Adjustable saddles

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Follysmum

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Any recommendations for adjustable saddles to use on multiple horses ?

Already have their own western saddles , wanting a decent English for occasional use.
 
English saddles are fitted to the horse. Unless all your horses are the same shape then they might need different shaped trees. An adjustable saddle only adjusts width wise. You might find a treeless saddle like a solutions or a Heather Moffatt which you could use but those you need to know how to balance. Avoid cheap treeless saddles.
 
If you opt for a treeless saddle and a good understanding of the shims etc to go beneath then it may be possible. But that isn't an English saddle for the purposes of English style equitation.

Because English saddles are so much more closely fitted than western saddles you really need something fitted to each individual horse. The amount of adjustment available individually is really small; and if you don't have a saddle fitted to the horse the you are going to make them sore. If you have a lot of horses it is possible to have a range of saddles in different back lengths / flap configuration that with clever use of sheepskin or gel you could make it fit. But you need quite a few saddles to make this work -and a good understanding of saddle fit. And to be honest if you are going to pay that much for loads of different size saddles plus pads etc unless you have dozens of horses it would be cheaper to fit individually anyway!
 
The other problem is that most adjustable saddles have gullets that need changing. It's a fiddley job and not something that you would want to do every day.
 
I believe all saddles should be fitted to the horse and to the rider. A Solution Smart is absolutely made for equitation - they are used in the highest levels of competition and can easily be fitted to more than one horse, it isn't at all complicated.

I believe there are other brands which are made to do this too,or that have components you can swap around but I don't have experience of them so I can't comment.
 
cobgoblin said:
The other problem is that most adjustable saddles have gullets that need changing. It's a fiddley job and not something that you would want to do every day.
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That was my other query , how hard to change gullets. I think the best way forward to make sure they have the best fit is to get individual saddles . Thankyou all for your feedback and suggestions
 
You should not be changing gullets regularly, the mechanisms are only going to stand up to so much abuse. Agree with getting individual fits, though you may find that you can use one saddle on more than one horse with requisite padding. These arrangements, just like basic saddle fit, need checking regularly, ideally every 3 months, but no less than every 6 months. Ideal if you can keep an eye on them, and bear in mind flocking will mould to one horse if not used with a thicker type of pad eg a thick sheepskin.
 
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