Bareback saddle pads anyone ?

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jgmbng

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OK......so I have just bought a little coblet who is being delivered tomorrow :) He is ride and drive but I will just be using him for riding and eventually some lessons. He is 4 but bodily rather immature and needs some building up so I have been looking into buying a CHRIST LAMMFELLE saddle pad to use for a while for the odd little hack.
Any opinions good or bad on this ?
Anyone use any of the others on the market ?
Thanks in advance :-)
 
The Christ Lammfelle pad is my favourite ever horsey purchase :) It is incredibly comfortable, the horse seems to love it, and it goes in the washing machine and come out looking like new :D I think I've had it for 3 or 4 years now? At the moment it's being borrowed by my friend for her big cob who (like my horse) is having saddle fit issues.

I don't use it with stirrups - it does have rings but I would be concerned about pressure points. I used it for hacking and schooling for about 8 months after the saddle that had been fitted to my horse caused problems. After the 8 months, the physio who had visited after the saddle issues returned and was impressed with the improvement in the horse's topline and movement, and there were no signs of muscle issues around my seatbone area at all, she said his back was lovely :) We hack three or four times a week - back then usually for about 50 mins to an hour and a half.

However I've recently seen a Mattes Fellsattel being advertised - very similar in design to the Christ pad, but intended to be used with stirrups. I just need to save up the many £s now :D I NEED one. I really do!
 
I recently saw one in action (also without stirrups) and it did look very comfy. Other options for you are either a Thorn pad (has better weight distribution than the CL ) or a Ghost saddle.
 
Anyone got links for the above mentioned pads?
I have one my OH lent me and it's one of the best, lightest and comfiest thing I have ever ridden in. Unfortunately he has no idea where he got it and it has no tag so I don't know the make. I eventually would like to get another as we both want horses in the future and they are fab things to have either as an everyday use item or as a backup.
 
I love my Christ lamfelle pad. I hunt in it, jump in it, school in it, compete in it.....everything. My coblet loves it too.
 
Apache Warlord said:
Could be worth checking out the treeless saddles like the barefoot?
Click to expand...

If thinking about the treeless route, be aware that it isn't as simple as just plonking a "treeless" saddle on and hoping for the best!

I've not ridden in a "bareback pad" apart from one very uncomfortable experience in the Cashel bareback/pad. By god was it uncomfortable, I've never felt so insecure on a horse in my life and I certainly wouldn't want to repeat the experience.

If you're new to bareback pads and/or treeless saddles, do bear in mind that they are very very different in feel to your bog-standard treed saddle; you have to develop a lot more core stability to keep you in the right position - and boy, will you ache after the first few sessions riding in it!! So be prepared for this, and don't worry if the first ride feels very strange and totally awful. After the first session in a treeless saddle, I vowed there and then that I would NEVER do it again; but I persevered, simply because that was the ONLY saddle that actually fitted mine at the time, and I soon got used to it.

Barefoot is a good make, but my experience of them is that they're either too small (or big) for the rider, and vice versa for the horse, and different types of Barefoot saddle e.g. Cheyenne, Cherokee, Lexington, all seem to have their own ramdom sizing! So I've basically given up on Barefoots, which is a huge shame as they are lovely saddles and are designed to protect the horse's back.

I've tried the Heather Moffett FlexEE, but apparently you have to do a lot of shimming to achieve anything like a good fit, and I just couldn't be @rsed with it TBH!! The Phoenix and Vogue are well-known saddles which HM produces and do come up on E-bay occasionally, but fetch a good price.

Beware of anything on-line which comes from India! There have been some truly awful horror stories, based on fact, regrettably.

If going the treeless route, do your research and ideally you need to have one on trial to see if it suits you. Bear in mind that treeless saddles need as much care and attention to fitting as any treed saddle - and have more, not less, potential to harm the horse's back if things like the stirrup bar inserts haven't got enough protection over them (which in a treed saddle, the weight of the rider which is concentrated on the stirrup bar, is diffused throughout the tree, not so in a treeless saddle, it can come down to one point and cause a lot of damage).

I've got an Exmoor Tree-Free saddle, and will unashamedly recommend a trial of theirs. They are not the cheapest, but you can have the saddle on trial for a week for about fifty quid, and there is no obligation to buy - and the people will come and fit it for you and help you get the best fit for both you and the horse. These saddles fetch good prices on e-bay as well, important if you are ever in the position of wanting to sell it on at any point.

