Isabelle Werth Dressage saddle - Good saddles? Cair or Flock??

TED2010

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Hiya

Hoping some of you knowlegable people will be able to give some advice on this. I would like to buy a dressage saddle but have a limited budget for one at the moment. I have heard some positive things about the Isabelle Worth dressage saddle for being comfortable and putting you in a good position. There are a few on ebay which seem to make good money but I have heard somewhere that the flocked ones are better than the Cair ones, can anyone confirm this from personal experience or are the cair ones as good? There seems to be more Cair ones available than Flock, is this because people get rid of them? Also can anyone explain what if any the problems are with them.

Also has anyone bought one second hand with a medium gusset and changed it for a wider one with success, how easy is this to do? What does the fit tend to be like, Ted wears a medium wide Albion K2 jumping saddle at the moment so just wondering if the Dressage saddles come up wide or narrow, never used a synthetic saddle before!

Sorry for all the questions, i just want to make sure i buy something decent or can at least sell it again easily if it doesn't fit.

Other suggestions for reasonably priced, comfortable dressage saddles which aid good position would be appreciated and considered - what do you all have??

Many thanks in advance and sorry for long winded post! :)
 

*hic*

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I bought one second hand and all three of my horses loved it. I have since taken it to my saddle fitter and as it's a flocked one he's fitted it perfectly to my biggest horse. They do put you in position and keep you in it, which is great at a certain level. It's not great however, if you have a spine like mine where I naturally tend to tilt my pelvis forward and sit up straight as it seems to be the slouching and backwards tilt that the saddle is trying to correct. So whilst the horses all love mine I find it extremely painful to ride in.

I'd try to borrow one if you are interested. btw my saddler was quite surprised that it fitted my horse so well. In his experience he says that people buy them and get them "sort of right" when they are not really suitable for the shape of the horse they've been bought for - so he was surprised both that it fitted as well as it did and also that I'd taken it in to be fine-tuned.
 

P4NN

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I havnt had an isabell werth dressage saddle so cannot comment on their fit or comfort etc but I had a VSD which was cair.

All I can say is keep away from cair!! It isnt adjustable, its hard esp in winter and the cells (there are 4 of them 2 on each panel) rotated and overlaped and caused a raised ridged which severly bruised my poor mares back!!

I was told by my saddler that this always happens with cair saddles and that is why he no longer stocks them! He also told me to either flog or flock the saddle and it was going to cost more to reflock the saddle than it was worth so I got rid.

Have you looked at thorrowgood dressage saddles. I can tell you these are really good quality and comfy too!
 

catdragon

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I had a second hand Isabell Werth saddle- an equisuede with cair.. Avoid Cair at all costs, I also found that the air pads were hard and the adjustment impossible.

On a positive note, it's a great saddle for putting you into a good position and I found it very secure for the hooleys my mare threw at me.

I only got rid of it as getting it converted to flock would have been economically not viable for the value of the saddle.
 

TED2010

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Thank you guys, that is really helpful and I will certainly not buy one with Cair! Any other suggestions of good popular economical dressage saddles?? :)
 

bordermare

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I had a flocked one as I was told you could re-flock if you needed to but I don't think you can make any changes to the cair panels.

As a word of warning I would say try one if possible before buying. I could not get away with the one I had, it just did not suit me at all. Put me in a position that was very uncomfortable for my hips.
 

Dollysox

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I've got three Wintec Isabell saddles - two flocked and one Cair. I would definitely go for the flocked one every time. Brilliant saddles - all my horses love them and I do too.
 
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