Sooooo...
The chiropractor came out yesterday and I had him look at Izzy's saddle in relation to her back. The good news is that we have a problem which can be fixed. The bad news is that school is about to start ($$$) and I have a saddle that "doesn't really fit well"($$$).
Sigh.
At least I decided to go through with having him look at her, rather than leave her uncomfortable.
Anyways. I've checked the saddle numerous times, and it seems to fit. It clears her spine with a perfect three fingers all the way through. The panels make steady, even contact with her back. The only trouble was that after I got done riding, there was a slightly odd sweatmark kind of under the stirrup bar. Nothing to unusual, just not quite kosher. Cathy commented on it as well.
According to the chiro, the problem occurs because the saddle's tree goes like this: | | while her withers go kinda like this: ) ( . Because of that, her saddle bridges a little bit and puts pressure theoretically on her withers and back, though I've just noticed it on her withers. Either way, the saddle is too narrow for her shoulders. I'm inclined to think that this is the result of working her. When we started (and when I got this saddle), she had never really been worked. Now that her muscles are developing, things don't fit how they used to.
It's sad, really. I love my saddle.
I have already tried every non-dressage saddle in the tackroom on her. They don't fit. Wintecs, particularly, I don't like. (Which sucks, because that's what my other saddle is.) The wintec profile is just too curved for her, so the saddle is effectually a rocking chair. That's no good. I posted an ad on craigslist to see if anyone had a 17.5" close contact saddle with a wide tree to sell me, and I've had one response from a lady who has just the thing: a Barnsby Skleton. After looking it up online, I've come to two conclusions: 1) It looks like a fabulous saddle 2) Used ones are well beyond my budget.
Here's hoping the lady has no idea what her saddles are worth.
Speaking of budget, I'm thinking that if this (or another saddle) works, I could sell my current two saddles to make money/room for it. Izzy's not going to get narrower, so the close contact one is done and I never really liked the wintec. It was a nice first saddle, but now that I've had leather, I don't want to go back.
So if you were selling a saddle, would you do consignment through a tack store, craigslist, or another online listing? Or what?
You can sell your saddle through consignment, if the store actually has turnover in used saddles - check to see. For buying, I never do that online, since there's no way to tell if the saddle fits. I have a mare who is very difficult to fit - we tried many, many saddles - you want adequate clearance in the shoulders - that's key. We selected a bunch (saddle store used/new) that fit me, knowing roughly what we needed and with advice from the store - but we didn't have them do the fittings (most saddle store fitters don't know that much and what they do know is often wrong), we did them ourselves and then had our chiropractor review our top choices. This took a lot of scheduling and back and forthing - several times - but we finally got one that fit.
ReplyDeleteSaddle fit is so important - and I'm so excited that you now have something to fix that will help her physically!