Oh....... and if you are going treeless, you will need to think about the saddle pad which goes underneath as this is the thing, rather than the tree, which will support the saddle & rider, and also protect the horse's back. So don't economise on this. Most reputable brands like Barefoot, Tree-Free etc have their own saddlepads which go specifically with their make of saddles, so bear this in mind too.

Good luck!
 
I ride all my Exmoors in Zoe Snape Shetland Showing pads - custom made with longer flaps to suit the Exie body. Love them and all back issues we have had in the past due to badly fitting saddles have been eliminated - for the past 2 years we have had glowing reports from vet/equine Physio since switching from the saddles to the pads :)
 
Thank you for talking the time to reply. I don't think I will be going down the treeless route at the moment but is something I will look at when coblet is 'grown up'.
Christmas Sparkles....your pony is stunning !
Can I ask what size pad you use ?
 
The one in the ebay link is like the one I have only I have rings to attach stirrups to on mine.
I only used stirrups a couple of times when I rode my boy in it because I was worried about the pressure in that one line being too much (not that he seemed anyway unhappy either way but he was pretty stoical by nature so I wanted to err on the cautious side) riding stirrupless was something I hadn't done since I was a young teenager so I was a bit wobbly at first so had to take it pretty slow ha ha! :D My core strength and balance improved dramatically in a short time and I even started achieving stirrupless rising trot! It was a boost to my confidence and a wee throwback to my horsey teenage days, I had great fun!

The downside is that you do need to keep your weight out of your stirrups if you use them or you will just slide out the side door :( Unfortunately my sharer experienced this :( There was a saddle issue so that's why we were using the bareback pad and I had explained the differences and difficulties but she seemed happy enough with it as a short term alternative. She had been taking it slow as she didn't feel entirely comfortable in it but while on a hack with a mutual friend they decided on a wee uphill canter, she lost her balance and came off. Horse promptly bogged off back to the field :/

To make things worse she attempted to pull the saddle back into place (think she was still a bit shocked and never thought to take it off and reposition) and remount when she got back to the field which resulted in my lad having an understandable but still very naughty buck and so she found herself on the ground for the second time! :( Luckily she was ok but she did hurt for quite a while after!

Sadly she ended the share soon after :( I didn't know at the time but she told our mutal friend that she hadn't cantered in it because she was worried and that any time she had her stirrups taken away in lessons she always fell off :( I wish she had told me beforehand but I really think the falls knocked her confidence :(

They aren't for everyone but I love mine! :)
 
I don't think HHO likes links in posts to sales websites, but Horsedream are the UK distributors of the Lammfelle pads. They also do a range of treeless saddles. I agree with the poster above about the Barefoot saddles - they are my current saddle, because the horse voted for it ;) I do not like the saddle myself and find it very difficult to get a nice riding position. The saddle pad with a treeless is almost as important as the saddle for pressure distribution, and for spinal clearance - I have different ones that I use with different horses. I am keeping an eye out for an Exmoor Treefree on eBay having heard great things about them - hope we can find a saddle that suits me and the horse!

The sheepskin ones that are suitable for use with stirrups seem to be very new and I'm not sure there's a UK distributor yet. I have a Mattes pad for the treeless saddle - I think it's the success of these pads that led them to develop the sheepskin riding pad. Googling Mattes Fellsattel gets you to the German webpage on them.

The Christ pads do have a separate "tree" you can buy and add if you want to use them with stirrups. A lady I met at a Le TREC event was using one with her Haflinger and the stirrup attachment, and it seemed to work very well for them - she managed all the Le TREC PTV obstacles with no problem, including the dismount/remount from the wrong side one.

Oh, and I learned to post without stirrups when riding with the pad too - it does amazing things for your core muscles, but hurts like h*** the first couple of weeks :) I actually rode out the new pony using the pad yesterday, and realised all the muscles I got when riding the big horse in the pad had disappeared. I am walking a bit like John Wayne today!

I also have a Best Friend pad - I liked it for the cob mare I used to ride, but my current horse has withers and the BestFriend pulled down on the withers which the Christ pad doesn't do :)
 
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