Treeless for small rider

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planete

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I need to find a treeless saddle for my fairly high withered, short-backed gelding. I am 5ft, eight stone, and my hips (and me!) are now too old to like saddles with a very wide twist. Any ideas would be most welcome.
 
Have a look at the Freemax saddles on ebay. I bought one and it was a nice saddle with a good design but far too small for me (at 5'8). With a pad they should give enough wither clearnace.

However high withers will be a problem for a treeless saddle and you may have to look at the more expensive saddles like the Heather Moffet saddles.
 
Freeforms and Freemax's may be too long for your horse. My Ardennes X is short backed and his Freeform is a little too long for him. I have heard that Freemax's have the same issue.

Heather Moffett saddles can be bought second hand from Ebay for £600ish.

The other choice you have for a high withered horse is a Ghost saddle.

Other than that - it would be trying different ones with the corresponding pad underneath.
 
Thank you. I am going to enquire about the length of the base of the saddles you mentioned. Unfortunately, I have tried a Heather Moffet on him and the cantle pressed on his spine (he is also slightly hollow-backed!) and made him drop his back.
 
I am 5' and I have a size 1 Barefoot London saddle - they do three pommels - standard, wide for no wither, tabletops, and one for narrow high withers. If you buy from Horse & Harmoney they do a return service if it doesn't fit.

I have been pleased with my barefoot, very comfortable, but I don't really like to jump more than 2'3 in it, but my braver friends have jumped 2'9 in it.
 
I had high hopes when I tried a Solution saddle. It was small enough and I enjoyed riding in it. I was disappointed to find that it seemed to concentrate my weight on the back of the saddle though and the shimming I was sent did not improve things. I had to regretfully send it back. I sat on a Barefoot some years ago and it felt so wide I could not put my legs anywhere near the horse, (same with Torsion). Have they changed the shape of the seat to build it up in the last few years?
I guess I may have to do all the rehabilitation work from the ground and hope my horse will eventually be happy to have a treed saddle back on.
 
It is a reasonably wide saddle compared to a conventional treed - I also ride in a WH treed saddle.

I suppose I am lucky in that my horses are already fairly wide being a clydesdale and a large gypsy cob, so they are used to only have a very slight touch of my leg and are responsive to only a little squeeze of my leg rather than my heels to get going.

Those with longer legs have no problems. Kids ride in my saddle with no problem, but again this may be that my horses don't need much leg despite them being the sort you would think would need loads.
 
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