Saddle fitting

I was waiting at the barn for the custom western saddle maker, when the english saddle fitter shows up. Surprised, but delighted to see her, I show her the growing white spots on Qs withers and she says “uh oh”. I told her about some other issues (how everyone tells me the saddle is tipping left, and this weird spongey bump that appears after very long rides), she pokes, prods and measures and tells me that this will be a bigger job than usual (she refits every 6 months on my growing boy). So we got a surprise fitting, she took the saddle and said it would be ready in a week. No problem for me, because I had a very busy work week.

Well I picked up the saddle a few days ago, had a magnificent ride and !surprise surprise! my left hip did not hurt afterwards. Huh. So, clearly hindsight is 20/20. But next time I will call saddle fitter sooner.

Meanwhile, the custom western saddle maker came to test the tree. A perfect fit. It was cool to see the tree on Q in advance and imagine what is next. I will keep my english saddle but my plan is to mostly use my western saddle for my long trail rides, and of course I have asked for custom saddle bags to lug my water bottle, sandwich and apples for my 3-4 hour treks in our beautiful woods.

My old TexTan saddle never fit Q. I tried a dozen western saddles and finally the exasperated Tack store owner said to me that maybe I should change my horse. Haha! Of course many andalusians do not have a compatible conformation for QH type western saddles. Its not just the width of the tree, its also how the bars need to flair out at the shoulders, the slope of the spine, and the width at the lumbar support. Most of the off-the-rack saddles of varying types and trees would bridge, and that was just a bad road I did not want to travel.

So, in spite of my jobless state and burgeoning entrepreneur career, I took the plunge (with my husbands blessing) and began the process of designing my custom saddle that would take one year to delivery. Now we have about 6 months to go.

Along the way, I decided on my specs. I wanted a deep seat comfortable trail saddle but that had the weight of a barrel saddle (under 25 pounds, instead of 35-40 pounds). I wanted a dark brown saddle to better match the future speckled whiteness that Q will be (Im pretty confident now that he will be flea-bitten grey as the spots are now obvious on his face). A round skirt to allow for Qs short back. I wanted a lady tree that is slight more narrow in the seat. I wanted flaired bars to give Q room for his shoulders. Not too much tooling, and no silver (but room to add if I want to ever get back in the show-ring). And matching saddle bags that are only big enough to fit two 500ml water bottles on each side. It was a fun but daunting process to make so many choices. Here is a pic of the standard I gave the saddle maker.

So this milestone is done. Now 6 months to go.
And today its a good day for a rain jacket and a gallop in the woods. Im sure Q will agree.