Ahh, eBay...

Gotta love saddle shopping on eBay. For the last two years I have been trying to find a suitable saddle for my hard-to-fit cob/TB cross. I tried a (used) custom-made extra-wide tree saddle but it wasn't the right shape; it had a lot of stuffing under the panels and he seems to need a flatter panel to help the saddle stay in place (much like you'd find on a saddleseat saddle). It was $1600 Cdn, which was really pushing the limit of my saddle-buying budget. Actually it broke the budget to pieces. But I'm very glad I got to try it, because the Excelle 4-star is hands-down the most comfy saddle I've ever sat in. Then, I found an Excelle on eBay: four months old, regular wide-tree, 18" seat, and snapped it up for $800 US. Sold! It should get here in ten days or so, I can't wait. That awful thing I'm using now has stirrup bars that stick out like some kind of intentional torture device.

Much thanks to Holly from Equi-Products for her endless patience in this saddle-trying process.

Speaking of saddleseat, I had a chance to try it out at a Wanda Leubner clinic this weekend and it was a blast! I'll be posting some video when I get a chance. I won't be swapping any time soon though - after going around the arena once each way, I start to look for something to jump... Mind you, some of those old US Army Saddlebred lines produced some phenomenal jumpers... I wonder if there's any of those left?