Tack Guru

I had a terrible time finding my last dressage saddle. Many came close, but ultimately I found them to be either too restrictive – with the seat too deep or the blocks too large – too hard or just not balanced.

After trying about 12 different saddles, I rode in my coach’s Roosli. Immediately, I found that it put me in a balanced seat which required very little effort to sustain. It had the perfect seat depth — not too shallow, not too deep so that I felt secure but like I could still move.

My coach arranged for me to order a saddle directly from the factory and helped me take the measurements for a custom saddle. I am very long from my hip to my knee so it was important for me to have flaps that truly fit. I ordered a wide tree as I found that my trainer’s saddle fit a wide variety of horses in the barn.

The saddle took about 8 weeks to arrive. I was lucky in my timing; at that time the dollar was quite strong in Europe and the saddle cost me about $1700 — today the same saddle costs about $3,250! The saddle was immediately comfortable and fit my horse without any adjustments. In fact, my horses have all moved extremely well with this saddle. For the rider, it provides just the right amount of support.

I’ve had the saddle now for 7 years. The leather has held up extremely well – the saddle still looks relatively new. It has fit almost every horse I’ve tried it on and it has required only minimal fitting (my saddle fitter says that Roosli saddles generally are very kind to a horse’s back).

Roosli saddles are hand made in Switzerland of top quality leather. The saddles is built on an elastic steel spring frame. It has wool felt panels with wool flocking. The seat has natural latex padding which makes the seat comfortable for the rider; the wool flocking and the wide gullet make it comfortable for the horse.

The bottom line:

Certainly, I would recommend this saddle to anyone! The quality of the saddle is excellent, it’s “horse friendly” and it really puts the a rider in a balanced position without holding you with a really deep seat or huge blocks. Roosli saddles don’t have the name recognition of some other brands, but they are worth the investment. I can’t imagine replacing mine any time soon.