02/04/2026
Happy Easter everyone! Bit of a update and some fit advice!
Update from whats been going on here, trees are slowly coming together for customers who have ordered saddles, i'm still learning the tree side. The saddle orders range from 1 side of the card system to the other, so alot of changes i've had to get my head around since they are all handmade out of wood. I've long respected the tree as the most important part of the show but often not appreciated enough by the public and even certain saddle makers. I experienced first hand how much damage a wide tree can do and thats what made me want to be a saddle maker. I worked out over time by measuring horses, I didn't have enough variation in tree sizes for the horses I was measuring. I've seen alot of people advertising they are using the EBPS which is great to see measuring but i'd advise you to also be careful. Its a tool and only measures back profiles. You then have honesty part by the person interpretting the information, no further comment on this.
For me i'm not interested in measuring your horse and selling you a saddle built on a tree that wont work. Had it done to me multiple times, thousands of dollars wasted. My aim is to do my absolute best to connect the dots for you with the information we gather. Unfortunatley you can never guarantee anything as things change however mostly its minor. Your tree however doesn't change, unless its broken! So its your constant.
This is why its important for trees to be rigid not flexible. A symetrical tree that has built in scope is what you need. 99% of your problems will disappear when you measure your horses and know what body type of horses your tree fits. I don't put a big emphasis on padding like you see most saddle fitters. But i'm also not trying to sell pads. I see pads are a bandaid not a long term fix, fix the root cause. In my experience with problems I encounter on my farm, if I don't fix the problem properly when It started occurring, it ends up costing me more in most cases. Hopefully this helps someone.
I expect to have repairs finished by end of next week. Last repair job is to put a new seat in a English saddle. So expect a finished picture next week :)
