I tried a good 10-12 saddles when I started getting serious about dressage, but couldn’t find anything that fit my horse and I at the same time. Had an independent saddle fitter out one day to check out a few possibilities, and while we found one that was decent, he pulled out an old Bates Isabel in buffalo leather that he had in his truck. It was the most amazing thing I have ever sat in!!! Ended up buying it on the spot and he converted the CAIR panels to wool for about $300 (about the price of the saddle if memory serves me correct). I’ve gotten oodles of compliments on it, including an FEI level trainer who knows Isabel! But at the end of the day, my horse loves it, and that’s what makes me love the saddle!
I rode in a Wintec with CAIR for several years. When I was learning how to flock saddles I used my own Wintec to learn how to convert CAIR to wool. What I observed was that for me the wool was a “softer” ride. I have since converted many CAIR to wool. Every one (including my own) had at least one CAIR panel (there are four) either under inflated or more often completely deflated.
CAIR work$ for some quite well, but every client that I’ve converted their saddle from CAIR to wool has said they preferred the wool.
I converted my CAIR to wool flocking, because it started sitting a bit low (slooooooooooow leak somewhere). No issues with the conversion at all, and it’s been more than a year.
Back to you, Beowulf - isn’t the fact that saddles in general (not just Cair) will or will not work for a rider or a horse, let alone both. Some will fit, suit and ride well, others not so much? Saddle buying is the most stressful thing…my young rider on my horse has just gone through that. She is excited, but the day might come when she finds an even better more marvellous saddle, in which case she can sell and move up.
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No offense but I think you are missing the point - we can assume one of the reasons WHY the saddle works for OP’s horse is because it’s CAIR paneled… What if it doesn’t work? OP now has a saddle with very little value that she can’t resell easily – people are usually attracted to Wintec/Bates for the CAIR and if the CAIR is gone, well, it’d be a hard resell.
No one was telling the OP to drop $4k into a new saddle. But, it’d be within the realm of reason to wonder if the OP’s horse would do well in wool since she said “this is really the only saddle that has worked for him” earlier.
I’d be skeptic, and would be in the try-it-before-you buy it camp - as in, try a wool saddle before you spend money taking the CAIR out of the only saddle that you’ve found works for him.
I can’t drop 3k on a saddle either, but IME, having had first hand experience with Wintec/Bates, the CAIR either makes or breaks the horse and it’s usually the latter. While I don’t love Bates (which is Wintec) the idea is a good one, just poorly executed.[/QUOTE]
The reason that the saddle works for my horse is not the CAIR panels, it is the tree shape, which from my understanding is why any saddle should work for a horse. Tree shape first, what is in the panels second. As I stated in my original post my other saddle is wool flocked and could use some TLC. So I know that wool flocking works for my horse. I have owned multiple Wintec saddles and Collegiate saddles and liked all of them. This is my first Bates. The new style Wintecs do not work for my horse, they actually bridge, but the older style ones seem to be much more curvy that the new ones are.
The main reason that I want to reflock is that I don’t trust CAIR. There was one years ago that the owner of a horse I was leasing let me use, and it took several months for any of us to figure out that the reason I always felt slightly crooked on the horse was due to one of the panels being less inflated than the other. By then the horse had some muscle damage and had to take time off to recover. I have been very suspicious of the technology since, especially in an older saddle that has seen a lot of love.
