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Society of Master Saddlers

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; its the part you cant see

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

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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

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