recommend me a saddle for a shetland

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Field04

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As the title, please can you recommend me a good saddle for my young children and their shetland. The pony came with a saddle, but I am not keen on it for them. I have been looking at the Wintec, childrens saddle.

Any recommendations appreciated.

thanks
 
Ours had a Thorowgood Safari Cub saddle.

We had another shetland as a companion for a while who came with a pad type saddle and found it constantly slipped - the thorowgood was far more secure.
 
It depends on how much security you want (ie how much like a regular saddle), what seat size the Shettie can take, and your budget.

I find the cub saddles can be useful but have massive limitations - they need to be in balance to work for both pony and rider and there is no real way to adjust that without a shim pad, you can only widen and narrow the panels which are mounted on velcro.

Zoe Snapes shetland pads are good if you're happy with a pad.

I fit a few Shetlands and usually fit them with straight cut showing or WH saddles (take up less room) - 14" is usually a standard size for us and not a problem but I did recently fit a 13" WH saddle (special order, the trees are tricky to get unless you're ordering a whole batch of them) for a Shetland that is doing proper workers classes as well as general PC stuff.
 
We have a cub saddle for Titchy (check out eBay as you can get girth and stirrups included nearly new condition as obviously they don't usually get loads of use!). The benefit of that is it fits anything, we have had it on a mini Shet, standard Shet, section A, 13.1 and a 14.1! They are also cheap and the handle is good for tinies. It still fits my very tall nearly 4yr old as well.
 
Pony pad or safari cub. Only thing I don't like about the cub is when kids are sat against the cantle for security in an armchair seat. Treated as a pony pad though with the child sat behind the handle in a more bareback/classical position they are fine though. Riding in the latter way, my tall, but slight 8yr old still comfortably fits for flatwork.
 
Littlelegs said:
Pony pad or safari cub. Only thing I don't like about the cub is when kids are sat against the cantle for security in an armchair seat. Treated as a pony pad though with the child sat behind the handle in a more bareback/classical position they are fine though. Riding in the latter way, my tall, but slight 8yr old still comfortably fits for flatwork.
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Exactly what I mean, they sit down at the back on most ponies, meaning all the rider's weight is concentrated at the back, not good for the muscles underneath the saddle! And for little riders to have to make an effort to sit in the right place is not helpful, they need to be sat in the right place in the first place IMO.
 
I have a Zoe Snape pad for my big mare and Milner pads for my other 2 geldings but kids don't ride my ponies, I do and 10yo's plus do, no tiny kids.
 
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