Saddle fitting in the US

[pennyturner]

My sister rides at a very flash barn in the US. She is adamant that standard practice there is to carefully measure the rider to fit a saddle (english style), which is then used by the owner on any horse, with different numnahs to pad out / level up accordingly.

I am horrified. Is she right?

 

[MotherOfChickens]

was the way when I was out there but that was 20 years ago! I taught at a camp and several of them came with their own saddles (private girls camp). tbh the same thing happens in a lot of pro yards over here too IME.

 

[ElleSkywalker]

Yep that's how it was when I lived there. In fact the people I worked for in the end put their feet down refused to allow people to bring their own saddles

 

[Spring Feather]

It's not really so different from the UK and Europe. Most people here who only own 1 or 2 horses generally have saddles fitted to those horses however many people over here own loads of horses and in those circumstances they generally have a number of saddles, with each saddle fitting a few similarly built horses.

I have had people turn up here expecting to ride my horses in their saddles and I generally don't allow it unless the saddle looks to be a reasonably decent fit, and in good shape. I have had a couple of people turn up thinking they'd be allowed to ride in their cruddy 70 year old piece of junk saddle their great grandfather rode in ... umm no.

 

[Sophire]

It's standard practice in a lot of yards over here too. Pros aren't going to have 20 different saddles for 20 different horses.

 

[Goldenstar]

My saddler goes several times a year to Texas to reflock saddles take templates for new ones and fit the ones she took templates for the time before .
So at least in some places its similar .

 

[pennyturner]

It's standard practice in a lot of yards over here too. Pros aren't going to have 20 different saddles for 20 different horses.

Maybe that works if all your horses are a similar stamp. Some of my ponies can be safely swapped, but I know them and their saddles very well - if I swap for some reason, the saddle I use also fits.
It's the attitude of padding, say under a saddle that's too narrow (how does that even work?), which I think is terrible.

 

[sbloom]

It's subtly different to having a few horses and a few saddles and swapping them around as appropriate, it is indeed one rider, who may not even have a horse, having a saddle which they will use on everything. It is on the wane, but is still fairly common I believe (I have a US saddle fitter friend and frequent a US based board).

 

[EventingMum]

My saddler goes several times a year to Texas to reflock saddles take templates for new ones and fit the ones she took templates for the time before .
So at least in some places its similar .

I know saddles who go to Texas twice a year, perhaps the sales ones?

 

[sbloom]

There are great fitters over there, blogspot.saddlefitter is one awesome one, but with the distances and the history of western and gaited/park/pleasure horses saddle fitting is on the whole a different thing to how we approach it in the UK.