Spinoff Saddle Thread

[Rackonteur]

I was just reading a thread about saddle fit and I Googled monoflap saddles.
One site says they’re “new.”
To me they look kinda like old saddles I saw occasionally as a kid back in the '60s.
Like this one (it’s a cutback, saddle-seat saddle but I’ve seen other saddles with the same structure).
Is this another case of “everything old is new again”? Because back when I first started riding what was then called “forward seat” (hunt seat) the full bottom flaps weren’t universal IME.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/999019718/vintage-leather-saddle-old-english

[anon40672407]

I think what’s “new” about the current monoflap saddles is that they have long billets and short girths. I’m not sure how anybody counts that little 3rd flap that isn’t full sized, so I don’t know what to say about your picture – it seems to have one big flap covering short billets, with a small billet/buckle guard under that that isn’t a FULL flap, but is something…

Monoflaps don’t have that, because the girth billets are either incorporated into the flap, or over the flap, and as long as dressage billets (the point being, to get the buckles out from underneath the leg.

[Rackonteur]

Thank you. That makes sense.
As does getting the buckles out from under the leg. The saddles i knew with the small [half?] panels had long girths and short billets.

Now I’m wondering what happened to the special dressage leathers i learned about maybe 20 or so years ago that had the buckles down just above the stirrups and out from under the saddle skirts.

[Rackonteur]

“Everything old is new again” –

Ear bonnet, ca 1910-35

King George V riding a horse Stock Photo - Alamy

[SLW]

Ah, nothing says “you are old” quite like your childhood stuff being offered for sale as “vintage”.

[Kimstar]

Monoflap saddles aren’t new: there were at least two models that I can think of 50 years ago. A jumping model was the Stubben Diana and I think Kieffer made a dressage monoflap of some sort around the same time, if not earlier.