Types of tree (on saddles!)

[Morgan123]

hello,

am thinking about getting my dressage horse a new saddle and want to be able to really help him swing through his back. however i realised there is a whole lot of stuff i am unsure of, particularly about trees! What is a sprung tree, and what is a tree with a twist?! What do these actually do? Some saddles seem to advertise having iron re-inforced trees as if it's a good thing, yet having a spring or something seems to be the complete opposite?!

Also, i've looked into treeless before for him, and have found that even with Heather Moffett etc they still seem very rigid, wiht not anywhere near as much give as i'd like (and the ones that are more like pads - e.g. the barefoot or cherookee, just slip on him as he's a barrel!). So, how much difference does a difference in the tree actually make?! perhaps i should really be considering the different panelling instead and looking for cair or memory foam or something (would love a Wow but security at our yard is rubbish and don't trust it!)??

So - what makes a good saddle?!

lol sorry i know that's a whole laod of questions in one...!!!

thank you!

 

[Hollyberry]

I have been through most saddles in the past and I have finally settled on a Heather Moffatt Phoenix saddle which is part treed and both my horses love them, they really swing through. I would not go near a WOW as had very very bad time with one which was fitted by a registered WOW fitter and he completely b......d my poor horses' back up by fitting the wrong size which I tried to question at the time and was told I didn't understand the fitting. WOW themselves were really unhelpful and unpleasant about the whole thing and fitter is still fitting them even though I found out he had damaged quite a few other horses in the Hampshire/Dorset area. I just feel that at least with the Phoenix it would be very difficult to damage the horse in any way and they are extremely comfortable for the rider.

 

[brighteyes]

Here's a page where you can look at trees and see if you can fathom the differences between them (spring and rigid, anyway) but I think this is probably the most informative and interesting set of pages to enlighten you about saddle-fitting.

BTW I stumbled across these articles and am no way recommending the company or saying buy one of their saddles!

 

[unicornleather]

A spring tree has 2 thin spring steel plates running from head to cantle to give the tree a bit of flexation when on the move, a rigid tree is basically a wooden tree that has no spring steel plates. All traditional wooden trees (good ones) should have approx 7 rivets on the head that goes through a head plate on the top of the tree and a gullet plate under the head of the tree effectively sandwiching the wooden tree between them. All traditional wooden trees should also have metal re inforcing plates (separate from the spring steel plates) running the entire length of the tree.
Hope you are following this so far? !!
The twist on a saddle can be narrow or wide and it is the gap between the skirts at the narrowest part across the seat towards the front of the saddle seat, again it is hard to explain and I hope you follow it?
The narrower the twist the closer together your thighs will be (if you pardon the expression)!
Oz

 

[Morgan123]

Wonderful thanks for your help! It's incredible how little info there is out there on all this stuff, esp given how the marketers throw the terms around! I think my best bet is just to get phoning saddlers and find one i actually trust (not particularly impressed with the last set of them :-()

Thansk for the info re: the WOWs - that's really interesting!!

thank you!

 

[unicornleather]

Let us know how you get on?
Oz