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My hard-to-fit saddle candidate:

 

Riding in Balance - My Story

My saddle story is somehow a love story. The first Hidalgo saddle I have owned was bought for Leon.

Leon - you see him in the cover pictures - was a 4 year old KWPN gelding. I never fall in love with a horse like this before - after a view days we had an outstanding bonding. To be prepared for backing and riding I bought a Hidalgo London GP saddle. I wanted the best for this horse - he should experience riding as a wonderful adventure we shared.

 

It was just once I sat on this fantastic little horse - before he died. Bad luck the vet said. He had a tear in a protecting layer of the gut where more than a meter of his intestine went through. We tried everything but 36 hours after surgery we had to lay him down. I know that he felt adored and loved when he passed away - he had found “his” human.

 

At this point of time I still had my retired endurance horse - an eqyptian arab. He is part of my life for more than 10 years now and more like a dog than a horse. With him my interest in saddle fitting started. Being just around 14.2 hhs high, with strong shoulders reaching far back into the saddle area, a short back and a girth area in front of the saddle area he was a truly hard-to-fit saddle candidate. Additionally he changed regularly by getting and loosing muscles during training intervals. When riding long distance endurance races the saddle and a perfect fitting is more than important. So I learnt where to look at and what is needed for a perfectly fitted saddle.

 

We started treeless with a Startrekk saddle - good for him, difficult for me. Easy to fit, using paddable numnahs but in a shape that made flatwork difficult. So a Sommer wooden tree saddle was bought. Nice and yes it fitted well - for a few weeks. I was lucky enough to have a good saddle fitter at hand who teached me how to do the “fine-tuning” using a paddable numnah again. That was the point when I started to have saddle fitter trainings.

 

When I was looking for a saddle for Leon I found the Hidalgo saddles: They provide what I expected from a saddle:

  • flexibility: easily adaptable by changing panels, pick your seat size, flexible knee blocks
  • stability: firm leather tree comparable to the modern flexible trees used in most big brands
  • diversity: all kinds of saddles from English (including dressage and GP) to Iberian, Western and Endurance/Trekking

Leon’s saddle found another horse’s back with my new project and the little arab got his own Hidalgo - a Venice special dressage saddle. And to tell you a secret: He has a second saddle since a few months - a Hidalgo Valencia shorty Iberian saddle. A horse being ridden 2-3 times a week... I just can’t decide which of the saddles I like most.

 Convinced by the system I wanted to become a Hidalgo saddle fitter. And so I learnt how to fit these saddles and started to offer my service as a specialized Hidalgo saddle fitter in Scotland - the first Scottish saddle fitter introducing and trading this brand.

Life goes on and so did my saddle fitter journey. Hidalgo was a good start but there are so many more options and interesting systems. Before a saddle system becomes part of my range it has to convince ME. And a few system did: Ghost, Deuber & Partner, Startrekk by Deuber and Seabis for example. I will quite likely add more - if they meet my expectations with regard to flexibility, adaptability and quality!

 

Thanks for reading and taking part in my journey which started with a love story and grew to a business. I am happy to help - help your horse to get the most comfortable saddle for his or her back and help you the make the best out of your seat and riding abilities.