Saddle Woe's

Saddle still not fitting correctly.  I've got it sitting up off the withers now by going from Extra Wide gullet  to Medium Wide.   It appears to be pinching at the shoulders now at the narrowest (is that a word?) part.

Went to local tack store and they have a saddle fitter as part of their staff.  I have to say she was very helpful answered all my questions with honesty and wasn't interested in selling me a new saddle.  Even though I did take a consignment home on trial - more on that later.

So I told her what I had, what the initial problem was with the X-Wide gullet it, which gullet I put in based on the measuring thingie.  What the new gullet solved, but created new issue.  I explained Rosie, and while she has some wither, she is typical flat draft back. She has enough wither that my saddle does not roll.

She said to go with the next widest gullet, which I will do, then use Mattes pad to make up any room.  If I feel it still is too low to the withers, to try a thin-line.   She said that is what she would do until Rosie finished filling out.

I also discussed Duett saddles - she said they are naturally low in the pommel and may not  be correct either, even though they are wider.   They didn't have any there, but they did have a Albion Dressage wide tree, 16.5 seat.  She said the tree itself is a bit wider and may fit nicer, it at least gives me an idea of how a different saddle would fit her.  So she set up with a demo dressage girth because I wasn't sure if I had one; my saddle is an All Purpose so that girth wouldn't work at all.

Off to the barn I went.  Today I decided to try the consignment saddle because our weather is going to turn bad starting tomorrow afternoon and I've only got it for a week.  I put my leathers on it and tossed it up on Rosie.  It appeared to sit balanced, it wasn't higher either in pommel or cantle. Billets fell in the correct locations and I could slide my hand easily between the points and Rosie's shoulders.  Plenty of wither space.  

I haven't ridden in an actual dressage saddle in years, and to top it off my leathers on the highest hole were too long.  I didn't want to punch new holes as I need help with that because of having one leg noticeably longer than the other.  So I wasn't too happy about that because my legs fell more into a chair position so most of the time I just dropped them.   I was able to get Rosie nicely forward and she was pretty responsive for her.  I just can't tell if it fits her any better.

Tomorrow morning if I have time I'm going to change the gullet in my saddle and see if I can get to a happy medium so we can continue to build her top line in.  After Christmas I'm going to have the saddle fitter come out and do a true fitting.  At that point I'll decide if I have to buy a new saddle or not.