Then she went into her saddle "room". Think of a one bedroom house
with every inch of available space filled with saddles, trees, and pads.
The bathroom is floor to ceiling pads. The hall contains a hundred
or so trees. The kitchen is filled with saddles ready to ship.
You can't walk through the bedroom for all the saddle trees.
She picks out two trees, takes them back to Drake and both fit.
Then she shows me how one doesn't fit. Just the slightest of
differences. She goes back and picks a couple that she knows
won't fit and shows me how they would lay on his back. Now I'm
begining to see real differences. She gets a tree that is Drake's
size and would fit me. Fits him great. And she happens to have
that sized saddle ready to ship to someone else. So I ride in it.
Other than being very stiff and squeeky, it was comfortable. I was
concerned that having been doing dressage for a few years, I wouldn't
be able to get the stirrups in the right spot. No problem. Her's
are rigged so that you are very balanced. Just tighten a bit and I
was standing balanced. Relax and I was in the saddle.
One big thing I noticed was with Drake. He tends to be a bit high
headed in new situations. Go into the trot and he'll put his head
up and hollow his back until I make him get that back up. With this
saddle, he started to take a stride with his head up, and then
sighed and dropped his head and neck, rounded his back and went off
smoothly. Now when we went by that killer feed trough, up went the
head, but that was different.
I think I'm going to have to work on my weight and leg aids. Drake
was ignorning them when I rode and I found that I couldn't feel
him as much. There is a big difference in the weight of the saddle
and amount of leather between my English saddle and the endurance
saddle. Of course, the leather was very stiff and my legs were
rubbing, so that could have had something to do with it.
So, I ordered a saddle. Dropped rigging (so the rigging isn't under
my thigh), lady length stirrup fenders, smooth seat, brass rings and
such. She had a tree that she could send to the saddle maker right
away. So I'll have my saddle in 4 to 6 weeks (or when I can make
the final payment).
Talking with her was very interesting. She had just come back
from Europe. She has different saddle trees for European horses.
Both because of the breeds and breeding, their backs are different
from US horses. She also has saddle trees just for specific breeds
of horses. She has a tree for Fjords. For US horses, she has 8 trees,
2 sizes (15 and 16 inch), that fit most horses. She has other trees
as well that fit other horses. And she'll modify a tree if need be
to fit your horse. She has also turned down horses that have such
poor backs that no saddle would fit. She doesn't want her saddles
blamed for a poor conformation, poor riding, horse.
You need to go to one of her saddle fitters to get a saddle. Although
she did say she ships her trees to people as well. I'm guessing that
she'll ship only to folks who know how to fit a saddle. Then depending
on how busy her saddle makers are, you'll get your saddle in a month
to several months.
-- Wendy\|/ /\ -O- /**\ /|\ /****\ /\ / \ /**\ Here there be dragons / /\ / \ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\/\ /\ / / \ / \ / \/\/ \/ \ /\/ \/\ /\ /\/ / / \/ \ / / \/ /\ \ / \ \ / \/ / / \/ \/ \ / \ \ / / \/ \/\ \ / \ / / \ __/__/_______/___/__\___\__________________________________________________
Wendy Milner HPDesk: wendy_milner@hp4000 Training Development Engineer HP-UX: wendy@fc.hp.com Mail Stop 46 Telnet: 229-2182 3404 E. Harmony Rd. AT&T: (970) 229-2182 Fort Collins, CO, 80525 FAX: (970) 229-4292