Hello friends! I am a recent convert to eventing and am looking for a nice, used Dressage saddle for my horse. I believe I want to look most into the Albion brand. They came highly recommended by a saddle fitter I know and my friend also owns one and adores it. Hers is an older model and I quite like the quality of leather. I am casually shopping around and was approached by a girl who has a 2017 Albion SLK in my price range for sale. I was primarily looking at older models/saddles (I truly believe no one makes saddles as good as they used too!), so I am not sure if this might be a good option for me or not. All of the specs meet the needs of my horse. Any thoughts?
Have you sat in it yet? I am very fond of Albions, although I like the older models. Particularly the old SL dressage saddles, as they are not as deep in the seat as the newer SLKs. But that’s personal preference. I also had a wonderful Albion Kontrol jump saddle that was a great fit for my old TB xc machine, who had more of a swoopy back than my current TB.
I adore my Albions and am pretty loyal to the brand when I’m saddle shopping. I’m actually doing my dressage an weird random Albion VSD that a local fitter had as a demo because I preferred it to all the other ‘real’ dressage saddles I was trying at the time. It’s since been reflocked to its third horse.
I’ve had two Albion SLKs and liked them both. They were for two very different horses. They came in both a “High head” and a “low head” version and I had one of each. The trees run a bit narrow – my horse with the low head was pretty much a “medium wide” and he took a wide in the SLK, my wide horse needed an Extra Wide in the SLK.
I found them a well balanced and comfortable saddle. The one I have left is 15 years old now and in really good shape still.
