Hi there! Yes, I have received my SPH and have ridden quite a bit in it… I actually really, really love it. I use it primarily on a very green broke mare who doesn’t have a good grasp of leg cues, but responds much faster when I use this pad. Further, this same mare is very particular about her tack. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or whatever, but she has started pitching a fit when I use my Diamond Wool on her. It was her primary pad before I bought the SPH, she never had an issue previously… but she vastly prefers the SPH.
I really like how nicely it conformed to her shape (high withers and a weak topline) right out of the bag and it didn’t need any time to break in. It feels very similar to the 5 Star pads I was debating before I found these and it’s got a good weight to it. My mother actually picked up the pad for me from the post office and she’s not a horse person by any stretch of the imagination. The first thing she said to me was, “Wow, this feels nice. It feels like it’s very good quality.”
It gives my horse a very nice sweat pattern and it doesn’t rub. It also doesn’t slide around… where you put it is where it stays. The wither cut out is great for her high withers, but it also works quite well for my mutton withered Quarter Horse. Due to the fact my Quarter Horse is a lot thicker than my Standardbred, I actually bought a second, thinner SPH to use with her. That should tell you a lot about how much I like this pad… I bought a second one. Hah.
I’m a trail rider, so I can’t tell you anything about showing or doing hard work in it, but I definitely enjoy it on the trails. Given the fact it’s wool, it can pick up burrs and stuff if you’re going through tall grass. It seems to have a little bit of shock absorbing tendencies too, but don’t quote me on that - about the same time I started using this pad, I also put a sheepskin seat cover on my saddle. It could be a combination of the two, but I no longer get so rattled around on long trail rides when my horse decides she would like to launch into her bone-jarring race-pace. haha.
The customer support is quite nice too and they seem to stand by their product. There have been a couple people on the Facebook group who have purchased the wrong size of pad. Without question, each person was asked to send a message to the company to arrange an exchange of their pad for the proper one.
To sum it up, I’m a big fan and my horses seem to be as well… especially the very fussy Standardbred who will tell you exactly how unhappy she is with any minor thing. You should have seen her reaction when her cinch was ONE HOLE too loose. I thought she was going to launch me. As soon as I fixed her problem, she was calm and acting like nothing had ever been amiss.
