Dressage saddle for wide cob?

Fruitcake

Fruitcake

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I'd really like a dressage saddle for my Sec D. Not that I'll do anything flash with him, I just feel that my current saddle doesn't help my position at all. I currently have a Thorowgood cob GP with the extra wide gulllet.

I love the Albion dressage saddles but I'm not sure if they're suited to chunky types!

Opinions, please...
 
We had a terrible time getting a saddle to fit our round cob which didn't slip all the time.

The only one we could find was a Farrington dressage. Its fantastic and really comfy, doesn't slip and our girl has gone well in it for the last 8 years.

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I've got a Lavinia Mitchell saddle for my very wide cob, they make them to spec for the horse in whichever style suits you both the best. I can't believe how much better my lad goes in his than he did in the Albion we had before, although if your heart is set on an Albion they do make a different tree for wider horses as my saddler said I could have a made to measure Albion if I'd wanted to. I chose not to because the LM saddle suited him so much better. :)
 
I have just bought a Kent & Masters saddle for my very wide cob. The saddler had such a job to find one to fit him but this fits absolutely beautifully :)
 
I also have a Farrington dressage saddle on my super-wide super-shouldered cob and it is sooo much better than a GP. I do everything in my dressage saddle, hacking, showjumping, XC and sometimes even dressage!!:D I love it and cobby-bum goes much better in it than anything else. She did have a working hunter Farrington once, which was also very good. They just need the space to move their shoulders.
 
It depends on the shape of your cob - is he very flat backed or does he have a wither (sorry if he is a she!)?

I have a very flat backed cob with no wither in an ideal Jessica with a h&c tree, which is specifically designed for table top cobs!

My maxi cob is a totally different shape, although the same width, he has a wither and anything that fits him just rolls on her, the shape of the tree is key.
 
I fit wide horses as a speciality and will fire a small word of warning - the wider the horse the harder it is in the hips to sit in correct alignment! I do find that horses have to be very wide, and need a very wide twist, before it affects most riders, and some can get very comfortable and well aligned in GP and working hunter saddles. I fit a particular model, a deep seated WH, that works really well for riders wanting to do mainly flatwork but not necessarily wanting something as limiting as a dressage saddle, worth keeping an open mind for a model like that, or a good VSD/straight cut GP.
 
sbloom said:
I fit wide horses as a speciality and will fire a small word of warning - the wider the horse the harder it is in the hips to sit in correct alignment! I do find that horses have to be very wide, and need a very wide twist, before it affects most riders, and some can get very comfortable and well aligned in GP and working hunter saddles. I fit a particular model, a deep seated WH, that works really well for riders wanting to do mainly flatwork but not necessarily wanting something as limiting as a dressage saddle, worth keeping an open mind for a model like that, or a good VSD/straight cut GP.
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Interesting I have a share of a shire cross mare and the current gp saddle is uncomfortable. Mind you being a 66 year old 6ft 2 in male doesnt help. I am in Dorset
 
I have the black country eloquence on my tank of sec D, I love it. He also has the BC event for hacking and jumping.
 
I also have a lavinia Mitchell dressage saddle which I love it is the most comfortable saddle ever and it fits one of mine who is very wide through the back but has a wither, I did try it on my other Arab who is not as wide in places but has a flatter back with minimal wither and it moves and I don't think it will fit whatever you do with it.
 
Just wanted to add , if you can't get one , look at working hunter saddles , I have an Ideal Ramsay for my gelding and love it , can do everything in it .
 
holeymoley said:
Just wanted to add , if you can't get one , look at working hunter saddles , I have an Ideal Ramsay for my gelding and love it , can do everything in it .
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Yup, second this. My just recently retired super-super wide mare has/had an Albion WH saddle for most of her working life, it's the only thing that didn't rotate around her like a pinwheel! Must sell it now I suppose....
 
Pinkvboots said:
I also have a lavinia Mitchell dressage saddle which I love it is the most comfortable saddle ever and it fits one of mine who is very wide through the back but has a wither, I did try it on my other Arab who is not as wide in places but has a flatter back with minimal wither and it moves and I don't think it will fit whatever you do with it.
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also wanted to add to this I have a gp that is basically the same saddle but flatter in the tree than the dressage and this fits him better less movement so as a few others have said a flatter tree may be the answer as dressage saddles tend to be curvier and don't suit all types.
 
