So after a visit with the saddle fitter, sadly my tree is twisted.
I have a saddle on trial that fits my horse well, but, I’m not in love. I love my saddle, it was well loved before I got it and I don’t really want to part with it.
Has anyone had a tree changed in their saddle before? I was quoted $500 plus the cost of the tree.
To me it’s worth it as saddle shopping sucks, lol. And feel so wasteful tossing an otherwise good condition saddle.
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Depending on what your saddle is, if it’s something that is/was popular enough, I would probably first see if I could find another identical version to buy used. Now that could end up costing more or less than doing the repair, so in some cases it may not be worth it financially.
To replace the tree they’re going to have to pretty much disassemble the entire saddle, so it may not even feel exactly the same once it’s put back together.
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Thanks, that’s what I’m afraid of. It’s an Exselle and they were not too popular and not made anymore that I can find. Only used one in my area is too narrow and too small a seat.
I had the tree replaced in my Trilogy a couple of years ago. It worked very well, beautiful job, had the billets replaced while we were at it. Cost me $1k.
I have had the tree replaced in two saddles. It was ~$1000 for each (one through an independent saddle repair person who replaced a tree in an old County Sensation and the other through CWD) and absolutely worth the cost for both of my saddles. The County was probably not worth as much as the repair, but a lovely saddle, and one that I still love. The other was an easy decision given the value of the saddle with a new tree and the non-value of the saddle without the new tree.
If you love the saddle then I think replacing the tree is well worth it pretty much regardless of any other factors.
My only words of warning are that you may not get back “the same” saddle you send out. Meaning, my N tree County had been well loved (and flipped in once - probably the source of the broken tree) and ridden in for 10+ years post-flip. When it came back from being repaired I was shocked at how narrow it suddenly was (again, I guess, lol). It did break in/settle in to a place in the middle. But it was definitely narrower in it’s “like new” state vs it’s “extraordinarily well-loved” state!
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