Selecting Endurance Saddle

[Beverly540 <Beverly540@aol.com>]

Hello friends!  
        My husband and I are attempting to "crossover" from western trail
riding to the endurance sport. We have only been riding for two years, but we
ride a lot---by which I mean, 5 and 6 hours at a time. We live in the Blue
Ridge Mountains of Virginia and we probably ride about 30 hours a month. We
want to do much more and plan to do CTR this fall.  We will be volunteering
this spring in the Blackhorse Gap ride in Virginia. A friend is riding one of
our horses in that ride.
         We have four fabulous appaloosas and five saddles.  Before we
purchase yet another insufficient saddle I would appreciate private e-mails
regarding the saddle that you personally just couldn't live without. And the
pad.  And how to fit the saddle to the horse.
       I have visted all the web-sites listed on the endurance.net market site
and asked for flyers and brochures.  From what I can see, there are western,
English and Austrailian  endurance saddles; ortho-flex saddles, soft-rider
saddles, and sport saddles. I can only afford to buy ONE MORE SADDLE!   Help
me choose!  
        We own one Big Horn endurance saddle which my husband loves. All the
others are regular western saddles ranging from inexpensive cordura to
expensive and a very heavy somewhat pricey show saddle.   I feel comfortable
in the Big Horn, except that the seat is very, very hard and slick!  I like a
suede seat.  I like the western style of fenders, not the English kind...don't
feel secure, for some reason.  Any advice you can give me regarding saddle
selection AND PAD will be greatly appreciated.  
         I have no idea how to fit a saddle...Flower seems to have a rather
short back.  Where do you even start to fit a saddle????? 
Thank you,
Beverly and Flower (the mountain climbing wonder horse)