My coach has a horse with a similar-looking shape. Try an Intrepid. It was one of the only saddles she could find that actually fit.
I know this store in Ontario carries them, and they also sell used saddles so you might be able to find something to try: https://www.bahrsaddlery.com/
I can ride in pretty much anything from 17"+. I am 5ā10", 125 lbs. My budget is anything, although i would rather not spend a tonne if he is just going to out grow the next saddle as he muscles up. The Black Country was quoted as $4400.00, so I guess not more than that.
I canāt imagine selling a saddle that fits him is going to be easy of buying one is this hard, so prefer either a cheaper saddle for now, or one I can feel confident can be redone to fit as he fills out. I assume his back muscles on either side of his spine will fill in once he is able to be in real work.
I will look into the half panels, thanks!
@mvp is there another term I can google for āhalf panelsā? I can only find that term used for dressage saddles.
Keep looking. I might try Amerigo since they have a model for high withers. Or some brands that have a more cut back pommel and/or set back tree points. Like Antares Evolution or something along that idea. You will probably need to have it paneled to prevent bridging and to provide lift in the back to maintain the balance. Shoulder panel pretty minimal but the trick will be still ensuring you have enough lift and/or pommel to gullet shape for those withers. A more cut back style pommel will help you since heās got so much withers height kind of over the scapula versus deep into his back.
I have a horse built similarly and a Black Country Quantum was the baby bearās porridge for us.
If this were a lease horse, I could understand your thinking about not wanting to buy a saddle you canāt sell. But if you own him and plan to enjoy him at all, then youād be better off adjusting your attitude towards saddle shopping. You deserve a saddle that fits you and he deserves a saddle that allows him to move freely and be his best. The cost of the saddle should be part of the cost of the horse. Period.
I had a very hard to fit horse also. I bought French saddles that were $$$ up front, and impossible to sell. However, a quick trip to the shop to have the panels replaced by pro panels meant I could sell them.
Black Country has saddles with panels designed for high withers. They should be able to fit him.
My high-withered horse is retired now, and I just bought a new horse, but in my new horse budget was 5K for a new saddle for him. Iām just waiting for him to lose weight and can start shopping in November.
Bristol_Bay, I am not sure what in my post is a problem for you, but please move on. I am trying to do my best for this horse, but I am not getting much help from the professionals in my area, so looking for outside advice so I can feel more confident in my ultimate decision. I canāt just throw money at the issue and hope something works, I need some sort of confidence that what I am spending my money on is likely to be worthwhile. This will be his third saddle.
First of all, I agree you should keep shopping rather than settle for a saddle that you already know is not a good choice.
Secondly, the saddle in the picture is quite a bit too far forward. Probably when it slid back it ended up in the correct place, even if it looked wrong to you. You wonāt be happy with anything until you accept that the saddle needs to be further back than you want it to be.
Nothing was a problem, and believe me, Iāve been there with a hard to fit horse. I didnāt mean to sound critical. I only meant that having a saddle that fits and a saddle you can easily sell may be two different saddles.
You hear people say āThat saddle fit everything I put it on,ā but itās a myth. My compromise was to get a French saddle (Voltaire has a great panel for high withers) with a lot of foam added to the middle and back of the saddle for balance. It would have been impossible to sell, but had the advantage that I could replace the panels with something more generic. That might be an option for you if you think youāll need to sell the saddle down the road.
I wanted a wool flocked County saddle but never found one that fit my horse. I hope the new horse will be easier to fit. My saddle doesnāt fit him even with pro panels, and there is only one saddle in the entire barn wide enough for him. Itās not a good fit for me, but itās temporary.
I really hope you find something. Your horse is lovely and youāre getting some really good suggestions. Good luck!
You may need to go custom or at the very least semi custom. I bit the bullet after shipping half a dozen saddles back and forth or selling them on Ebay. I went with a Loxley dealer as their custom saddles were under 3k new and luckily ended up with their off the rack brand for 1500 and some flocking adjustment.
Iām going to suggest trying a Stubben also. Your horse has a dip from front to back and higher at the withers, maybe a more banana shaped tree would work. If you know someone that has one if you could just try it on your horse to see how a more curved shaped tree fit would help. Look at some of the saddle fitting videos Stubben offers, they have different trees for different fits (that goes for other brands of saddles too), you might pick up some knowledge on what may or may not work. You owe it to yourself to try a few more saddles to see what fits you well also. Cute horse, I like him!
Itās been my experience that you have to do a few trials to get an idea on what may or may not work for you (i.e. spend a lot of shipping saddles back and forth 
).
Okay. So now that youāve posted pictures I understand your problem.
Yeah, been there. How old is this critter and what does he do? Is he destined for the type of exercise that would help bring that topline up even further and develop more breadth across his back, or do you get the sense that this is who he is?
