I know this is an older post but thought I’d share my two cents regarding the english saddles. I think Schleese saddles, like all saddle brands, are subjective to everyone, which sucks to say.
The saddles themselves were nice, I had an obrigado for my lease horse. He did love it, it wasn’t the perfect saddle for us, but it fit better than his old one. Before I ended my lease, it wasn’t fitting as well, but it became a moot point when I retired him. My mare hated it. Like not just the one I had, but we borrowed a few friends and they were terrible.
First note, they are heavy saddles. I picked up my old stubben and my friends obrigado once and held them in each arm and her saddle out weighed mine by a long short. The other big thing that Schleese always recommends is buying through them. Which is fine, for quality purposes and the trees, its alright, but if you are trying to shop second hand, you have to know your measurements and often they will not tell you them anymore to keep you buying through them.
In the two years I owned my saddle, we had probably 5? fittings, and I had someone different for most of them. I dislike that Schleese refuses to hire fitters that are local to areas and plans trips for fitters to travel on instead. It makes it difficult if you have a fitting problem a week post-fitting, and oh too bad, you have to wait 4 months for the next trip. I had that problem once; thankfully, they hadn’t left the state yet, but I had to truck my lease horse to them to fix the problem.
Include their “used” price for the saddle I got and the cost it was for them to be out twice a year with all the adjustments and such, I could have bought a second saddle. I disliked the fitter that came to check the fit for my mare, barely looked at my horse moving, barely watched me sitting in the saddle, and insisted it wasn’t too long (spoiler it was). I still think they work great for some horses, but i don’t trust the whole “the entire thing is adjustable!” when in reality it’s not. At one point I knew 5 other people with Schleese saddles in my immediate equine friend group, all but one have sold their saddles due to saddle fit issues, or just general customer service failures. I agree with @Enkizu, please do your research, and don’t trust anyone that says they can fit everything.
