Schleese tree shape

[tollertwins]

Anybody know how flat or curved their trees are?

I have a custom saddle for my ruler backed horse that he is ecstatic with, but it’s tearing me up. I was interested in their saddles for the whole “crotch comfort” thing and because I need a saddle that is 19” or so long that still has an 18” seat.

I’ve read that some of the issues ppl have may be due to horse/tree incompatibility (my other ruler straight backed horse ended up being a dippy backed horse in a Prestige and flattened back out when I got him into a flat tree, so I kinda get that).

Anyway, was wondering if anybody knew if their trees were better for straight backs or curvy backs.

[blue_heron]

I think straight backed, personally. I have an older Schleese that my horse grew out of. The older ones are very A frame as well, it was too tight in the withers.

[Goforward]

There are so many variations of Schleese saddles that you can’t just make a generalization to say they are all one type. The most important thing is to have a Schleese fitter help you choose a saddle.
If you collect a few of 15 year old saddles from a consignment shop and then make an opinion based on old models that were custom made for someone else’s horses you’ll be very dissatisfied.
And as for the crotch comfort? It’s fabulous! But I can’t stress enough how much you need to be able to sit in some saddles that have been fitted to your horse by a Schleese fitter.

[tollertwins]

There are variations of the saddle, there is a single tree shape, though. That is what I’m asking about. Especially as right now I have to do this via distance.

There was another Schleese thread on here somewhere re: horses w an in appropriate shape for the tree having issues even w saddles fitted by Schleese.

Having said that, the trees Ive seen Jochen use to demonstrate stuff in his videos appear to be flat.

[Scribbler]

My experience watching folks buy Schleese is that the reps over promise on fitting every possible horse. Yes they can widen or narrow the withers a little in the press (which can contribute to long term saddle wear) and tweak the flocking, which you can do to any wool flocked saddle.

But OP is absolutely right that every brand has a characteristic tree shape that will suit some horses better than others.

The saddle I was observing silently seemed to be bridging from the marks on the saddle pad. Normal nice OTTB back. On the Schleese website I once found a rather puzzling explanation of why bridging was perfectly OK.

Putting these two things together suggests to me they run flat!