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[RC] How many saddles - k s swigart

Kathy Ramspott said:

I'd like to gather information on how many saddles folks purchase
(regardless of number of horses) during an endurance career.
...

Actually, truth be told, I might want to use it as ammunition/excuse
to tell my husband should I want to venture out and get an endurance
saddle. 0-:

Well, the information you get from me isn't going to help you with
respect to your "ammunition/excuse."

I started out riding endurance in an English "eventing" saddle, and
while I have acquired (not all of them were bought, some were received
in trade for training) lots of saddles since that first one (I currently
own about 15 saddles), only one of them is an "endurance" saddle that
was bought for that purpose, and even that one gets used on the same
horse for barrel racing.  The rest of them have been jumping saddles,
dressage saddles, a couple of western saddles, and some additional
eventing saddles.

So, if the saddle you currently have fits you and your horse, not only
is there no reason to venture out and get an endurance saddle, it will
probably be an expensive mistake. :) Since something different is
unlikely to be an improvement on "fits you and your horse."

The best saddle to do endurance in is one that fits you and your horse
(the saddle fitting you IS important), what it was originally
manufactured for and/or bought for is of no import.

And I still use the original eventing saddle on some horses....the ones
that it fits, since it is as good for doing endurance on now as it was
when I bought it (15 years ago) even though it was probably atleast 15
years old even then.

It has made PLENTY of trips to the saddler since then being restuffed,
repairs to holes or cracks in the panels, rings installed, etc. But it
hasn't been replaced.  It just has a wider tree than most of my horses
need right now.

kat
Orange County, Calif.



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If people would just think of the hoof as the foundation for the horse like
a house foundation.  when your horse plants his foot down in the ground and
pushes forward if the foot isn't 100% balanced your chances of injury go
up. 
~  Paula Blair

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