Any recommendations for Saddle fitting and Chiro in Haverhill. Any experience with Steven Katz? thx
Steve Katz is amazing.
This fall he came to my backyard farm with no barn to do chiro work on my horse, assessed my saddle, then helped me find a new saddle that fit properly. At one point I was sending him pics several times a week. I ended up buying one from Janie at Pelham, who also had very positive things to say about Steve.
I like Steve because he is NOT a rep for any particular brand of saddle, AND because he is an actual chiropractor that went to medical school and did humans before switching to horses. If you read his website you will see that he is a well certified and trained equine chiropractor and saddle fitter.
If he’ll go all the way up to Haverhill he is probably your best bet.
Karen Withstandley from The Refined Equine goes up into that area too. Like the other mentioned above, Karen doesn’t represent a brand so she will help you find the right fit across brands for you and your horse.
Dr Katz is wonderful. Ive known him for 10 yrs and hes the only one who could tell the saddle was bothering the mare when other saddle fitters said there was nothing wrong. Vets listen to what he has to say.
I use Dr. Katz (and have for a few years), highly recommend.
Steve.is.great. used him for my horses andnmyself for over 15 years
Another vote for Dr. Katz.
STEVE KATZ 
I really like Dr Katz too, but had trouble getting him to come to my area - no fault of his own, he is very busy and as you can see, quite well-loved.
I use Jessie Svatek-Springer as my chiropractor and I think the world of her. If you can get her to come to you, she is worth it. She is also my primary vet. She has helped me immensely with one of my TBs that just has had nothing but crappy physical luck the past few years.
As for saddle fitting… there’s a lot of flakes and quacks in this area, so just be careful. Some of them are discussed in the ‘Similar Threads’ page at the bottom of this thread. Anyone can hang out a shingle for saddle-fitting… I have used almost everyone in the area at some point. My preferred fitter Patty Barnett is retired, and these are the only people I would be comfortable recommending:
Steven Katz
Tony Cooper
Gary Severson
Gary Severson is also retired, Patty purchased his equipment and business. Janie at Pelham works on a similar philosophy as Patty and I like her.
Jessie is great.
I use Gary Severson as my saddle fitter. He is semi-retired but I’ve used him for nearly 20 years. I don’t know how many “new” barns he’ll see.
Gary isn’t in the area very often anymore. I also heard of some mixed-bag reviews when he was nearing retirement.
I have heard positive things about Josh Spiegel as well. He trained under Tony Cooper so I would not hesitate to call either of them. Josh does rep for Trilogy but does excellent leather work.
The thread from the dressage forum has a couple names that I would NOT call. I also would avoid CKT if at all possible.
I think sometimes saddle fitters get to a point where they think they can make any saddle fit any horse. I’ve seen this happen a couple times to friends, where the fitter does not give an upfront assessment of the saddle, probably because they’ve found that sometimes people react negatively to “this saddle will never work.” They tell people what they want to hear, that they can make it work, and then try to fit it. Unfortunately, I’ve seen one dressage saddle so overstuffed over time to fit an aging TB that it looked like it had pillows on the bottom, and one saddle reflocked with wool in an attempt to make it fit the horse (saddle was formerly foam), that it has practically no channel. In both cases, a simple, this saddle will never work, would have caused either owner to simply sell and find something that does.
