Hi all! I’m sure this topic has been addressed before but in all my googling I haven’t been able to find a clear answer …
My trainer is sponsored by CWD. The CWD saddles are fine, but I want to try other brands, especially for my new horse. I do not have a current saddle, I just use CWDs provided by the barn, which again, are fine, but I especially hate the rep. She came out for a fitting and is totally uninformative and snide. I’ve looked into other reps in the area and have heard nothing but negatives.
Now the problem … Supposedly there is a contract between the barn and CWD that no other reps are allowed out to fit riders or horses. Not even independent fitters. No one except CWD can bring a saddle to the barn for anyone to try. This seems absurd to me! How am I supposed to find the best fit for my horse? Is this a common practice? Do I take him off properly for fittings? Is there away around this? I’d love to get reps out from Voltaire, Butet, etc. but obviously don’t want to breach my trainers contract.
Keep looking and find a good rep (meaning someone who knows what they’re doing and aren’t tied to selling one brand). Then trailer you and your horse to the closest fitting. I did this yearly with my horses (adjusting fit as they progressed and muscling changed, then again for adjusting fit as my gelding aged and I stepped down his workload).
At all costs, do not be pressured to buy a saddle just because your barn is tied in with a particular company. Put you and your horse first. You will only have regrets and continuing physical problems (for both of you) if you don’t. If you don’t have a good farrier and a saddle that fits you both, your training program will go nowhere.
OP, you have the right to buy the saddle you want, with the fit you want, from whomever you want.
I’d be prepared to go off property.
I’d also politely have a “memo of understanding”-type conversation about the above with your pro. I’m not one for sneaking around and I can respect the pro’s attempt to make money with the CWD rep or to honor that contract, whether she likes it or not. But you can’t be the pawn in that game. And if she thinks you can/ought to be, then maybe this trainer requires too much obedience from her clients.
The bottom line is that HOs should learn enough about saddle fit to actively participate in fitting their own horses. Buying a saddle these days is hard and expensive. If you spend lots of money having fitters our or shipping saddles back and forth, consider that “tuition.” But pay attention and get better at evaluating fit yourself each time.
I say that because saddles prices are going to continue to approach those of a cheap car. And I see the saddle market really splitting into tippy-top and lower-quality materials and design coming off the shelf and found in tack stores. There is a “middle class” of saddles out there, but they are small companies, often repped by independent fitters. Those can be good, but you still need to pay a few grand, order one and trust the fitting process.
Good luck! Don’t cave on this point, as this single mistake will be expensive and a pro that wants owners who don’t ask questions but just write the checks they are told to will cost you more misspent money later. You might as well establish the type of business relationship you want now, or learn that you can’t and go elsewhere.
Trainers who do that are worth what’s stuck to the bottom of my barn boots. Do what’s right for your horse, NOT what’s going to line this persons pocket.
Ugh.
First, I’d check if that is a policy. If it is, you should seriously reconsider the priorities with this trainer. Get an independent fitter to look at your horse, be that on property or off. Who knows, it may end up being a CWD does work for you and your horse, but I wouldn’t let that rep be the one to fit it to your horse.
I’ve had 2 independent fitters out this year, the second one brought a CWD that ended up being a great fit for my horse. I didn’t think CWD was going to be the right one for us, and I honestly mostly considered it ONLY because it was an independent rep who said “Wow! This one actually fits him great.” After we had tried a few other brands on him. My horse is happy, and that is what is most important.
OP, you’d be very well served reading everyone’s replies once, and then twice - especially MVP’s.
There is likely a contract between trainer and CWD. You, however, did not sign that contract – you are in no way shape or form beholden to it.
What is your location? There are many posters here who can point you in the right direction to finding an independent saddle fitter. Not a representative. A certified fitter.
This thread may be worth a read to see what you’d be in for if you went with CWD:
Unless you signed a contract with CWD or it was written into your boarding contract I am unclear about how a partnership between them and your trainer impacts you. I would ask your trainer for clarity and be direct that you are looking at a variety of options.
I’d try to find an independent fitter and do a consultation first by phone. Through sharing photos and or videos of your horse, they may be able to bring in a range of high end saddles to consider.
