Saddle Fit and Trees

Up to my eyebrows in end of year shipping etc., but must give a few moments to these questions. Those who are tired of saddle fit can delete now!

To the others...one of the biggest problems with buying a saddle that has a "named"tree...QH or Arab, etc., is that those designations can vary with the tree factory and when the tree was made.

For instance, our orignial B tree, which is not the same B we now make, 27 years later, was much like the Semi Quarter horse tree of 25 years ago...but today's Semi QH would be much more like our mid size group...unless you were getting a saddle in an area like eastern Nevada where the Semi QH horses are still much like they were back then. But that isn't to say you would get a semi QH tree that has the exact same fit from every tree factory.

We now have l0 trees...9 used in this Country...one very narrow for Peruvian Pasos...tho some Pasos take our D tree. I have fitted Arabs with 9 of our 10 trees...from A to DD...so pray tell, which is the true Arab tree.

A lot of the best endurance horses use my B tree...but Patti Pizzo's Sam has been an outstanding...strike that...double outstanding l00 miler. He is a textbook CC...and Maggie Price was a top tenner in Italy with a horse using our D tree...again..all arabs and a dramatic difference in every aspect of fit. Which is the true arab type?

As to the mention of most trees being too long for arabs...amen! They are too long for a lot of QH too, or we wouldn't be making so many saddles for them. Some of the trees on the market today are longer than our saddles! One reason for the length of western saddles is that the bigger they are, the more tooling and silver one can tack onto them and the larger the price tag.

With an already made saddle, while one can determine ballpark fit, there is little that will help with determining shoulder fit. Shoulder fit is a big issue to the horse. Actually 3/8 of an inch means a lot to a horse.

Stephane Fleury of Bretagne, France is one of the most aware endurance riders I know. He and his son Pierre have the highest winning record in all of France. I have been fitting their horses since l993. Some horses he has campaigned have moved on to other riders, but without their absolute fitted saddles, and they have not done what they were accomplishing with Stephane. There could be more than one reason for that...but I know for sure with a couple of them, that saddle fit...or I should say subsequent no fit, was a factor.

The bottom line is, selecting fit by breed type is as valid as buying shoes for an englishman, a frenchman or an american. If you asked for such a thing in a shoe store, the clerk would think you were nuts, but the saddle industry has sold the buying public on those kinds of names as a way to identify usability. It just isn't so!

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