Treeless saddles- mounting advice?

Mansel

Mansel

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I've been looking into getting a treeless saddle for my flat backed/no withers cob, and my first choice would be barefoot but I can't really afford one at the moment, so I think I might go for a libra trec II, as they have lots of good reviews.

My question is, can you mount from the ground with a treeless saddle?? I have to dismount/remount a couple of times to do farm gates out hacking, unfortunately there's no way of avoiding it, and I'm concerned that if I was to try and remount from the ground the saddle would end up under my ponys belly? Anyone had any experience in this situation?
 
Short answer - no! I have a round haffie and it's impossible to mount from the ground without the (semi-treeless) saddle slipping, but there's always a fence or gate around to climb on from!
 
Mounting from the ground is my pet hate - I care about the state of my horses backs! All my horses are trained asap to parallel park by a fence / gate / suitable sized obstacle that I can climb on to mount. This is regardless of type of saddle or shape of horses back :)

In the direst emergency when I have to mount from the ground I either collar someone to leg me up or hold my other stirrup.....or walk until I find something I can mount from!
 
Does depend a bit though on how gymnastic you are at getting on, it is worse to get on a treed saddle from the ground if you have to haul yourself up the side of the horse and it takes you ages to get up and get your leg over (so to speak...!) A treed saddle will not move but the horses back will take all the strain of your weight, however with a treeless saddle it will slip over if you cannot get on very quickly. I have ridden in a treeless for many years now and do occassionally have to get off and get back on from the ground, but my horse is not that tall. Never ideal but is ok if nothing available to stand on and I have learnt to do it very quickly. If my horse was any taller it would not be an option.
 
Thanks everyone, very useful comments!

looks like I will need to do some practice getting him used to standing next to various "mounting blocks" when I'm out,

I've also just realised it would be possible to leave an actual mounting block next to the main gate that I can't open without dismounting as its private farmland owned by the farmer i livery with, and so i can keep it tucked in a bush!

I agree that using a mounting block as often as possible is much better for the horse and the saddle, it would just be good to know I could get back on unaided if necessary when im out, you know what some hacks can be like! I guess for different horses/saddles the logistics will be different due to how round they are and the weight of the rider, hopefully I'm light and agile enough!

Has anyone had good/bad experiences with the libra trec?
 
I can mount from the ground in my treeless (a Libra) and have done so in my previous treeless saddles as well (Fitform, Freeform and Diddi Pad). The trick is to have a small pony that you can reach over to weight the opposite stirrup as you mount ;)

As to the Libra - really like it! Bought it as a budget saddle to back my baby and am really impressed with it! Fab quality for the money - the only things I don't like are the girth straps as they're webbing and it's awkward to find the holes to do the girth up from on board. At some point I'm going to drop it with a saddler to have them swapped for leather straps. It's not the most structured saddle so you do need a decent pad, and I wouldn't use it for endurance or proper jumping but for backing, hacking and schooling, it's great and very comfy! :)
 
Kaiserchief, Thankyou, you have just made my night! Just what I wanted to hear! My pony is 14hh, so not too tall, and 5y/o so still changing shape, 99% of what we do is hacking with a little bit of schooling along the way as I don't have an arena to ride in right now, so sounds ideal. Shame about the girth straps but I suppose you have to make some allowances when you're on a budget!
 
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