Saddle Fitting, Scientific Method, and Parabolic Skis

Sunday, December 28th, 2008 | saddle fitting | No Comments

I was a long way down the road in this job and had already become a qualified fitter in the UK before I really began to get an inkling of how saddles work below the surface of the panel.  Those of you who have followed the halting progress of these posts will realize by now that I am all for lifting the veil when it comes to revealing the inner fit secrets of a saddle - namely the tree.  I believe that having a grasp of the geometry of a tree  and how it compares to the geometry of a particular horse is a huge step towards understanding the fit considerations of any saddle.

Needless to say, the geometry of trees and the physics of load-bearing structures were never specifically addressed in my training as a saddle fitter, nor have they featured in any significant way in any book or magazine article I have ever read on the subject. › Continue reading

Tags: saddle fitting, saddle trees

Saddle Fit: Tree measurements and descriptions

Sunday, September 28th, 2008 | saddle fitting | No Comments

“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

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

Saddle Fitting: Consider the humble saddle tree

Monday, September 22nd, 2008 | saddle fitting | 2 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