Western saddles

[Morgan123]

Hi, I am planning to teach my horse to do Western trail riding (he’s currently a dressage horse). I have done some of this before myself, but am unsure about saddle fitting. As far as I can see, the saddles don’t seem to have sizes relating to the width/type of horse (I guess this is due to the way the panels fit, but as it has a tree surely they can’t possibly be as flexible as treeless saddles surely?!). Does anyone know how you’d fit a Western saddle/if there are any specialist Western saddle fitters in the Oxford area? I know at a riding school I used to go to they just use to use massive thick pads underneath, and then just chop and change and use whichever saddle they wanted, but am not sure this is entirely healthy!
Thanks!

 

[Cahill]

the saddles come in semi quarter horse bars,quarter horse bars and full quarter horse bars.
they are also different lenghts and different styles for different jobs.
believe me,it`s just as much a minefield as english tack.the saddle should have no rock and roll and you should be able to ride without the girth really tight.

i have seen these Pullman people fit saddles to different shaped horses.the saddles are beautiful but expensive.

http://www.continental-online.de/catalog/

 

[vonno]

Hi,
You could try Marie who will travel to to you:
http://www.western-saddler.co.uk/index.shtml

or Jeannine March (who I think is not too far)
http://www.westerntack.co.uk/

 

[Shiraz]

try www.thewesternshop.com for more info and contacts. They have a mini forum where you can post looking for saddle advice.

I had a nightmare of a time finding a saddle for my QH. The saddle she was sold with didn't fit her and made her "saddle shy" , we never used this saddle on her. I came across a lot of "experts" from the 'one size fits all' school of thought and if it didn't fit the just to pad it out <rolling eyes>

We imported a circle y from USA which turned out to be 1" too long and it made a lot of difference to the fit. Sold it on ebay with a loss of £600

Found a shorter circle y on ebay and turned out the seller was a user on thewesternshop.com. Saddle fits perfectly. It took us over 1yr to source a fitting saddle though.

Kept hitting walls when looking for fitting advice. People trying to convince us to ride her english or get a treeless etc. It would be handy to know what the western saddle width fittings equated to in inches etc.

I ended up buying a western saddle fitting DVD and book from the USA to try to help.

We (horse is my mums) spoke to Marie and Jeannine and they were both very helpful. We are just too far away being in Scotland!

Good luck with your search