Iāve also seen Black Country do this job well, and I agree with the person who said that Amerigo might be able to help you as well- check out their site as they describe the type of horse each saddle is suited for and they share pictures of that topline. I havenāt seen this one in person for a long time but the CC line might be the right idea if you can get enough panel- or, if heās developing, enough shim- to lift that sucker up off his back. The Vesuvio model can also do a good job with a longer wither and a big shoulder, but I donāt know if the rest of the geometry is going to be suitable and if it would remain suitable once youāve built an undercarriage to address everything else.
But your question is really whom do you trust and how do you know what youāre getting. Youāve done the right legwork by asking for othersā experiences and ratings, etc. and discovered that mileage is highly variable. At this point if you donāt have a third rep it sounds like your rapport is better with the second one. Ask her about how she knows what sheās doing is going to fit, what she plans to do to make it right if it doesnāt work, and how it can be adjusted to suit him as he develops (and un-stuffed to suit the next horse it sits on if you sell it- plan to have it reflocked to sell, if you go there. Itās gonna be what itās gonna be.) And buy it on a credit card so you can charge it back if itās a nightmare.
Ultimately, I think with the level of custom flocking that your horse likely needs, you will not be able to sit in Exactly What You Are Buying before you buy it. Iād suggest talking with the fitter about finding the right fit for you as a human in a demo model, and shimming that thing to approach what youād flock for so that you at least get to sit in an approximation of what you would buy.
FWIW I just could not get comfortable in the Black Country my independent fitter recommended. Ended up in a Tad Coffin. Saddle shopping is a PITA but Iād keep looking.
It is interesting to me that people think he has a curved back. Maybe this is why fitters are struggling when they actually come see him. His withers/shoulder is big, but his back is FLAT. HORIZONTAL, when in work, such as in the grazing photo. French trees are too curvy for him, and not really wide enough.
I have contacted Shleese, and local store with lots of used tack and see what they can offer. If they canāt help with something for less than the custom BC, then I will go with the Black Country. It is the Ricochet she recommended. I am slightly concerned she may have measured him in the wrong place - unfortunately she was late arriving and I had to do afternoon feed while she was measuring him.
Is it normal to have some sort of contract to ensure satisfaction? Saddle Fitter #1 and #3 do offer a āyou donāt have to buy it until you like itā deal, but fitter #2 just said āit has never been an issueā.
he is 7. I bought him two years ago as unstarted . He was a medium tree and fit a Frank Baines Elan for about 6 weeks. Then moved to the 4-star padded to fix being too curved, but as he worked and grew up, his shoulders really popped. I would like to do jumpers with him, and he is started (lightly) over fences. He is a lovely, naturally balanced horse who is cursed with both a deformed head and odd buildā¦I mean, he is close to 17 hands, but can share a bit with my Shetland pony. he would likely do well in dressage if I could find a dressage legal bit to fit his tiny mouth, but that is for another thread!
I would use an adjustable Kent and Masters or thorowgood high withers model. Other than high withers the back looks relatively flat. Then it could grow and shim as needed while he grew wider. You can adjust those saddles to fit a variety of horses.
The horse is flat across the middle of the ribs, but thereās quite a long distance down from the withers and then the back does go rising towards the croup.
In your saddled photos, you may have the saddle sitting too far forward perhaps but in any event, the rear of the saddle is angled downward while the topline rises out from the back of the saddle.
I am not saying he needs a banana tree, but I could see some very straight trees (in the rails) bridging and creating pressure points in the lower back. The location of any shape in the tree is as important as how much shape. For example, my horse has larger withers, high and wide shoulder, but heās not super wide at the tree points. His back does have a wide, shelf like quality to it over the bulk of the rib cage, and then heās got more slope upward to the SI/croup. He can get very sore in the lumbar and needs a bit of an upswept panel behind, but if the tree is too curved towards the front of the saddle, it will dig in at the lower trapezius from behind the tree points through the stirrup bar areas to the center of seat, along the rails, as his back is pretty flat along the bulk of where the rider weight goes.
I donāt know if a CC or DJ Amerigo would work, but the videos are helpful to understand these different structures and how the saddle should sit. In the saddled photo, the weight of the rider doesnāt appear that it would be positioned flat on the flat portion of this horseās back.
Oopsā¦ duplicate.
Also adding that my horse gets sore in Amerigo jump saddles despite the DJ appearing to be the right fit, so Iām not saying that brand would for sure work for you, but they have distributors and reps who could locate demos, and occasionally there are used ones available to demo from used sellers as well. In any event, there are multiple measurements that need to conform. I think some BCs could well be too flat.
I find it odd that people argue with me about the fact his (weight bearing portion) back is flat. It is literally flat when he is in work. Flat/level. I get that it is hard to imagine based on his tied photo (where he is inverted), and his grazing photo (where he is low in front), but this is the issue I am having with fitters too - they donāt seem to trust my assessment of my own horse, so bring out things that have no hope of fitting his topline (which they see when the get here), and I get to pay for the waste of time. When in work, he tightens his core, and his back comes up and level. He engages naturally. A saddle would have to be massive for it to reach to the point where his back slopes up.
Maybe the confusion is because people look at the shape of spine not the shape of the muscle where the saddle panels actually sit?
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