Today I got a good look at the insides of quite a few saddles. Of all the ones we stripped, only the Kieffer had anything at all nice (soft, quality wool) in the flocking. The (probably) India-made saddle was stuffed with disgusting sythetic carpet fiber shreds. The Albion had somewhat less quality wool, and the Steubbens even lesser quality, although still wool.
But of all the saddles I've seen this week (and I've seen a LOT, visiting various training barns and looking at other students' personal saddles) only a County and an Albion had a gullet that wasn't too narrow at the back. Even saddles that started out nice and wide are almost invariably coming almost to a point at the back of the tree.
It's also been astounding how many trees are twisted or even broken. Of those, the reason for the twist in many was evident: either a pattern of wear showing that the rider usually rode crooked, or panels that were not centered causing the rider to be off-balance.
I'm going to go tear open my own Kieffer and see what's in it (It's unfortunately got a twisted tree, so it has to be opened up anyway to see if there's anything that can be done.)
But of all the saddles I've seen this week (and I've seen a LOT, visiting various training barns and looking at other students' personal saddles) only a County and an Albion had a gullet that wasn't too narrow at the back. Even saddles that started out nice and wide are almost invariably coming almost to a point at the back of the tree.
It's also been astounding how many trees are twisted or even broken. Of those, the reason for the twist in many was evident: either a pattern of wear showing that the rider usually rode crooked, or panels that were not centered causing the rider to be off-balance.
I'm going to go tear open my own Kieffer and see what's in it (It's unfortunately got a twisted tree, so it has to be opened up anyway to see if there's anything that can be done.)