Invictus Half Pad Review

I've had a lot of half pads. I had a dressage-cut Ogilvy (OMG SO HUGE) and switched to a correction Mattes (fit, but no rear roll sob). Last fall, I decided that the Mattes was a little too bulky and creating pressure ridges under the panels of my saddle, so I needed something new. I went with the Invictus Necesse pad for it's super-modern tech, low profile design, and hell, I had a coupon.

Construction

came with cool bag too

The Invictus website does a fantastic write up of their products--the basic idea is that if you whack them with a stick, the pad "freezes" and aborbs the impact without transferring (much) of it on to the horse. Thus, your motion in the saddle is transmitted to the horse, but sudden impacts and jolts are filtered out. Seems cool. (Noted: this entire paragraph in laymen's terms. For science, ask a scientist.)

non slip top

What that translates to is a thin, spine-free design half pad that's non-slip on top and mesh on the bottom. It doesn't have a washable cover or custom colors like Ogilvy, but after 6+ months of use, my white pad is pretty much a white pad and if I want to it to look more white, I could hose it off I think. 

mesh bottom

Fit

Here's an interesting one. Trends in half pads vary by discipline, so it's normal to have a dressage cut model and a jump cut model (see: Ogilvy, Mattes). Invictus doesn't. There's basically one size, one cut. I ride in a 17.5" dressage saddle that no one calls small, and it looks like this:

It doesn't hang out all over the place and it doesn't create ridges under the saddle. The front is a little more curved to accommodate a jump saddle, but it works just fine under my dressage model. 

holla

Durability

I never review something straight after I buy it. I like to put a lot of miles on it, get it dirty, clean it a few times, and generally abuse it. I mean, otherwise you get those hordes of fangirls that are all "SQUEEE I GOT X TRENDY THING AND NOW I FEEL TRENDY", which like. If you want to feel trendy, fab, but that tells me nothing about said product. 

shown: wear

So after about six months of use, the Invictus pad has some black rubs on it from my black saddle, but those go under the saddle and don't change it's function. I've dropped it in the dirt, had sweat soak through the pad, whatever, and it's pretty much fine. No complaints here.If smudges bother you, maybe don't get white. 

Value

The Necesse pad runs around $250 retail. Ogilvy is $230, Mattes $230 (rear trim, no shims), Thinline Trifecta (shimmable, with trim) $180, Acavalla (gel+sheepskin) $220. There are others, but my point is, it's not out of sight price-wise, especially not when you consider the trendy half pad market. And hey, this is trendy + science! Winning combo. I paid somewhat less than the $250 and word is their are new options coming out, so the odds of hitting an old model sale are good.

Is a half pad worth $200+ dollars? Eh. It depends what kind of issue you're addressing and how much you feel like spending. 

Likes

Science sounding stuff in the name; compact and easily folds in half to store on top of my saddle; low profile design has minimal impact on saddle fit; clean and simple look.

Dislikes

This is maybe minor to some, but kind of big for me--I like to pull my saddle pad up into the gullet of my saddle so it's not creating pressure points on Courage's withers. When I did that with my mattes or ogilvy pads, they stayed right where I put them. This pad slides down and take the saddle pad with it. It technically stays off his withers still, but it does not stay where I put it. Thus far, it doesn't deeply offend me but I can definitely see it being a problem.

Conclusion

If you want something less than Ogilvy in terms of filling up under your saddle and are ok with completely giving up custom colors, this pad would fit the bill. I see it as more of a competitor with the old thinline pads before sheepskin and quilt. Those admittedly were even worse for wither relief, so it just depends what you're looking for. If you want to know if this pad costs enough money and drops enough buzzwords to give you a platform to look down on people who don't have one, I'd say no. It fills space. It's trendy. It's not magic.

If you want the latest and greatest in magical tech, this pad is right for you. If your saddle basically fits, it probably won't make it worse. If you're happy with what you have already, I don't think you need to drop almost $300 for this.

Tack Hos Gone Wild

Hellooooooo internet... It's been a while. I'd say I've missed you, but sort been mid-crisis on a lot of things lately, so not so much on the internetting, much less the missing thereof.

Let's just say it's been an expensive few weeks.

Here's why:

One of my awesome browband ladies (I have two. Because ho.) contacted me a while back and offered to ship me a second that she'd made and disliked but didn't want to disassemble. Obviously, I said "yes".

topline leather goodies!!

Or something less professional and with more hearts and sparkles.

The only catch was that it was on brown leather and Courage only sort of has a brown bridle (and the browband on that bridle was purchased from my other browband lady for very specific reasons and I don't fancy taking it apart). Thus, I pressured Lindsey into helping me on the brown bridle 2.0 search well before the browband arrived.

fancy!

Courage somewhat-compliantly modeled several different brown bridles for me, then we threw on Lindsey's cool new dressage bridle for giggles.

less compliant

By the time we were done, my phone looked like this:

only one of many screens

And we'd definitely established that none of the bridles were quite right.

the pretties!

Then the beautiful browband showed up (love.) and I tried it on the brown bridle I do have. It's supposed to be a Nunn Finer figure eight, but I frankened it out long ago. Sadly, as much as I love my blue noseband with my blue and orange browband, it was uh... less than stunning with pink. 

eww

That started a flurry of searching for the perfect brown bridle at the perfect price, which netted me these things:

ebay steal: smartpak cavesson for $20

ETT-special plaited reins to match otto (wasn't looking, but hey)

invictus half pad because reasons and a coupon

Of those options, the one on top MIGHT solve my problem but apparently it was shipped by mule train. And then the mules went lame. And died. Or cannibalized each other. Probably all those options. Regardless, it's not here yet. 

I tried riding with the figure eight but due to some genius decision making that I'm going to blame on stress, I forgot to bring my running martingale out with it and let's just say that bolty OTTBs in the fall do not go without martingales. Particularly not when they aren't being ridden regularly and a storm is blowing in. See, I sometimes make good decisions, just usually not until a string of bad ones already happened.

fanceh

Which is to say. I barely saw my horse last week. I have a metric ton (actual figure) of fancy shit for him to play with. I've barely touched any of it. And basically every day is Christmas at my house until all this stuff shows up! 

Because once I got all pumped about bridle searching, I ran across a decent looking knock off of the modern Otto Schumacher bridle I've been drooling on since forever and then I ordered that too!

never had patent before

It obviously won't match the new browband, but I have a bonus black browband at the moment plus it comes with it's own and yeah, really can't explain this one other than to say I deserved it after the week I had. It's also not here yet, but given I ordered through a British tack shop in the wee hours of Sunday morning, I don't expect it til next week anyways.

I guess y'all can just be glad that I didn't also purchase this amazing critter from the hospital gift shop.

so stylish! such personality!

Trust me, I considered it.