I had one with a flat back and the fitter liked him in an SEO1 because of the flatter tree. In general, flat seat = flat tree.
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Personally - I’ve sat in all the CWD models (friend was a rep for a time) and none come close to the balance/ feel I get with my Palm Beach. With the PB, everything is just right where it needs to be and I feel perfectly balanced (as in sitting big bucks + crow hopping + other tomfoolery with ease/ barely noticing the rodeo is happening). Every CWD had my leg in front of me, no matter the flap/ seat/ fit to the horse.
As far as matching the Mademoiselle tree, I’m not sure. AFAIK it’s just a composite tree (mine prefers the composite but goes fine in a regular tree) so any saddle with a composite tree might work, provided the tree shape works.
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Same!! My Palm Beach was life changing for me, and I’m not exaggerating. I just don’t know how to recreate that with a design that won’t cripple my horse. I used to sort of roll my eyes at all the “hard to fit” horses out there that everyone seems to have. Now I have one, and my Palm Beach is debilitating for him, at best.
Granted I tried another friend’s CWD at the barn and my leg was good, but trainer doesn’t like something about the seat and we can’t quite put a finger on it.
This is exhausting and I want more wine….
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The SE number is the model. The SE02 is the classic tree in semi-deep seat. The SE01 is classic tree in flatter seat. These are not Mademoiselle trees.
The RT+ on your trainer’s saddle is for shoulder room. The RG on the other one is more room next to the withers. The panel on the SE02 may work because that tree is a little bit narrower than the Madam. If you had that much cut out (including the 710 panel) on a Madam, you might not get the clearance you need. If you need more height clearance, also keep an eye out for a 205 panel. That is extra foam everywhere. Then you would also need some of the shoulder relief codes to accommodate the shoulder and fit in the front panel, but you would have more withers room. One of my horses with taller, sensitive withers went in something like this for a while with my older slightly stretched out 2Gs tree…I think it was 705 205 RT+
If the horse has prominent withers but wide shoulders, one of the regular 2Gs trees might also work. All of the trees are on the flatter side compared to some other French brands. He now goes in an Equipe Allegra and it has been a game changing saddle for him for withers and shoulder comfort.
I have a Butet w a dropped panel and a cut out shoulder. I got it from Double Oak Tack on Texas. I could never find a CWD that worked for me or my horse. I had never heard of a “dropped panel” before. It fits the shoulder differently. Might be worth a phone call….
Following because I absolutely loved my Palm Beach but it didn’t fit my mare. Mare is now retired and I still have the CWD that fit her best. I like it, but literally nothing compares to my PB. Does anyone have info on the new CWD that’s supposed to be closer contact feeling? I have a coming 3 year old that I’ll be looking for a saddle for in the next few years.
Have you tried the CWD Hunter 2gs Madamoiselle? I wasn’t a fan of the 2GS saddles overall and was much more of an Se02/Classic fan, but I definitely loved the feel of the Hunter 2gs Madam.
Sadly, mine doesn’t fit my horse. I’m tempted to keep it rather than firesale it for half of what I paid for it, but I know that it’s not going to get much use and that is an expensive item to collect dust.
I’m not sure. It would help if they made things easier to understand. I don’t know the difference between a 2GS madam versus not. I know the Hunter madams are more conservative and subdued, but is there any difference in the structure? I know 2GS is a model but it doesn’t mean anything to me 
can you tell decoding this stuff is getting frustrating?
I did ride in a Hunter madam back when they first came out, but I couldn’t afford it and ended up with a standard madam with the wrong flap size. Which turned me off of them all together.
Of the handful of CWDs, including a madam, that I tried this week, the best I’ve gotten along with is a SE03 close contact. Still don’t dig the seat, but the leg position is perfect.
I may have preemptively brought up the madam since it’s my trainers saddle, but I do think I have the panel and possibly the tree figured out. Now I need to find one of these bastards that I get along with 
The codes can be confusing, but it also appears that saddles of the same model with the same panel configuration, but different year fit horses differently. The trees apparently are modified throughout the years but it’s not listed in the codes, so you need to know the year.
Perhaps if you decide to continue CWD route you can get a CWD rep out? They have the list of the reps on their website.
I ended up buying a used CWD through the rep. You get 14 day trial and free shipping both ways. You can definitely find a better deal on Facebook or used saddles website , but shipping back saddles that don’t fit adds up. The price I paid was also lower than listed price on the CWD website. They also had the option of free panel modifications for demo saddles and you could still return them.
The differences at a high level tend to boil down to seat depth, seat and twist width, and the tree type (carbon vs wood) and model. The flaps on the carbon models (except for the hunter) will tend to fit more forward than on the classics. And yes the trees have changed a little bit over the years.
And with the carbon saddles, apparently if has been modified, that opens up the tree some. So my older 2Gs tree saddle that has had panels modified a few times isn’t going to fit at all like a new 2Gs, but another saddle of similar vintage won’t be super far off (mine is likely to just fit a little wider).
This should keep the panels in relatively the same shape, right? Just deeper? Because I thought that’s what would happen with my PB, but it ended up making pinch/pressure points even worse. It’s like the bad fit was magnified with the added panel depth.
Yes I can get help from a rep. But I’m a firm believer in understanding how this all works. Plus, what complicates things is I have one horse at home, the problem horse 1200 miles away in training, and need to find a way to fit both, with minimal/no more time at the training barn with the training horse to merry up schedules with a fitter. It’s super complicated….
I did take back tracings before I left to return home, so at least I can send those, along with tracings of my horse at home, to saddle fitters and reps and say “find a saddle that will fit this” with XYZ for me.
Yes it makes more vertical room in the gullet. It adds foam to the entire panel. Because the codes you have don’t have anything unique along the middle to back part of the panel, it could be a good option to get more clearance with an overall fit and balance that the horse likes. It wouldn’t help a shape that’s bad from the start.
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