Yeah but that person shelled out 9K and knew they hadn’t taken tracings etc. just pointing out.
OP- CWD reps indeed have different brands. Ours (who is excellent) always has some used others for people to try.
The issue is with the rep and what the BO claims. Though CWDs work well for me and my horses- I would not be beholden to ANY saddle company (or trainer). The saddle needs to fit you and your horses and no brand fits all.
My take worth what you paid for it: focusing on that detail sells the customer short and totally shifts the blame from the manufacturer/company to the consumer. That isn’t right. The focus should be on the abysmal failure of a company to provide a product that fit. How the consumer failed to identify the representative of said company wasn’t knowledgeable, or doing their job is peripheral – but not at all a reason to lay the blame at the feet of the victim/consumer. Consumers are paying professionals because they(consumer) are not experts; there is a certain implicit trust that the professional will provide the following:
A. the prerequisite knowledge / understanding to perform the job well
B. ability to deliver a product that meets verbal criterion (in this case, a custom saddle that fits the horse/rider it was custom made to)
C. or if none of the above, the ability to refund in full
Could it have fit if the rep took tracings? Possibility, but considering the representative isn’t a qualified fitter or even meaningfully educated in fitting, unlikely.
In my defense, I was/am not a saddle fitter. I didn’t even know what a wither tracing was before my CWD experience. I am an amateur. Do you think that I should know how to measure and fit my own horse? Should I have taken a course on saddle fitting? That’s why I called for a custom saddle in the first place. NOW I know a great deal more about saddle fitting, but ONLY after shelling out that $9K - this is not an issue of me being foolish, Pennywell_Bay. This is an issue of blatant false advertising on the part of CWD and the Rep who sold it to me. As stated in my post, my hope is to save people like you from making a similar mistake - but it sounds like you’re far too savvy to be taken in. Just be sure that CWD fits because if it doesn’t you will never be able to get anyone from CWD to help you fix it AND it’s a very difficult brand to have other saddle fitters adjust and/or flock.
My CWD rep had a truckload of used French saddles of various brands and I tried them all on two separate visits, there was no charge for the rep’s visit. I would go off site if necessary, and would not allow a trainer or barn management to force me into buying a brand I did not want especially if the rep is rude to you. Why line her pockets, you’re spending a ton of money on a saddle, you should be treated respectfully.
Agreed! I don’t have an independent saddle fitter in my area. I wound up calling a used tack shop, spoke w a very knowledgeable person who looked at photos of my horse, and shipped used saddles for me to try. I took pictures of those saddles and sent them to her to evaluate. Together, we were able to come up w a panel configuration that worked for both my pony and me. The shipping was more of an inconvenience than anything else, but it got the job done. I, too, tried CWD and found the rep to be uneducated re: saddle fit but a really glib, skilled sales person.
Well…do you want to be right about the heinosity of the slick CWD salesperson, or do you want to be happier and have $9K in your pocket?
I am an amateur. But I have been saddling horses since the Prix des Nations era. I have owned mutton-withered young WBs while everyone rode in Butets and very few companies made wide tree close contact saddles. I have owned a pear-shaped sausage who is a living, breathing, engineering problem. I have found acceptable solutions to fitting these kinds of horses. I have never created back problem that required substantial time off, chiropractic intervention or more.
But! I pay a lot of attention to how saddles seem to fit AND to how my horse’s back feels to palpate before and after a ride and the next morning. If I have made any of the muscles thin and taut (let alone sore), I have some Plans B and C for fixing that before I saddle up in that one again.
This really isn’t rocket science for most horses, most of the time. And that’s why companies can hire flash-in-the-pan fitters to rep their products. I love it that there are saddle fitting experts out there. But I have yet to meet one who really and actually wants to take 100% responsibility for my happiness with their customization and the purchase they guide me to make. I absolutely want to hand that responsibility to them, but I know in my heart-of-hearts that I am also creating the potential for a fight in the end that I don’t want to have.
And fitters have done things like:
Big company with British-made wool flocked saddles; they train their own fitters. They will guarantee fit for horse not rider. How do I know they’ll get a custom-drawn flap for me right? “You have to trust your fitter.” No effing way I’m betting on someone else who has no skin in the game. Also, I never got clear about what that guarantee means and what recourse an unhappy buyer has.
