Yes! Please do, lol
Thanks for this perspective on Butet converting the entire panel. It actually hadn’t occurred to me that they would do that versus retrofitting wool into the foam panel. I double checked with the Butet rep, and you are correct–they would be replacing the whole panel, leather included. That makes me feel better, because I do believe that trying to stuff wool into a panel designed for foam is the reason many people have recommended against conversion. I am going to take a Butet on trial and assess both how I like riding in it as well as the tree fit for my horse, and go from there.
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This is correct - if they’re replacing the whole panel with one that is designed for wool, it’s a different story re: conversion. Less-than-honest fitters/reps will tell you than you can just replace the foam inside a panel with wool and that’s where the majority of issues with conversion arise. It’s hard to do an irl comparison since so many people have foam-paneled saddles these days but if you look at a panel designed for and stuffed with wool vs. foam there’s a noticeable difference in thickness/volume to account for the amount of compression expected relative to the support required for the saddle.
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This! The foam panels are thinner than wool panels and the conversion is often unsuccessful. The issue I have with the French saddles is that they pretty much have one tree configuration and customize the fit through the panels. It’s much better to start with a tree that fits your horse.
That would be the only way I’d do it and my guess is that repaneling the saddle would be $$.
The other question to consider is where your horse is in his maturity/muscling. Most horses, when they are mature and in the same job, stay relatively the same shape. IF the foam saddle does fit your horse, the panels have enough give in them to adjust to minor changes. My only experience was with a Stackhouse saddle where my horse changed enough that it was more cost effective to sell it than to mess around with new panels and hope that it fit.
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If the foam panelled saddle is a good fit for your horse, it will absolutely not fit converted to wool. The manufacturer could take a “typically foam” brand and build it with wool panels but the measurements and the tree size would be different from square one to accommodate the much much thicker wool panels.
Put a wool and a foam saddle side by side and see how much thicker a wool panel is and has to be.
Part of the appeal of foam may be much thinner panels putting the rider closer to the horse. Though they often then add a thinline pad or sheepskin which lifts the saddle back up.
My saddle fitter tried to convert my butet from foam To wool but said the leather was too thin to tolerate it. I’m not sure what that means.
But as far as not being the cool kid. All of my horses go in County saddles, and I show all A circuit and will being showing at Harrisburg in my County in the A/os. The ability to customize w wool is not achievable w foam panels. My horses’ back health has never been better.
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It’s possible to customize in foam and that’s what the original manufacturer does. It’s just not really possible to tweak after purchase without sending it back to the factory. And an independent saddle fitter can’t do anything with it. And you can’t alter the panels if you buy second hand.
I appreciate your detailed responses. I do understand that the tree is the foundation of saddle fit, and the panels are secondary to tree size and shape. The part that I’m finding really overwhelming though, is how to know which brands have a tree that is a good fit for my horse. And when shopping for used saddles, what to look for to know if the tree is a good match for my horse, and how to figure out much about the tree inside a given saddle besides the dot to dot width. I’m going to have an independent saddle fitter come examine my horse in person, so hopefully that will help provide some guidance.
This is a good point. So you’re saying if you are going to add thicker panels, then the tree would have to be wider to fit the same horse, that makes sense. I honestly have no idea if the Butet I’m taking on trial will fit my horse or not (as is, or with conversion). I just know that the saddle fitter I have talked to told me my horse needs a medium wide to wide tree, and the Butet rep told me that this saddle is a medium wide to wide tree. At this point I just want to see if I like riding in a Butet, and get an idea of the fit for him and go from there. I do plan to keep working with an independent fitter throughout the process so hopefully that will help.
Thanks for sharing your experience and good luck at Harrisburg! It sounds like you’re one of the cool kids to me 
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My independent fitter gives me tracings of my horses back cut out of light card. She takes measurements at the withers and then all the way back to where the cantle would be at two inch intervals. She uses a bendy drafting curve and paper with grid lines and is super precise. Then she takes a back to front measurement of the longitudinal curve of the back on each side. Stacking these up gives you a great idea of how the back flares and also any asymmetry.
With these, I can go into a consignment store or visit someone selling on FB, turn the saddle upside down and pop the cutout cards against the panels and have a pretty good idea if it will fit. I am.now able to bring home saddles on trial or even buy them and my fitter gives her ok. She can fix very slight bridging.
I’m also able to use a 6 point shim or make things out of scholls insoles or whatever to fit problem horses.
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But it’s those tweaks that really make it custom. Your horse has a small divot due to muscle imbalance. You can tweak that so you can work towards developing that divot. And for people Who bring along young horses or even improve made ones they buy (raising my hand), you can change the flocking as the horses’ backs change. Not exactly efficient w foam saddles unless you don’t mind not having a saddle for 6 weeks or more at a time.
