Saddle shopping! The time has come to part with my old PJ Bruno Delgrange and invest in a new English saddle for regular use. With so many different brands, leathers, and styles out there it is hard to know which way to turn! Calf skin, grain leather, buffalo hide, deep seat, flat seat, saddle flap shape and position, all of these factors combine to create so many unique style options. I started my search by simply googling used saddles and began looking through the selections offered by various online merchants. I was very impressed with the offerings of Redwood Tack, which ships saddles all across the country for interested buyers to use during a set trial period. If the saddle doesn’t work, the buyer can simply send the saddle back and have another one shipped over for trial. I expected that I would need to follow suit, but my lovely trainer Samantha Lanzone seems to know everyone in the horse industry on the west coast and she reached out to Leah Matanky, the owner of Redwood Tack personally. It turns out that Leah’s shop is only about an hours drive from where I live in Livermore! Leah invited me to meet her at the shop, which I hastily agreed to like on kid on Christmas with visions of all the saddles listed on her website dancing through my mind.

When I arrived at her beautiful Redwood Tack homebase located in the mountains just north of San Francisco, I was delighted to see all the saddles organized around the shop on racks from the floor to the ceiling. Every wall was literally covered in beautiful saddles, any fine tack lover dream! I showed her the saddles I had been most interested in from my online investigation, and we set to work finding them and placing them each individually on a special saddle rack capable of holding my weight. She must have helped me to sit on 20 different saddles there in her shop, and if one didn’t feel quite right, she would remove it and replace it with another that she felt may be better suited for me. I owe so many thanks to Leah for her patience and thoughtfulness as we tried saddle after saddle.

Based on best fit, the brands I ended up liking the most were Voltaire, CWD, and Antares. I was pleasantly surprised by the Voltaire brand, and ended up taking two models home with me to try out, the Stuttgart and the Palm Beach. I also took a CWD and Antares. Wow, four saddles to try at home!  I was so happy with Leah’s professional service and very grateful to her trusting personality as I drove off with all those beautiful saddles in my car. Boy was I excited to try these saddles out on some horses!

I do not own a horse myself, it is my job to train the client’s horses stabled at Horizons East. It is for this reason that I wanted the most generic and regular sized tree and panels in the saddles I chose. Horses I ride range in height from medium ponies (12.2 hands) to giant warmbloods (18 hands), so it is important that I find a saddle that is a good fit for most body types. I took photos of each saddle and it’s fit on the 12 horses that I rode on Wednesday hoping that would help to make up my mind in selecting the right one. 

I decided that the Antares (Skylar model) placed my leg in an awkward position. It took a few rides for me to realize that the knee roll was just in the wrong position for my specific leg shape. The leather was so luxuriously soft and supple, I was rather disappointed that I couldn’t make it work, but I decided to put this one aside and try the others. The CWD also took several rides before I was able to make up my mind, but it helped me to learn something about my saddle preference. I just felt like my leg was not as close to the horse’s body as what I am used to, and when I finally looked at the bottom of the saddle I realized why. The front panels which are slender in my old PJ, where quite wide and much more triangular in shape on the CWD. After a bit of research, I learned that this panel type is called a K-panel or skid-row panel, and is traditional used for horses that have downhill confirmation to prevent the saddle from slipping forward onto the withers. I certainly didn’t need this specific type of paneling system for the wide array of horses that I ride, so I put this saddle aside and focused on the two Voltaire.

At first it was difficult for me to ascertain a difference between the Stuttgart and Palm Beach models when riding, but after switching back and forth on several horses I realized that the flatter seat of the West Palm really raised me out of the saddle more and pitched me forward. Traditionally flatter seats are better for the hunter and equitation riders, and deeper seats are for jumper riders but I didn’t realize how much of a difference this made until I rode a large hunter type in the West Palm saddle. Expecting to find it appropriate for the ride, I instead found myself unbalanced, fighting the tack to keep my lower leg from slipping back and my torso from tilting forward. Strange that I hadn’t felt that during any of the other rides I’d had in it! All in all, the Stuttgart won my appreciation with it’s deeper seat and comfortable, balanced proportions. Honestly I would probably have bought this saddle but my trainer warned me that while they are known to be extremely comfortable (which yes, I will absolutely vouch for), the Voltaires do not hold up for trainers who ride multiple horses every day.

I was embarrassed to contact Leah and let her know that I wasn’t in love with any of the saddles she had provided for me to try. She graciously listened to my feedback, and then invited me back to her place for three new saddles that she hand picked for me based on my reviews! I was overjoyed, and promptly drove the Palm Beach, CWD, and Antares back to Redwood Tack, where I exchanged them for a beautiful Butet Saumur, Devoucoux Biarritz, and Antares Signature. She encouraged me to keep the Stuttgart as comparison for these new models. I will write a separate review of my experiences with these three new saddles, so in the mean time happy riding!

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