Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Marv, Laney knows what she's talking about.  She probably does not own a saddle that can be restuffed!  She wrote a little booklet on saddles for endurance, so she is quite knowledgeable about the subject.

 

I personally would not want to be bothered with re-stuffing hence my going to the ReactorPanel saddle.  Despite the velcro trauma, I find it a blessing to be able to adjust it myself to suit my horses level of conditioning at any given time, especially since I have a dippy backed horse whose back musculature is quite suspect.  My instructor wanted me to get a custom fit saddle from Andy Foster, but shipping it to England every time my horse changed shape didn't seem like it was too much fun for me.  Great saddle though, too bad he retired.  Ditto any other custom saddle...  There are several English saddles types out there that don't need reflocking  (or in my case with my Thorowgood Griffin - way to cheap to bother reflocking... just buy a new one!).  I've heard complaints about some stuffers stuffing too hard and creating problems after the re-stuffing.... I'd rather blame myself, not have to sweat about scheduling a visit&nb sp;and not pay for someone's misjudgment.

 

K.

 

-------------- Original message --------------
From: Marv Walker <marv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Never!  For a lot of reasons: my saddles don't need it and that's partly because I don't know of a saddle flocker on the entire west coast.
        I'm curious to know what kind of saddle you have to would need that kind of attention that often.  English saddles (& maybe some Australian) are the only ones that need it and many of them are flocked/stuffed with foam that, theoretically, never needs attention.  The days of frequent visits by the saddler are long gone in this country as far as I know.

If I had 50 "English" saddles in front of me I could conclusively
prove at least 40 of them would need re-flocking.  If you start
examining flat saddles you will be surprised how many panels are
harder than a rock, lumpy, flocked heavier on one side or one end
than another, are different thicknesses and widths, lack suffi cient
weight bearing area and a number of other performance hindering
defects.

Unless you ride perfectly balanced your saddle will be compressed
more on one side, end or corner than another.

And this is still not even taking into consideration the shape and
curvature of your horse's back which also can vary according to
conditioning.

When you add static and dynamic fitting into the mix it becomes
even more involved.

In addition to being a horse problem solving practitioner I own
a commercial seating repair business.  Take it from me, foam
rubber does break down and it does it fairly quickly especially
when it gets wet.  Many saddles are stuffed with carpet fibers
and other cheap materials that are far from stable.

I have been into horses a LONG time and I have not ever known
a time when saddlers frequently visited anywhere.  Most horse
people are blissfully unaware of the importance of saddle fit.
This is evident by all the times you hear things along the lines
of "I have an Arab, I need an Arab tree."

If you have a flocked saddle look it over very carefully.  I'm
sure you'll be surprised.  The flocking may very well be slowing
you down.  Horses are very stoic, for the most part, however
they will tell you when the saddle doesn't fit correctly.  Most
of the time people aren't picking up on it because they aren't
aware of the possibilities.

Marv "Oooh!  Oooh!  I just told a bunch of folks to stuff it!!" Walker
Horse Info & Training DVDs ~ http://MarvWalker.com

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