Een stukje van Wendy MacCoubrey (OCTRA Member) en zadelpasdienster

'After now having almost 3 years fitting expierence I thought I'd throw in my two cents.
This is both a personal experience and what I've learned - First and most important thing to remember is that a horse was never meant to carry weight on his back let alone the spine. With the treeless it puts pressure directly on the spine.
I rode in a treeless for 3 years and had no back problems - partly because we configured a pad to go under the saddle with panels to distribute the weight and not allow any pressure to the spine.
I changed to a treed saddle 3 years ago and my horse began to have this huge extented trot - he always wanted to move out with such ease- I could get this from him in my treeless but the heart rates ran about 140 - he was working and this is not really were I want my horse at for any length of time. I first thought he was just being a goof at 13 miles an hour and I would slow him down even though my monitor was only reading a maximum of 110 - I realized he was capable of travelling long distance at this speed and then we began to develope those muscles ( this would be a new muscle pattern for the horse - not using these muscles before). The horses heartrate dropped by 30 beats. His canter went from 135 to 115 instantly - I now believe that the treeless,because there is no support also bound the shoulder not allowing him the full movement of his shoulders.
I do alot of impressions and the thing we see most in the treeless is pressure under the stirrup bars ( which makes sense: without a tree, there is no structure to distribute weight from the stirrup), or pressure directly on the wither . This I believe in part has to do with the forward rigging on the treeless - forward rigging causes pressure to be pulled down from the front (again no support ) - We also had the rigging on the my saddle changed to a more centred rigging but based on the saddle design I could not get it as centred as it really should be.
The other very big difference was for me - Once I started with the treed saddle I was never stiff or sore - It gave me much better balance and position and now I can go forever .
There is not one saddle that fits ever horse and I believe that to be true with the treeless also but I do believe that it fits better then a saddle with a tree to small. The other thing that is very important is the horses twist - we all talk about our twists, well guess what ,the horse has one to! We are finding that if you bind or pinch the horses twist you are unable to get the lateral movement from the horse. Without support or with a saddle that is to small we bind the twist.
One of the most noticable things in my treed saddle is I can ride 50 miles and every time I pull my saddle I have this 2.5 inch strip right down the spine that is perfectly dry - there is no interference with the twist, spine or the spinous process allowing the horse to move freely.
And finally , there are certain treeless saddles that are so long that they interfere with the horse's loin and hip.
All in all there is no one saddle for every horse and the best way to find the right saddle for you and your horse is to continue to educate yourself and understand your horse - trust me they speak very loud and clear if we just listen.'