Western and english riders??

Question

my TB fits a big horn western saddle with a 6 inch gullet

what size gullet if an english saddle would fit him?

i think the only reason the western fits so well is because the horn is so high up it clears his withers he's 17.2 hands and very withery

Answer 1

Maybe a wider tree will be an good solution.

Answer 2

The measurements on English saddles are quite different from those on western saddles.  My suggestion is to buy or borrow one of the saddle fit gauges that the Wintec/Collegiate/Bates saddles use for their adjustable fit system and see if he comes out narrow, medium or wide.  Even if you don't get a saddle in that brand, you will get a real good idea of how he compares to other horses and have a good guess with other brands.  Usually a really high-withered TB will be a narrow or medium, usually a wide will ride down and rub on the withers.

Different brands of English saddles have somewhat different shapes to their trees, some brands just overall fit wide warmbloods better across all sizes, others are better at fitting high-withered TBs like yours.  It's worth asking around and seeing if you can borrow and ride other people's saddles to see what fits and what doesn't.

I also know that Dover Saddlery and a couple other companies have a "test ride" option where you can buy a saddle, but have them send you a test model (that is not brand new) to try for a week to see if it fits, and if it does, you send back the test ride saddle and they send you a new version of the same model.

I hope this helps!