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Ah. I was using “customize” to name what the manufacturer does. The panels are sent to you customized to your horse.
My independent saddle fitter doesn’t customize my second hand saddles. She alters them, adjusts them, etc.
So it’s certainly fair to say a foal saddle cannot be adjusted unless you send it back to the factory.
But it is customized when you buy it, and if done well it can be a very good fit.
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Most of the French saddles have only one tree. All of the “fitting” is done with panels. From the Advanced Saddle Fit website: It’s important to note that the load-bearing structure of the saddle is the tree rather than the cushion it sits on. Even a superb panel cannot compensate adequately for a serious mismatch between tree and horse. Contrary to popular belief and practice, if the tree is not a good match for a horse in its entire shape, you cannot “refit” the saddle successfully by altering the wool flocking in the panels, or replacing foam panels with wool panels, or even by forcing the points wider or narrower.
I think having an independent fitter come to evaluate your horse is a terrific idea as it’s confusing, to say the least, and brand reps often sell the fact that their saddles can be adjusted to fit most horses.
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If you have tracings you can pop them into different saddles and find out which ones are a good basic match. I know Passier and County can be a good match for my mare but apparently not most of the French foam saddles. Once you have the tracings you can pop them into all your friends saddles and see how they might fit.
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FWIW, some original wool Butets I’ve seen have not had especially bulky panels compared to their foam counterparts. I mean, the knee rolls at least used to be flocked as well (which I learned after a friend’s got so flat and she told me what Butet said it would cost to fix them), and those were modestly cushy before they completely deflated. There can be a lot of variation in panel design and construction and attachment, including with wool.
Check out Prestige. Love them! I have 2 different models. Tried some French saddles out,
when my first 2 Prestige saddles started getting old. But the Prestige ones fit my horses and me way better, so ordered 2 more. My Meredith actually fits all my different sized and shaped horses, with slightly different pads underneath. But, my Michel Robert fits my huge shouldered horse better. And Prestige has lots of other models. Wonderful saddles! They cost less than French saddles. Very durable too. Plus, they can be widened or made less wide, if Horsey’s back changes or you buy a different horse. I had a couple French saddles in the past. Good saddles, but I definitely prefer the non-foam Prestige.
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I have been riding in British brand saddles since the 90s when they pried my old Crosby PDN from my hands. I have never had anyone give a second glance or care what I was riding in. Never. For my gelding I have a Black Country Quantum for my hunter saddle and a Black Country Eden for my dressage saddle. I bought an Albion K2 as a hunter saddle for my mare. On paper it fits her great but she’s kind of meh about it and I’m kind of meh about it too. Nothing to do with the flocking. The Quantum just felt like home immediately for my and the gelding and the K2 just seems fine. She doesn’t do dressage. Or so she thinks. She’s about to learn otherwise.
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I am all about the wool-flocked Portos Elite Stubbens for my big warmblood hunters- I have 4 of them. They widen a bit with use if your horse needs it to, The accommodate their large sloping shoulders like nothing else I have tried. All french saddles are built on the same tree and they just don’t fit the big shoulders properly, IMO.
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That was similar to the feedback I got from the mobile high end consignment shop. She deals almost exclusively in French foam saddles because that’s what is being bought and sold for h/j these days. I brought in my back tracings when she had her van at a big local show and we popped them into all her saddles. She didn’t say that all the brands used the same tree, but she did say my mares (wonderful) shoulders wouldn’t fit in anything like that, unless maybe there was one foam model of Equipe from Argentina that she could custom order. I tend to totally believe her because I’m sure if she could have found a saddle and potentially made a sale, charged for a barn call, etc why wouldn’t she? I was open to trying foam though my independent fitter loathes them, but apparently it’s not to be.
I also have noticed that the “grippy” leather top surface on those saddles wears through and can’t be replaced.
I’m willing to believe that the foam saddles if they fit the horse and rider can give competitive advantages at the levels that matters. But I feel that in that regard they are like high tech performance sneakers that have a very short life. I feel like people may chuck their running shoes after one marathon? Certainly years ago when I did fitness classes multiple times a week, sneakers died within a year. Unlike leather boots that can be polished and resoled.
Without getting into the materials science of it all, the foam used for saddle panels is extremely different from the foam used in running super shoes and is built to retain its resilience and resist degradation for many years. Saddles that are used 10 hours a day on multiple different horses have different demands placed on the foam and will break down sooner, but for those of us who ride 5-6 days a week on one horse, we’ll probably need new billets before we need new panels. When I’m looking at used saddles, I generally start budgeting for new panels when I’m looking at something around 10 years old, regardless of whether it’s made of foam or wool. They both compress and get lumpy over time.
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