Saddle Shopping, Again...

I’m back in saddle fit purgatory. I adore my current saddle and the tree actually fits pretty decently, however, as I’ve mentioned previously it has started to really slide forward during rides. In addition now that she’s getting more fit it seems slightly wide.

I think that part of the saddle sliding forward could be fixed by a saddle fitter but there are several things that a fitter would need to do and honestly I just don’t trust the fitter that came out last time since she went back and forth so much. I’m hesitant to have her do a bunch of stuff which would likely reduce the value of my (already not very valuable saddle) and then possibly still not have it fit. One of those things is that the billets are just way too far back for my pony’s very forward girth groove.

Saddle where it's supposed to be, billets pretty far off

I think I need a point billet so that’s been one of the items on my new saddle checklist. The others are short panels, close contact feel, short flaps, and preferably the option to get it in brown. Oh, and of course that it fits and is in my budget.

On paper the Prestige Lucky seems to be all of these things. It comes in a 16” seat but people have said that it feels like a 17” since it’s a much more open seat. It has nice short flaps, point billets, short panels, has a more close contact style, is within my budget, and it even comes in brown!!

It has been extremely tricky to actually find one that I can take on trial though. I found a US tack shop that carried the saddle and although they didn’t have a trial listed the description of the saddle mentioned a trial so I gave them a call. They were extremely helpful and told me that they normally get their trials direct from US Prestige but in this case Prestige had just sold the trial saddle to a customer and so it wasn’t available. They let me know it would be about a month for US Prestige to get the saddle back in and then get it sent to them.

It ended up taking about a month and a half and, unfortunately, when they called me the timeline for me getting the saddle would have meant that it would arrive at my barn at the beginning of my trip to WA and while L was in Sweden. I wasn’t able to push it off at all since they had another customer in line so I let them know that they could send it to her and then once they got it back I would take it.

I hadn’t heard anything so on Saturday I called to check in and see when they were planning to get the saddle back and found out that the other women wasn’t able to take it either so they’d sent it back to Prestige. They may have tried to call me when I was in WA but I didn’t get the call. It sounded like they may need to get back in line and I resigned myself to another month or more wait. Then, on Tuesday I got a call from someone at the tack shop and she let me know that it was still available!! They are getting it from US Prestige this week and then it will get shipped to my barn, hopefully next week. I’ll have all of my fingers and toes crossed that it fits and that I’m able end my saddle search for the time being.