Merlod said:
I have the black country eloquence on my tank of sec D, I love it. He also has the BC event for hacking and jumping.
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Me too .... I have a chunk of a highland and this saddle is great on him. I also have the BC GPX for hacking etc but both saddles are built on the same tree.
 
holeymoley said:
Just wanted to add , if you can't get one , look at working hunter saddles , I have an Ideal Ramsay for my gelding and love it , can do everything in it .
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I second this. My cob is in a Farrington working hunter and we're both very happy with it.
 
My heavy weight traditional is in an Albion - both dressage and jumping he is actually a really easy horse to fir but I guarantee he is wider than any welshy
 
my old warmblood mare was very wide and i had an albion dressage saddle and it fitted her really well....i spoke to a saddler recently and he said that albions are very generous in size so may be worth getting a saddler out to try if you like albions...
 
A working hunter is simply a flap cut, it does not mean it fits differently. Now slightly more of them are built on shallower seats, but even that doesn't mean they fit flat or wide. Wide horses can have GP saddles or any other model, big shoulders are seldom the problem that people think. Keeping the saddle back off the shoulder keeps the tree in the right place which helps with shoulder freedom, as does having the rails the right shape, the bit you can't see. You can even get dressage saddles on trees that fit flat backs sympathetically, but it's not about the flap. Flap cut makes almost no difference if the saddle is back far enough.
 
sbloom said:
A working hunter is simply a flap cut, it does not mean it fits differently. Now slightly more of them are built on shallower seats, but even that doesn't mean they fit flat or wide. Wide horses can have GP saddles or any other model, big shoulders are seldom the problem that people think. Keeping the saddle back off the shoulder keeps the tree in the right place which helps with shoulder freedom, as does having the rails the right shape, the bit you can't see. You can even get dressage saddles on trees that fit flat backs sympathetically, but it's not about the flap. Flap cut makes almost no difference if the saddle is back far enough.
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Why do we see so many horses with saddles so far forward with flaps covering the shoulders ?

My rather wide and flat backed ID has just had her first saddle, she has a huge front and a big step. We went for a very simple Black Country WH. It is suitable to do everything in apart from jumping more than 1m perhaps. Lightweight, lovely quality and not overly expensive.
 
AdorableAlice said:
Why do we see so many horses with saddles so far forward with flaps covering the shoulders ?

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I'm wondering if it's to do with the length of the horses backs. I have a 15hh heavy cob who is happiest in a 15" saddle and also goes well in a 16". Saddlers have fitted him with 17" saddles and he has no objection nor to an 18", but the shorter saddles look right on him in terms of length, although flap size looks ridiculous with a lot of them. How many people buying a heavy cob, who doesn't look small even with a 6' man on him, will be wanting to ride in a 15" or 16" saddle though?

Then there's the girth which, when the saddle is back behind the shoulders where it should be, doesn't hang straight down behind the front legs. To a lot of people it looks like the girth, and therefore the saddle (particularly if the latter is a fraction longer than ideal), is too far back, so they move the whole lot forwards and put the saddle right on top of the shoulders.

Where the horse has very little wither people seem to have real trouble knowing where the shoulder actually is. One person used to warmbloods/TBs etc, when I pointed out the saddle was way too far forward on the cob she was tacking up (to the extent that the pommel was sitting a good 3" higher than the cantle), actually said to me "oh well it's better too far forward because if it's going to slip it'll slip backwards". Er, not on a cob it won't!
 
fiona36, where in the country are you. i have a wide albion dressage that you could try if you are close to the essex/suffolk border...i just tried to pm you but dont think it worked...
 
A different view would be to look at treeless, we have a Solution Dressage saddle which fits two of our very round mares, one is a draught mare and the other an oversized cob, the same saddle will also fit thetwo Appy's, who are a totally different shape from the cobs.
 
AdorableAlice said:
Why do we see so many horses with saddles so far forward with flaps covering the shoulders ?

My rather wide and flat backed ID has just had her first saddle, she has a huge front and a big step. We went for a very simple Black Country WH. It is suitable to do everything in apart from jumping more than 1m perhaps. Lightweight, lovely quality and not overly expensive.
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I think it's because so many people put saddles in the wrong place as in too far forward and have no idea that it's wrong.
 
I sold my dressage saddle recently, an Ideal Jessica. I bought it from a friend whose warmblood x arab was retiring. It fitted my shire x tb x sec d but I couldn't get on with it (due to my fat a**e). The lady who bought it bought it for her two Sec Ds. The thing they all had in common is they're all exceptionally wide so it might be worth looking at one of them.
 
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