Australian Saddle Questions

[The Farmers Daughter]

One of our boarders is considering an Australian saddle for her gaited horse. She has come to me (?) for advice and I am not sufficiently knowledgeable on Australian saddles beyond the fact that there is a lot of knock offs and crap being sold as such. So I turn to you folks for mentoring on this subject. She is considering a Bates and a Syd Hill. She would like to consider a Toowoomba but fears they are out of her price range.

She has a TWH x RMH cross who has medium withers, broad through the shoulders but short backed. Thanks for any help.

[jimsaddler]

Hi Farmers Daughter.

It may be of help for your Boarder to look up the Official site of the Saddle & Harness Makers Assoc of Australia inc. and ask some of the Aussie Saddle Makers listed there under the MEMBERS. They can advise properly as to the pitfalls of buying the wrong Aussie Stock Saddle. Some of the names are not representative of REAL Australian Stock Saddles, so please check first.

Kindest Regards.

Jim Saddler.

http://australiansaddlers.com.au/

One of our boarders is considering an Australian saddle for her gaited horse. She has come to me (?) for advice and I am not sufficiently knowledgeable on Australian saddles beyond the fact that there is a lot of knock offs and crap being sold as such. So I turn to you folks for mentoring on this subject. She is considering a Bates and a Syd Hill. She would like to consider a Toowoomba but fears they are out of her price range.

She has a TWH x RMH cross who has medium withers, broad through the shoulders but short backed. Thanks for any help.

[The Farmers Daughter]

Hi Farmers Daughter.

It may be of help for your Boarder to look up the Official site of the Saddle & Harness Makers Assoc of Australia inc. and ask some of the Aussie Saddle Makers listed there under the MEMBERS. They can advise properly as to the pitfalls of buying the wrong Aussie Stock Saddle. Some of the names are not representative of REAL Australian Stock Saddles, so please check first.

Kindest Regards.

Jim Saddler.

http://australiansaddlers.com.au/

Thank you Jim!

[Traveller]

I'm no Aussie saddle expert but there was a time a few years back when I tried very hard to find a good quality Aussie saddle to fit my broad-shouldered Appaloosa but the right saddle didn't seem to exist. My Appy has particularly broad shoulders (he's halter-bred quarter horse on top, which is a strange way to build a riding horse) and of course I didn't put every brand on him but my conclusion nonetheless is that Australian horses are more thoroughbred-types and so they don't build saddles for broader horses.

Has anybody else discovered that? Or have I jumped to a conclusion without a whole pile of facts worked in?

The closest fit was a Porter saddle but even it pinched, and it was relatively wide.

Good luck!

Joanne

[AdamTill]

I'm no Aussie saddle expert but there was a time a few years back when I tried very hard to find a good quality Aussie saddle to fit my broad-shouldered Appaloosa but the right saddle didn't seem to exist. My Appy has particularly broad shoulders (he's halter-bred quarter horse on top, which is a strange way to build a riding horse) and of course I didn't put every brand on him but my conclusion nonetheless is that Australian horses are more thoroughbred-types and so they don't build saddles for broader horses.

Has anybody else discovered that? Or have I jumped to a conclusion without a whole pile of facts worked in?

The closest fit was a Porter saddle but even it pinched, and it was relatively wide.

Good luck!

Joanne

I'm not sure if you're right or wrong, but I don't think you're too far off. I've had a bit of a process on my hands in order to find a saddle to fit my gaited Icelandic, for example, and he's very wide, short-backed, and with pronounced shoulders.

I tried to find a stock saddle for him a while back, but couldn't find a fit that I particularly liked. Even finding an english saddle was a challenge - I took a model of his back to one of the tack stores around here, and we must have tried 60 odd saddles over two visits and only found one that fit. That saddle fits him fine, but is a bit small for me.

When I eventually conceded that I needed to get a saddle done by someone who made their own trees I contacted Andy Knight, who came out to measure my horse when he was in town. Andy brought out Dennis Lane's card set (developed in Aus), and discovered that while my horse fit the middle rock profile, even accounting for the horse being overweight he was wider then both the widest front and rear profiles.

So, if Dennis' system represents the range of back shapes he usually sees over there, then I'd likely have the same trouble that you did in finding an Aussie saddle to fit him.

Cheers,

Adam

Edited June 27, 2011 by AdamTill