Best of the Bates?

L

lonelypony

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15 July 2013
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I have been looking at the Bates range of jumping saddles?
  • elevation
  • momentum
  • caprilli
Any views on each of them?
Which is the best?
Or what other brands would you recomend?
:)
 
Are you looking at Bates because their sdvertising says that they can fit any horse because of the inter changeable gullet? If you are then forget it because they do not fit all horses & will never fit all.

We had a Caprilla many years ago & it fitted our horse. We treated it as any other saddle, tried it on our horse & it fitted so we had it, When we changed horses we tried to use the Caprilla on our new one & it didn't fit. Even when you change the gullet it wouldn't fit. Gullet changes are fine but that is not the only measurement to pay attention to when fitting a saddle .

As for other brands to recommend, it's difficult to really because some makers saddles will suit your horse more than other makers. Over the years we have had Bates, GFS, Harry Dabbs, Equipe, Devoucoux & all of these fitted our horses because we had them fitted. Don't get into tunnel vision wanting a particular make because they don't all suit. Just try saddles until you find one that fits your horse & fits you & have that one.

Good Luck.
 
I'd generally recommend finding a good fitter and working with them - as TZ says, changeable gullets don't mean the saddle will fit anything, and horses can come in such a variety of shapes and sizes that it's impossible to say what is worth looking at.

I personally don't like the shape of the Bates/Wintec head plates - other brands of saddles can cause a variety of issues if they don' fit, but these seem to often cause the same problem, tightness at the bars, and that is partly tree and partly headplate:

http://saddlefitter.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/changeable-gullets-details.html (I'm the fellow fitter she refers to in her post!)
 
thanks for the replies, :)
I was just wondering about a bates saddle because I would be able to get one new and within budget, I know that that whole interchangeable gullet thing doesn't live up to the hype. However, I feel that I cannot just choose a saddle alone and so I've taken your advice and am contacting a local saddle fitter who can find me a cheap new or decent second hand saddle and get it adjusted and so on to my needs :)
many thanks!
 
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