to see if it will fit according to your tracings. You can then ride in the trial saddles for a couple of weeks, and if you like one, they’ll fine tune the fitting.

It was a really good experience.

http://www.smithworthington.com/index.php?p=catalog&parent=1&pg=1

[yankeeclipper]

“I am so tired of being taken advantage of by shams who happily take my money and don’t seem to care that their assessments of the saddle’s fit can cause bodily harm to my horse.”

I assumed you weren’t referring to a fancy pillow cover when you used the word “sham” in your update.

Sham: falsely present something as the truth
Deceive: mislead, misrepresent

[yankeeclipper]

“I am so tired of being taken advantage of by shams who happily take my money and don’t seem to care that their assessments of the saddle’s fit can cause bodily harm to my horse.”

I assumed you weren’t referring to a fancy pillow cover when you used the word “sham” in your update.

Sham: Mislead, falsely present something as the truth.
Deceive: Mislead, misrepresent
Per the Merriam-Webster - Words related to sham: deceptive

Based on my experience, your assessment is not completely accurate.

[halt]

@yankeeclipper

I assumed you weren’t referring to a fancy pillow cover when you used the word “sham” in your update.

Sham: Mislead, falsely present something as the truth.
Deceive: Mislead, misrepresent
Per the Merriam-Webster - Words related to sham: deceptive

Based on my experience, your assessment is not completely accurate.

I did not directly call DW one. You are inferring something from later in the post and applying it to something I said up post. Actually, I didn’t say anything about DW specifically other than she fit it, and then wasn’t available later.

I’m glad she works for you. She didn’t work for me because she approved a saddle in person that was several tree sizes too wide.

I don’t find that to be a “minor oversight”. Considering I’ve received several PMs sharing a similar experience, I guess I’m not alone.

[yankeeclipper]

@halt

I did not directly call DW one. You are inferring something from later in the post and applying it to something I said up post. Actually, I didn’t say anything about DW specifically other than she fit it, and then wasn’t available later.

I’m glad she works for you. She didn’t work for me because she approved a saddle in person that was several tree sizes too wide.

I don’t find that to be a “minor oversight”. Considering I’ve received several PMs sharing a similar experience, I guess I’m not alone.

Food for thought: This would be a non-issue if you left names out.

[hfa86]

Of all places, I thought that New England would have a great wealth of knowledgeable saddle fitters. I have had the same issue as the OP. You might be a bit too south but Sara Kilguss has been wonderful and has really helped correct my saddle after poor fittings and flockings.

[walktrot]

@hfa86

Of all places, I thought that New England would have a great wealth of knowledgeable saddle fitters. I have had the same issue as the OP. You might be a bit too south but Sara Kilguss has been wonderful and has really helped correct my saddle after poor fittings and flockings.

Actually, New England is not that big a horse market, or for services like vets and tack shops until you hit Massachusetts. It’s not easy to get fitters to come to Maine if you can’t line up a pretty solid day or two of barns. I’ve gotten pretty good at tracings and actually got a compliment from Gary.

Not so long ago there were more cows in Vermont than people. The population of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont isn’t that large. There two good tack shops about an hour from me, one of which is Adams. Dover in NH is about 1 and 1/2 hours, Pelham Saddlery another 15 minutes. We do periodic road trips, but it is easier to order on line.

[halt]

@yankeeclipper

Food for thought: This would be a non-issue if you left names out.

Food for thought - this entire thread revolves around names of saddle fitters. Someone suggested her, I reported my experience. That is what this board is for. You are free to carry on and use COTH for whatever you want, but the premise of this thread was to suggest names of people who were good saddle fitters.

It is fine you have a different experience, but that does not for one minute negate mine.

[hfa86]

@walktrot

Actually, New England is not that big a horse market, or for services like vets and tack shops until you hit Massachusetts. It’s not easy to get fitters to come to Maine if you can’t line up a pretty solid day or two of barns. I’ve gotten pretty good at tracings and actually got a compliment from Gary.

Not so long ago there were more cows in Vermont than people. The population of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont isn’t that large. There two good tack shops about an hour from me, one of which is Adams. Dover in NH is about 1 and 1/2 hours, Pelham Saddlery another 15 minutes. We do periodic road trips, but it is easier to order on line.

That is very true, though Maine is a bit different then VT/NH and of course MA. I have lived in the Midwest, South, NY, and now in NH. Many of these places had less horse options than up here especially in terms of dressage. It was just surprising that despite a large number of saddle fitters, I was very disappointed with the ones I originally used and the issues it created, especially as I have a young horse that is fairly easy to fit.

[halt]

@hfa86

That is very true, though Maine is a bit different then VT/NH and of course MA. I have lived in the Midwest, South, NY, and now in NH. Many of these places had less horse options than up here especially in terms of dressage. It was just surprising that despite a large number of saddle fitters, I was very disappointed with the ones I originally used and the issues it created, especially as I have a young horse that is fairly easy to fit.

