re: softride vs sports-saddle

[Teresa Van Hove <vanhove@ucar.edu>]

Julie,

I've never owned either saddle, but here's my impressions:

I sat a sports-saddle on my "flat-backed" arab once and I felt the
back tree (they have a "tree-piece" at wither and cantle) would
definitely rub his loins.  These saddles certainly don't work for
every horse or they wouldn't be for sale used so often.  They do
seem to be a well constructed saddle and their re-sale value is
pretty good.

I've never even seen a soft-ride saddle in person.  They are 
certainly much less expensive than other treeless saddles such
as tuend, or the icelandic keillor (sp?) saddles, but from the 
pictures they don't look as nice either.  Might be 
a good choice to find out if a treeless saddle would work 
for a particular horse or rider w/o having to spend a lot of
money.  

I recently bought a reactor panel saddle.  Both the horses and I
are just loving it, and this is the 1st saddle my goofy back
gelding has ever liked.  Lots of money, but the customer service is
great ( I was able to arrange a fitting for a reasonble fee even though
I purchased my saddle used) and having the horses happy with the saddle 
is sure wonderful. 

Cheers, 
Teresa

ps. If you do a google search on treeless saddles,theres an
Icelandic page that has a nice review of several treeless,
and panel type saddles -sorry I cant remember the exact page, but 
it has Icyryder or something like that in the url.