Colorado Saddlery?

[dpony]

Anyone know anything or have experiences with Colorado Saddlery? I have a difficult-to-fit horse, the rare case that a Wade does not fit. They have a lot of info about trees on their web site and are willing to send me a bare tree to set on the horse's back to check fit. Have not seen one of their saddles to put my hands on, but their web pics look better than most off-the-shelf stuff, adequate quality, working-type saddles.

This is for an older horse, I don't want to spend the time or $$ to get custom for him (i.e. to have a tree made), but he needs something wider to work in comfort. I'm looking at draft trees for him. I have tried a friend's custom 93* Wade on him, and it's better than my 90* Wade, but still not a fix. Big fellow (tho not acutally a draft).

Any input? Other suggestions for the fit issue welcomed, as well, of course.

[ponygirl]

I'm not sure how to help with your fit issues... a 93 bar fits the stockiest QH we have, so I've never gone beyond that. However, as far as Colorado Saddlery gear goes, I really like them. Their stuff is a lot nicer than billy cook, circle y ect. I'm riding a little slick fork Colorado Saddlery trail saddle that's on skinny semi bars right now. I grabbed it because, for reasons like you, I start some young one's who go in the semi bars, but quickly move to a wider standard QH tree. I didn't want to spend a ton of cash on a custom semi bar saddle. So I looked into it and got this one used. I'm impressed with the quality, it fits well and gives me a close contact to the horse. Not bad for 350 bucks!

[Percheronboy]

I have a Percheron gelding that is a very difficult horse to saddle-fit. After trying many different brands I ended up with a Hope Wade made by Joe Maxwell. Joe will send you 8 or 9 fiberglass templates that match up to the 8 or 9 different tree shapes he uses. So, not a custom, one-off saddle made to fit, but having 8 or 9 choices is huge. And the fiberglass templates really help in assessing fit.

Excellent quailty saddles too, in my view, very well balanced. See www.jjmaxwell.com