Cob Jockey

Brand: Patrick Saddlery (By way of a WestHill & Son fitting with Kate Ballard)
Cost for Fitting: $250
Number of Saddles Tried at the Fitting: 1
Number of Saddles Trialed: 0

Next up, we have Patrick Saddlery, and I'll cut right to it: it's super, super close for me between this and Eq Saddle Science.  I shipped out for this fitting, which took place at my GP trainer's barn.

Kate Ballard is a member of the Society of Master Saddlers, one of only three in the US.  To earn the title, she had to go through nine years of formal education, and continues to go through continuing education and written and practical recertifications every year.  As she puts it, this is all she's ever wanted to do with her life since she was 11, she's proud of her work and she lives for this.

(And yes, I'm using her full name because she's absolutely incredible and I think everyone should know about her, so welcome, if you find this via Google.)

She started with a thorough hands-on analysis of Connor's back, and an anatomy lesson for me, pointing out the location of his bones and the size of his bearing surface.  She didn't find any areas of soreness, but she did point out two atrophied spots that I'd never noticed before, right under the back of my saddle panels.  She made me dig my fingers in and feel the way the muscle changed there, it was stark!  But not something you can easily just see.

Since my hands were too numb to work my phone, I'll use pictures from Patrick Saddlery's Facebook page.  There are no upcharges for embellishments, it's all one fixed price for the saddle regardless, so their customers tend to go nuts with it!

A jump saddle, lest you think these are all Dressage saddles.

Next, she brought out two naked trees: one that she knew wouldn't fit (for the sake of showing me how important tree shape is) and one that she thought would fit (and it did).  It was fascinating, and very clear that unless the whole fit starts with the tree, it's impossible to know exactly what's going on in there.

Naked trees in their England workshop

It's not just tree shape, but also tree width, and where the curves of it would and would not dig into his back, regardless of where the flocking was or how wide the channel was.  Some of the difference between the wrong tree and the right tree were SO subtle, but I could see how even the subtlest "wrong" bits would be annoying for Connor.  This is also where she talked about how the idea of a "twist" being a rider preference is ridiculous. 

A naked high head tree

She talked about how they start out with the naked tree, finding which of their many tree shapes fit the horse best.  Then, using extensive 2D tracings taken of the horse, over in England they build a physical 3D model of your horse's back in their workshop and they spend 45-60 minutes painstakingly hand-shaping and shaving the beechwood tree to precisely fit that 3D model.  There are five guys, and one guy alone is responsible for your saddle from start to finish.


After that, she brought out her "fitting saddle" based on his tree and my seat size.  Interestingly, she put me straight away in a 17.5", and it was perfect. She said although I'm short, I have a very short torso and quite a long hip to knee length for my height.  No wonder I felt crammed in my kids' sized Dressage saddle!  Just goes to show that I thought I knew something about saddles, but I really, truly do not.


Next we started playing with blocks, which she does with the fitting saddle in the photo above, with a special Velcro panel and an alphabetized grid, which both makes it easier to get each block exactly the same on both sides, and also makes it easy for the saddlefitter to document where your block should be for the saddlemakers.


This took a long time, and was made more complicated by my complete lack of trust in my own feel of my leg lately. Luckily, my GP trainer lives on-site and Kate texted her to please come out and give her opinion - and she actually jumped out of the shower into the cold to do so! 

The three of us spent the next half hour playing with the blocks and the balance of the saddle, and determined exactly what block, which position, and how much foam needed shaved off the block and where to give me the perfect amount of support without pinning me into the saddle.



How did I feel about this saddle?  If the flapless made riding easier, the Patrick felt like it made riding easier AND helped me be a better rider.  For example, one thing I often hear is that I get onto my pubic bone during down transitions out of canter, and I had just heard that in my lesson with the GP trainer right before the fitting, in fact.  But I did a beautiful one in the Patrick with the absolutely effortless balance that Kate figured out for me. GP trainer clapped her hands with glee at that transition.  The saddle felt so solid underneath me, in a good way.

How did Connor feel about the saddle?  He FREAKING LOVED IT.  He had just had a really hard lesson with my GP trainer an hour before, then stood in the cold for an hour, then I got back on and with no warmup whatsoever, he felt amazing.  I put him through every movement we're capable of, and he just kept getting better as we went along.  And this is a horse who always goes quite poorly during saddle fittings. 


Kate made it very clear that I was under no obligation to buy, but we needed to document his back and my preferred saddle configuration anyway so that she had it on record should I decide to buy in the future.  She put several dot stickers on his back at particular anatomical points, and took tracings at each point.  She also used this crazy looking level with adjustable points along it to precisely measure the angle and slope of his wither and spine.  All of this will be sent to England and used to create that physical 3D model of his back in their shop.


Interestingly, when she got to his lower back, she asked me if he'd ever been injured on the right hind.  I said no, but then described our asymmetries under saddle and she said "that makes perfect sense with what I'm seeing".  And you could really see it in the tracings, his right side musculature closer to his hindquarters looks way different than the left.  So...every other saddle fitter so far would have sold us a saddle that did not address this asymmetry?  Hmmm.

While she did the tracings, she handed me a stack of leather options to peruse.  Since all of the options add no cost, many Patrick saddles end up with embellishments (snakeskin, crystals, colorful trim) and it seems like the saddlemakers have a lot of fun with the wilder ones.  That said, they're also happy to build the plainest of plain saddles as well.  It's entirely up to the customer.

One option I was toying with - a sliver of croc on part of the cantle, brown panels, warm purple (didn't photograph well here) piping and brown wool serge panels.  I really like the serge panels, after she described the benefits to me, although you can of course get leather as well.

Short List: Patrick Saddlery Fully Custom Saddle
Likes

• Absolutely incredible fitter that I desperately want a long-term relationship with (no not that kind of relationship lol)
• Said amazing fitter comes to my GP trainer's barn 2-3 times a year
• Connor went the best in this out of anything
• It's precisely made to his back, no guessing, no hoping
• It made me more effective in the saddle, and made things easier that I struggle with
• Let's be honest, who wouldn't want free rein to design and build their own custom saddle with whatever options they wanted?  That's just fun
• It's CUSTOM for my body and his body.  (At the same price point that CWD (and others) would've given me a bench saddle at...which puts the nail firmly in that coffin...)
• Resale value is going to be quite good on an attractive, normal-looking 17.5" saddle even if it's not as well-known of a brand as something like Custom
• Serge panels - love the idea of warm wool on his back in the winter and wicking wool on his back in the summer.  Also love the idea of just brushing dust off the panels instead of wiping them down after each ride, which gets to be a PITA in the winter months

Dislikes

• There is no adjusting the block once it's on, because it's built into the saddle. Since we took an extensive amount of time trying to figure out what was right for me, that shouldn't be an issue, but still, I HAVE COMMITMENT ISSUES
• Not able to do a trial saddle because they are all custom and because what I rode in was a fitting saddle, but I liked it enough that I'm not sure that mattered in this case