Saddle Fitting For Smarties

Can you reduce the price of my saddle?

Thursday, October 30th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Saddle & tack prices and exchange rates

Llewie modeling his Thermatex rug

We recently received an e-mail from a reader asking if our blanket prices might soon be decreased to account for the recnet change in the exchange rate.  This is an issue that comes up periodically because so many of our products are made in the UK or the EU and the exchange rates do fluctuate.  We have not changed the Thermatex prices for several years despite many currency fluctuations, and we don’t anticipate that we will, though their prices have gone up.  Incidentally, some overseas suppliers denominate their exports in dollars (including Thermatex) so what we pay for the dollar-denominated products changes only when they raise the cost to us of their dollar-priced goods.

Where we are paying suppliers for direct imports in pounds or Euros, we try to set retail prices that allow for a window to both sides for currency-price fluctuations, and we try to calculate that window so that we can absorb some loss on the exchange when the rate swings the other way as well.  And the window certainly does bulge both ways. › Continue reading

Tags: exchange rates, importing saddles, saddle prices, tack prices

Anyone for Side Saddle?

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 | saddle fitting | 4 Comments

This saddle was custom-made for this horse. The other saddle was off the rack at half the price. You be the judge of which one is the better fit.

› Continue reading

Tags: British saddlemakers, custom saddles, rider fit, saddle fit, saddle fitting trade-offs

The battle for the soul of the saddle fitter

Sunday, October 12th, 2008 | saddle fitting | 2 Comments

It is my impression that virtually every saddle fitter I have ever met has a genuine concern for the comfort of the horse.  It is thus fantastically frustrating that we are lacking a science-based, unified theory of correct saddle fitting.  Most of the time we don’t really know what is optimal for a particular horse and we have to rely on personal experience to make that judgment.  To some extent — for me at least – judgment derives from years of digesting the kind of “learning experience” that I might have preferred to avoid if possible.

These photos are clear examples of conflicting philosophies of saddle design:    

I find it extraordinary that there can be such divergence of opinion about some of the most fundamental aspects of correct saddle fitting.  On several occasions, I have had the opportunity to hear presentations by well-known luminaries in the field who have developed their own brands based on particular design concepts.  I have tried to be as objective as possible in evaluating what I understand their approach to be, and to be open-minded to new concepts that might help me to be a better saddle fitter. › Continue reading

Tags: pliance testing, saddle design, saddle fitters, saddle fitting, saddle panels, saddle technology

Saddle Fit: Tree measurements and descriptions

Sunday, September 28th, 2008 | saddle fitting | 1 Comment

“Not everything that counts can be measured. Not everything that can be measured counts.” - Albert Einstein

Although centimeter measurements are a common means of comparing one saddle to another, in reality this means of describing the fit of a saddle is about as useful and as accurate as describing the fit of the saddle by saying, “It’s brown.”

A schematic is helpful in comparing the shape of trees

If I knew the centimeter measurements on all of the trees we use (which I don’t), I’m afraid that information wouldn’t help much in comparing the fit of one tree to another tree.   The overall shape and fit considerations of a saddle cannot be accurately expressed as a single measurement, either as a distance between the tree points or as a nominal standard such as “medium” or “wide.”

We don’t know how this bizarre idea ever got started of measuring tree points, but it is a bit like buying a pair of pants on the basis of how long the leg is, regardless of the actual size of the garment or the measurement of the waist and hips.  The measurement you are asking for – the distance between the bottom of the tree points – could be a completely misleading indicator of the actual fit. › Continue reading

Tags: saddle fit, saddle fitting, saddle measurement, saddle shape, saddle tree, saddle tree points, saddle trees

When saddle fit collides with logic

Sunday, September 28th, 2008 | saddle fitting | 2 Comments

Maggie and Fergus addressing the issues of logic, fact, and gardening.

“Logic and fact keep interfering with the easy flow of conversation.” - Mason Cooley

Before I was a saddle fitter, I was a career Foreign Service Officer, trained in international economics.  Since almost nothing ever works as it theoretically should in economics, and since no one seriously expects that it will, economists are rarely blamed when they don’t get it right.   This is not so with saddle fitting.   People who seek help from saddle fitters expect that they know what they are doing.   They generally expect that the experience will result in something positive, a lasting solution for themselves and their horses, notwithstanding the fact that saddle fitting, even at its most successful, is fundamentally an exercise in damage control.

