Tuend Treeless Saddles/ SportsSaddles

[Lucy C Trumbull <elsie@foothill.net>]

"Linda B. Merims" wrote:
> 
...
> A Tuend saddle is a very fancy bareback pad...A fancy 
> bareback pad with a couple of blocks of wood in front 
> and behind you to help stabilize you.
> 
> Now I don't actually know what's *in* a Sportsaddle....

As best I can describe it, the SS sounds fairly similar
to the Tuend, except it's a lot cheaper :)))

A SportsSaddle...

(also known as a Genuine Bob Marshall SportsSaddle (made by 
Bob Marshall's factory) or a Circle Y SportsSaddle (these are 
produced under patent by Circle Y) - I have one of each, and 
to be honest can't see an awful lot of difference).

...is a large thick sturdy (as opposed to floppy - as I think
of some bareback pads being) pad covered in leather with a 
hard C-shaped pommel firmly attached (not removeable) on the 
front and a similar hard C-shaped cantle on the back. I believe 
the pommel and cantle are made of wood and metal. The saddles 
are not very heavy.

The stirrup and cinch rings are under a side flap and
attached with two nylon webbing-strap Vs, which attach 
to the pommel and cantle under the leather outer covering 
for even the weight distribution.

You can grab the front of the saddle and the back, and 
bend the two ends to meet in the middle - it's bendy 
enough. But they don't flop down on their own (the pad 
is sturdy, like I say, and thick), and there is also a 
good deal of side bend - at least as much as the solid
front and back of the saddle allow.

The pommel and cantle, as you say with the Tuend, offer
stability - these saddles, particularly the schooling and 
training model, are hard to fall out of.

To make the SS work best, you ideally need some sort of
pad such as Toklat Woolback or Skito with open cell foam
inserts in it (1/2" or 3/4") - this gives you nice even
weight distribution, a spine channel (I've got photos of
ours with very well definited spine channel sweat marks),
and squishes down to limpet the whole thing to the horse's
back once the whole set up is nice and warm. At which point,
if you're lucky, you can ride with a loose cinch and everything
stays in place.

The upside of SSs:

* They are very comfy to the rider and the horse
* They fit most horses, what with being able to bend to fit

The downside of SSs:

* They have no twist, so tend to be wide, which can be hard on 
  the rider's hips
* Very broad shouldered/withered horses can sometimes have
  trouble with the pommel being too constrictive - but it
  depends on where the horse's heartgirth is
* they are quite long front to back.

I'm having problems with my short coupled, round, well-srpung, 
very-forward-heart-girthed mare right now - the saddle ends up 
on her neck on downhills. I'm hoping like mad that a crupper 
will fix this problem. We'll see.

(Anyone familiar with dealing with this body type? Thoughts
on crupper use?)

SSs sometimes require some "tweaking" and fiddling to get
them to work best.

Hope that helps. 

What about the Reactor Panel you mentioned, Linda? What did
you think about that?


-- 
**************************************************************
Lucy Chaplin Trumbull - elsie@foothill.net
Repotted english person in Garden Valley (Sierra Foothills), CA 
**************************************************************