Treeless Saddles

[spollard828]

hi there,
i have just brought a lovely 5 year old mare who i cannot find a saddle to fit! i expect her to change shape so dont want to spend a fortune on a made to measure saddle until she has stopped growing!
does anybody know of a good treeless saddle that would suit us? my main problem with the treeless saddles i have riden in has been the position of the striup bars being too far back, therefore losing the surcurity in my seat... and this isnt ideal on a slightly unpredicable 5 year old...
many thanks
sarah

 

[tazzle]

it is my expereince that most treeless saddle do have the stirrup bars further back in what I understand is the dressage saddle position too rather than the general purpose position.

I felt unbalanced at first too when I changed over .... although it did help having ridden bareback. It did not take long to adjust though and I do ride in a much better position now . NOw I feel unbalanced if I ride in a GP saddle as I did a few weeks ago ..... started to trot and I felt like a beginner so had to canter instead

My treeless are severa l years old so I dont know if some of the newer ones have options re placement of stirrup bars ?

 

[Kallibear]

Many treeless have stirrup bars that are moveable (velro usually) so you can chose how far forwards you want them.

What you want depends mostly on your budget, closely followed by what suits your horse and you.

Regardless of what you buy, make sure it's a well made, quality saddle. The cheap treeless you see on ebay are cheap for a reason: they are truely shocking quality. I bought a 'traditional' crappy saddle for pennies and took it apart, removing over 50 inch long carpet tacs!!!!

The saddles range from bareback style pads like the Torsion, via the middle ground freemax/freeform to the very expensive pheonix and Solution saddles. There's various brands of very similar style saddles and they're pretty much the same with little to chose between them (of the higher quality (and sadly therefore the higher price) saddles)

I have a Freefrom and really like on anything but the high withered.. My friend has the cheaper but very similar Freemax and it's just as good. Another friend has a Heather Moffett saddle, which is far more expensive and much more traditional looking but has it's own faults. Other friends have the Torsion, which suits their very wide flat highlands perfectly but I dislike riding in.

 

[Abbeygale]

I have a freemax saddle that I am using at the moment. It has adjustable stirrup bars, and does look more like a traditional saddle. It is quite comfy - but I have found that on the horse it came on, it does move a bit going up and down hills - which I am not keen on. But that is quite possibly just using it on her - I haven't used it on any other horse so can't comment to far on it.

I have also used a torsion style saddle, which I have used quite a bit, and got on well with it. However, it doesn't have knee rolls, which doesn't suit everyone.

The two things I always use with treeless saddles is a hunting breastplate, and safety stirrups of some sort.