I have two children, ages 3 1/2 and 5 1/2. They don’t ride often, but I’d like to have a saddle for them when they do. That said, I don’t want to spend a fortune, but I don’t want an ancient saddle or one that needs a ton of repairs. Where is the best place to look for items like this? Word of mouth? I’ve been looking online (ebay, tack stores, Facebook) for the last few weeks and haven’t come up with much. I am familiar with the inky dinky saddles and I haven’t ruled them out, but from what I’ve found so far, they’re difficult to find used and the inky dinky Facebook page is absolutely scammer central. Thanks in advance for any help!
those inky dinks hold their value. I’d buy one of those new.
my kiddo is in a prestige pony
Do you have a local horse related Facebook group? This is the type of thing I feel like is most easily found by asking if anyone has something to fill the need in a local group. Then the person who has that item safely stored with their other stuff, but was not working to sell it, can offer it up.
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I found a little kid saddle (both english and western actually) on eBay back in the day. You say “not an ancient saddle” but honestly at this age of rider I’d recommend something well designed and less expensive, and I don’t see why older would be a problem. My daughter did well in that little Stubben Rex until she was ready to ride seriously. Most of those pony saddles by any known maker will be fine and will hold their value besides.
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My friend bought an intrepid saddle that was 14”. It’s nice quality for the price point, and was fun for her daughter to start to ride in a saddle that is more “real” saddle vs the inky dink saddle. Her daughter has outgrown it and she’s been casually trying to sell it but we live in a funny area and she prefers not to ship it, which I get. I see they retail for about 1200USD new and might be a viable option.
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The age isn’t really the issue, it’s that all of the ancient ones I’ve seen lately that I would have otherwise purchased whose panels were an absolute wreck. One had pancake flat panels that were probably rock hard and the other had big holes in the panels. I know saddle repairs are expensive, so spending a few hundred dollars on a saddle then a few hundred more on repairs isn’t something I want to do right now. That’s really my only hesitation with something ancient, is just not being in suitable condition to put on a horse’s back.
We’re in Kansas, so kind of middle of nowhere in a lot of regards. We have some local groups, but moslty with western tack.
fully understand as I live in Forth Worth
When we were looking for an English Pleasure horse back in the 1980s we went back to Kentucky were we had both worked for saddlebred trainers to find our kids an English Pleasure horse.
Looked at about four hundred head some were in large herds so that did get the body count up. We were looking for an aged fully trained ready to go horse.
We ran across a very nice long yearling who just kept looking at me. She was very pretty. After we left that farm we went back to buy that yearling.
Her bloodlines were all champion English Pleasure horses, so felt good about the purchase. Left her at that farm to be put into training. Training was to include exposure to the Kentucky county fair circuit which once a horse survives that nothing will be a shock to it, She was exposed to everything becoming a rock solid kid’s western pleasure horse that attracted endless attention from admirers.
We were kind of shocked to find our “English Pleasure Horse” wearing western tack. Trainer said the horse just was a natural western pleasure horse.
Actually he was correct, horse won multiple western championships, was nationally rank within her breed and even was a champion competitive trail horse. We kept her for all of her life.
Later we did get her a hunt saddle which we had to get in Kentucky