Sorry you are going through this as well.

I think the NE area has a good amount of saddle fitters but most of them are saddle reps – I’ve learned the hard way the knowledge between the two is not interchangeable. I know lots of young women in this area that have gone the saddle representative route and frankly, they don’t have the knowledge for professional fit.

There has been a lot of issues in this area particularly with the Devocoux and Stubben reps, who push custom saddles on clients, swear they fit, clients believe them, and the horse suffers for it down the road.

There’s some really good fitters here, but their books are so full it’s hard to get into them unless you’re at a big barn or can trailer to one. Everyone I know has been happy with Steve Katz and Gary Severson but they are so busy.

I do for sure miss the quality of fitters I had down south. There were several master saddlers who also fit, especially in the SC area.

[walktrot]

halt, your comments on fitters and reps are interesting because I didn’t realize there were so many reps up here, versus independent fitters. Albion went that route years ago and Pelham Saddlery used to be one of their dealers. It sounds like that has happened with many brands. From my point of view that makes Pelham and similar shops much more valuable because they have qualified fitters who are able to fit both the horse and the rider. They can pull from a large inventory, new and used, without favoring any particular brand. I learned a lot on my initial visit to Pelham almost 20 years ago (!) and sat in a lot of saddles. The horse wasn’t really a problem, it was me. Just about everything I tried and appeared that it might fit ranged from wasn’t quite right, to uncomfortable, to outright pain, which is what Stubbens did to me. That’s why I am such a fan of Albion because it has the AHHH factor, which is probably due to the wide twist. Wide twist doesn’t work for most people, I guess. Thanks goodness for COTH, though, because otherwise I would have no idea where to look for an independent fitter.

[hfa86]

@halt

Sorry you are going through this as well.

I think the NE area has a good amount of saddle fitters but most of them are saddle reps – I’ve learned the hard way the knowledge between the two is not interchangeable. I know lots of young women in this area that have gone the saddle representative route and frankly, they don’t have the knowledge for professional fit.

There has been a lot of issues in this area particularly with the Devocoux and Stubben reps, who push custom saddles on clients, swear they fit, clients believe them, and the horse suffers for it down the road.

There’s some really good fitters here, but their books are so full it’s hard to get into them unless you’re at a big barn or can trailer to one. Everyone I know has been happy with Steve Katz and Gary Severson but they are so busy.

I do for sure miss the quality of fitters I had down south. There were several master saddlers who also fit, especially in the SC area.

This is exactly the issue! It took me so long to find a good saddler fitter vs. a rep for similiar reasons. My current saddle fitter will come when we have a few barns in the same town all schedule her (which is really a super small area) as dressage is so limited in these parts. My trainer comes from VT as well, maybe I just chose the wrong state, but from my work perspective it is great.

[scruffy_the_cat]

FWIW, Steve Katz is now a rep for Duett. And Pelham are reps for Baines and Adam Ellis. There is a clear preference to sell you those saddles over the consignment stock.

[yankeeclipper]

@halt

Food for thought - this entire thread revolves around names of saddle fitters. Someone suggested her, I reported my experience. That is what this board is for. You are free to carry on and use COTH for whatever you want, but the premise of this thread was to suggest names of people who were good saddle fitters.

It is fine you have a different experience, but that does not for one minute negate mine.

I never said nor inferred your experience was negated, because I had a positive one. However, there is a huge difference between receiving recommendations and “reporting” ones bad experience on a national forum.

We will have to agree to disagree on the naming names protocol. Have a wonderful horse day. I’m off to ride. It’s warm and sunny and all around a perfect horse day.

[ldrew]

Another vote for The Refined Equine, had a good experience with them. Worked long distance with Patty Barnett who fixed my custom Black Country and did a strip + reflock of a Black Country dressage saddle (that I very sadly had to part with before being able to ride in it because my horse decided to develop crazy complications from surgery). Would steer away from Collin KD.

[ivy62]

I also have had good experiences with Refined Equine. The best thing I ever did was have tracings made of my old horse and I went to Rolex one year to go shopping. If the tracing did not fit I didn’t even sit in it. I eventually got a saddle no one had ever heard of, L’Apogee. Kitty thought it was a good fit and I liked it a lot. She took my tracings and found the one that fit the best. My horse was very happy and it actually fit 2 other horses!
My horse now it does not and this is the guy that doesn’t like padding either. The saddle was flocked for my Mattes pad and he absolutely hated it. Regular saddle pad and a good fit he likes. My chiro said his back has been good for several years with our saddles and the way they have been flocked.
Another thing is Trumbull Mtn does a nice job long distance with tracings also.