A significant complication in this process is that equus and homo sapien are two quite disparate species, each with its own particular set of ergonomic requirements.  Yet they must share the same piece of equipment, share the same bearing structure from opposite sides, and — however improbable this might be sometimes — it has to fit them both. › Continue reading

Tags: horse fit rider fit, narrow twist wide horse, saddle fit challenges, saddle fitting

Welcome to my world: Saddle Fitting for Smarties

Sunday, September 28th, 2008 | Introduction | No Comments

“Any color – so long as it’s black.” - Henry Ford

The key is the tree; it's the part you can't see

This blog is about saddle fitting, or at least my experience of saddle fitting.  It is the product of time in the field and in the factory, seeking, testing, gritting teeth, frothing with excitement, sucking it up in the face of failure, using foul language, getting a little closer, losing the trail, stumbling upon the right trail again; all illuminated over time by enough enlightening “ah-ha!” moments to keep the quest fresh for me year after year.  If you have any questions you would like to see addressed in the blog, please e-mail me at info@advancedsaddlefit.com, and be sure to include Blog in the subject line.

I hope this will become a forum for the lively exchange of ideas, a place for other professional saddle fitters to share the benefits of collective experience, and a destination for the curious consumer looking for a more probing treatment of saddle fitting than the cursory guidelines listed in “The Seven Points of Saddle Fitting” (or the 10 points, or 14.6, or any prime number higher than 23, depending on who is composing the list). › Continue reading

Tags: saddle design, saddle fitting, saddle trees, Society of Master Saddlers, Walsall

A visit by the saddle fitter

Sunday, September 28th, 2008 | saddle fitting | 2 Comments

“Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.” - Rita Mae Brown

When the saddle fitter calls

I had a chat this afternoon with one of our clients in another part of the country about the impending visit of a saddle fitter to her barn. She is pondering whether she should sign up for an evaluation of her saddle. “Do you think they can make an objective judgment,” she wonders, “or will they just try to sell me a different saddle?”  Well, I can’t possibly answer that objectively myself.  I do know that good fit occurs along a continuum.

If the fit is perfect in one phase of motion, it may be much less perfect at some other moment. If the fit is great when the horse is at full fitness, it may not be so good when the horse has had time off.  Though a saddle may fit well enough with a light rider, the panels may not support the tree efficiently with a much heavier rider on board.  The interface between the horse and the saddle changes all the time, and since there is no absolute standard of what is good enough, we are all left with only judgment and educated guesses, really. › Continue reading

Tags: horse shape, questions for saddle fitter, saddle adjustments, saddle flocking, saddle shape, what happens in a saddle fitting

Saddle Fitting: Consider the humble saddle tree

Monday, September 22nd, 2008 | saddle fitting | 3 Comments

“A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.” - Mark Twain

More about trees

Wood spring trees are made by bending laminated wood strips around a form that looks like a horse’s back.  The wood spring tree takes on the shape of the form it is built on.  The shape is then re-inforced by steel bands and a head plate and gullet plate.

There are many other factors beside nominal tree width that affect the fit. Even a tree of suitable shape cannot do the job alone. No matter how much you narrow this tree, something more will be needed to prevent injury to this horse.

Synthetic trees are injection molded, using a plastic-like, nylon composite material.  The material for the tree is poured into a mold and it comes out in one solid piece.  Then its width at the head is established by pushing the points of the tree outward or inward.

In the manufacture of synthetic trees — which dominate in the lower half of the saddle market and are becoming increasingly prevalent even in the rarefied top end — the initial investment in a mold to produce a tree is expensive, but the production cost per tree is low.  This is one of several potent disincentives to producing saddles on many different shapes of tree for many different shapes of horse. › Continue reading

Tags: saddle fitting, saddle shape, saddle trees, synthetic trees, wood spring trees

On becoming a saddle fitter

Monday, September 22nd, 2008 | saddle fitter training, saddle fitting | 7 Comments

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” - Oscar Wilde

Occasionally people send e-mails expressing an interest in becoming a professional saddle fitter and asking where training is available.  I don’t have a good answer for this.  It’s hard for me to imagine becoming an educated saddle fitter without spending time with saddle makers and tree makers, but they aren’t thick on the ground in North America.   Various therapeutic practitioners offer brief courses here, often in conjunction with training in therapeutic services such as equine massage, and some saddle brands offer training in aid of marketing their saddles.   

Some time ago, unhappy with the limitations of what I could learn where I was, I began to make the pilgrimage to Walsall frequently, to badger saddle makers, more experienced saddle fitters, and tree makers, crassly mining their collective centuries of experience for a fleck or two of precious insight.  The effort has been more than worth it, and this is quite odd because, in Walsall at least, almost any saddle maker you talk to will give you a completely different story about the right way to do things.  › Continue reading

Tags: saddle fitter training, Society of Master Saddlers