Width of saddles

[blitznbobs]

So I’m looking for a new (to me) saddle at the mo and have been trawling the second hand market cos I know my boy is more than likely to change shape... now the narrowest saddle I own is a mw... which is too narrow for him but I don’t see him as a particularly wide horse yet all the saddles I like seem to be medium fit... is it because these hang about longer because no one has a medium sized horse or is it that everyone has a medium sized horse and I only ever buy the wideboys (and girls)...?

 

[flying_high]

Think it is very variable from make to make. My old boy was wide in Jaguar dressage and medium in Fiona Cork Albion show saddle, at the same time.

TBH when looking I tend to populate the width and brands I want, per my saddler's advice, into the search and then only look for those. So I'd get saddler out as what saddle types and tree widths might suit you both, and assuming they don't stock them second hand, then start searching based on that advice. And then get them back out to fit saddle.

Or sometimes I have gathered a collection of borrowed saddles and asked my saddler if any might work, as a starting point, for finding one secondhand.

 

[milliepops]

every horse I've ever had, and most of those I've ridden have been MW, one of my current ones is slightly on the wide side of MW and she looks a lot bigger but it's more her spine that's wider than anything else. I don't think there are actually that many narrow horses if they were muscled correctly, certainly I remember in the dim past my old skool YO had MN saddles that the hunters wore but they were pretty badly atrophied really, oh and they all had awful white marks!

 

[tallyho!]

Yes we have a pony with tell tale pinch marks... I do think saddles are way narrower than they should be. People fit to the shape in front of them without seeing if what they are fitting to is atrophy or naturally narrow. I regularly train at a big riding school and so many horses have scalloped whither it’s quite horrid to see. I have fairly small horses and are in very wide (Lavinia Mitchell size 5 and 3) saddles.