I'm looking into getting a new saddle pad for my bareback pad. The one I have now is serviceable and works just fine, but it's made for a regular saddle. I want something with spine clearance, so I'm looking at pads designed for treeless saddles.
There are both WAY too many choices and WAY too few. Nearly all treeless saddle pads are more than $200, sometimes closer to $300. Also, ALL of them are made with some kind of foam inserts. I totally understand the concept of making a channel over the horse's spine to replace the gullet of a treed saddle, but I'm not so sure about all this high-tech, new-fangled foam.
The pad almost universally recommended for unstructured treeless saddles (which my bareback pad practically is) is the Skito pad.These are custom made and can be fitted with several personalized options. For my weight range, they recommend the 3/4" foam with 3/4" laminated inserts. Apparently these are the best pads for creating a gullet in an unstructured saddle.
Pros: Popular with endurance riders, and generally anything they love is a high-performance, functional product. You don't fuck around with useless tack on 50 and 100 mile endurance rides. Most websites that sell treeless saddles recommend using a Skito pad, and there must be something to them if EVERYONE recommends using them. I've lurked on several online distance riding forums and blogs, and the love of Skito is wide-spread. Appealing to my frivolous side, the covers come in brilliant teal, which is always a bonus!
Cons: I'm not so sure the foam is as majikal as the Skito company claims it is. I've also read reports that the foam "flattens" and loses it's squish in a relatively short amount of time and should be replaced on a yearly basis. Some people have said that the pads were unstable and they had to constantly readjust their saddles during a ride. I'm not interested in a pad that I have to replace the damn inserts in every year. For that kind of money it better last a lot longer than that!
To tell the truth, I'm not entirely sold on the whole foam saddle pad business. It seems to me that the foam would compress over time and lose it's shock absorbing qualities. Also, it seems that over a long, hot ride, the foam would further compact and end up being useless at the end of the day. No thank you to that!
All the other pads marketed for treeless saddles contain so type of foam insert. The foam differs between companies, but essentially the concept is the same. Foam inserts within a shell. Some pads have synthetic "drying" or "heat dissipating" materials that seem suspiciously like neoprene, a material I have not had good luck with.
I want something that will provide weight distribution, shock absorption, and padding for my horse's back, and I want it to last. Does that even exist? According to the folks over at 5-Star, it does, and it's call pure wool felt.
This is a very interesting article that my gut tells me is spot on. Especially after using my wool felt Aussie saddle pad, I believe that it truly is the best material for wicking moisture and dissipating heat. We've been using it for centuries for a reason.
http://www.5starequineproducts.com/SaddlePadsArticle.html
In my online saddle pad quest, I stumbled across a very interesting version of the 5-Star wool felt saddle pad. This style is made for gaited horses and features a nice, long vent over the spine.
It's contoured to the horse's back, and according to everyone who owns them, these pads are the shit. High quality, hard wearing, and long lasting. That's the kind of thing I'm looking for!
I don't know if the spine cut-out would be enough to give adequate spine clearance with my bareback pad, though. I'd hate to spend the money on it and find out it's not what I wanted. The nice thing about this pad is that it would have good re-sale or re-use value. A treeless saddle pad would be limited in use to my bareback pad, while the 5-Star pad could be used with a western saddle as well.
Right now I'm saving money for tack, so I've got awhile to deliberate. Why are the things I want always so expensive?
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