Endurance Saddles

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From: Barb Peck 
Email: bpeck@us.ibm.com

Hi:
DeLurking for this one:
Western type saddles (which includes endurance models w/o horn) have a larger bearing surface to the tree than do English saddles.  But that doesn't make one style   necessarily better than the other. The different saddle "styles" are mostly for the humans and their choice as to what they want to sit in & feel safe in.
  Most horses are incredibly forgiving, considering that they'll still try to please their riders even when their back aches, or their circulation is shunted in specific areas under their saddle. Smart, vocal or horses ridden long distances usually find a way to eventually comunicate any displeasure to their rider.
   So bottom line........ it doesn't matter what type of saddle you ride in as long as 
it doesn't sore your horse.
   I'm a Sharon Saare fitter, as are afew others on this list, and even with the 8 tree sizes I have of Sharons' I couldn't fit one of my *own* horses.  I ended up finding a custom saddle maker within 2 hrs. of me that made a custom endurance (no-horn model) saddle for my really-wide shouldered gelding. It ended up costing about the same as a SSaare  ($1400.00).
   The statement "you get what you pay for" is generally true (with admittedly a few exceptions)but in the case of saddles,  even an expensive saddle is worthless if it doesn't fit your horse. 
   There is one tree I'd stay away from though: 
   The so-called "ralide" trees are really just plastic 
one of the many cheap trees that shorten a saddles life.
These IMO are the worst.
    Most english style saddles are fine for long distance riding (IF they fit the horse) if you have them restuffed when needed.  They flatten out pretty fast with alot of miles.
    Then there are the tree-less saddles, some people love'em some don't... but the same principal still applies.... it must fit your horse.  I've seen horses with 2 white spots, right where the riders seat bones are, on a horse ridden in a SS.... and then there are 100 mile horses ridden in them sucessfully without problems.
  Then there are saddle pads: you can screw-up a perfectly good saddle fit with the wrong pad & in some cases you can (slightly) improve a saddle's fit with the perfect pad.
    Listen to your horses, they'll tell you what fits & what doesn't.  And expect to pay more than you thought you could afford... so if you pay less, you'll be happy.;)
 
 Barb