Smaller, well-regarded British company: They’ll build anything I want if I start dictating measurements (again, this is for a flap, not the horse-fitting stuff that you need a pro-fitter for), but once they make it, it’s mine no matter what. This is also a company without the most spectacular quality control.
Me: “What happens if the one you make for this whack-o-back doesn’t fit?”
The company owner and fitter: “I’ll make you another one.”
Me: “Ok, but there’s a limit to that, right? I mean making a second saddle for an unusual horse is bad enough. No one wants to do that twice.”
Him: “I won’t leave you unhappy.”
(That dude also has a string of unhappy people in various states, though he lives local to me and I could light his house on fire without too much travel time… so I was hoping it would be different and he’d be around to service his product.)
Me: “Great! Can I see the part of the contract that explains how this works?”
Him: Crickets. I literally never saw him again, nor a contract at all before he concluded that first visit. How TF do you not whip out the piece of paper when someone asks to see your agreement?
French guy… in France: “Yes, I know that sample my rep put on your horse doesn’t fit, but looking at the pictures of that horse saddled, Yes, I can make you one to fit.”
And not for nothing, but I have yet to see the French make one of their banana-shaped trees that really can fit a wide horse well. So with that experience in mind, I will entertain someone repping a french saddle who thinks they can fit my sausage, but I will be extra-skeptical. None of this is the rep’s fault, but then, again, they aren’t betting any of their money on this unlikely proposition; it’s all my money bet on their confidence.
I don’t think that I-- the idiot consumer-- should have to be the adult in the room who has to reel in a fitter’s unrealistic expectations about how easy it will be to get a saddle right. But it’s my money and my awful fight in the making, so I guess I do have to do that.
If you didn’t so much as know what a wither tracing was before you went saddle shopping and you had to start at $9K, I think you had a part in this horrible story. Why not “pay some dues,” learn to a bit about fitting and try some cheaper saddles on your horse first before spending maximal money on something you know that you know nothing about? You act as though because you chose the path of being uneducated, they owed you more help.
FWIW - Saddle fitting can be extremely complex. I had a “reputable” fitter with all the UK certifications measure my horses back and the bespoke saddle that came did NOT fit - she begged to differ. Never-the-less, I sued and won my money back. I went with a different fitter, and the new saddle (also bespoke) is fantastic, and I couldn’t be happier with it or the fit.
OP, ask your trainer about this. Be prepared to ruffle some feathers if you have to haul out, but if the trainer can’t get over it, I’d be prepared to find a new barn.
I just want to say that everybody reading this thread should listen to what @mvp has to say about getting to be a good amateur saddle fitter. It’s work. But it’s work that we as owners owe to our horses.
(Though I see you over there talking about French trees and wide backs… how wide we talkin’? I might have a wide banana for you…)
There’s one point I want to add here, and it’s inspired by seeing so many people use the word “fitting” in the same sentence as “reps.” It’s really important for people to understand that the French brands like CWD, Devoucoux, Antares, etc. are not actually in the business of selling people a truly custom saddle. They do not have fitters, they have sales reps who are trained in which stock components to Frankenstein together to suit a particular equine and human conformation. They are not going to come out and “fit” your horse. They are going to come out and advise on the panel configuration that would suit, and depending on what that configuration is, you might be able to ride in a stock saddle that is shimmed to mimic that fit. Or you might not.
If you have a pretty good sense of functional anatomy, you passed geometry class, and you know your horse, and you can ask questions like “why is this the right panel configuration” and “hm, I’m not sure about why that would work, tell me more about why you suggest that” this can work for you. I’m not knocking the model, I ride in a Devoucoux and my mom has a CWD. However, it’s important that you know what you’re getting and what level of “custom-fit-to-your-animal” is included in the product. If you need a fitter, be prepared to haul off property to a person with some brand-agnostic certifications who will take measurements.
And OP, the contract, if it exists, is between the trainer and CWD… while it may not apply to you, you may find it hard to work around depending on the relationship between the CWD brand rep, other area brand reps, and your trainer. I think this is bananagrams, personally. But prepare to haul out.
