I got my Wintec 500 CC almost 4 years ago. The craftsmanship is incredible, after 4 years of daily use, it still looks like new, and the color hasn’t faded at all.
It is incredibly easy to take care of, all I have to do is hose it off once a week and once a month I use Wintec’s synthetic cleaner to remove all of the stuck-on grease. The synthetic leather doesn’t stain, either. I can go show in it with freshly polished boots and not worry about a black stain being left on the flaps afterward.
The CAIR system and Easy-Change Gullets are a life saver. My Trakehner/Pinto cross gelding had the worst back problems with a normally flocked saddle, but as soon as I began riding him with CAIR he instantly began to fill out in his back rather than hollow out, and he began to swing from the shoulder.
The gullet system can be a little tricky to change your first few times, but when you get the hang of it it is a breeze. The first time took almost 45 minutes but now I can do it around 7 minutes no sweat. The gullets are nice especially if you have a horse who changes shape like mine did when he was put out of work for 6 months and put on quite a bit of weight going back in. The gullets make it easy to switch from riding my big Warmblood to riding my slightly slimmer quarter horse without having to break the bank.
The only downside I’ve had with this saddle is it tends to slip on most cotton saddle pads unless you use the girth loops since there is no gullet underneath the saddle to attach to. Also, if you want to put a saddle plate on it you can’t screw it in like with normal saddles. All considered, I love this saddle so much that when I started dressage lessons I bought the 500 Dressage with the same features.
I rode Scotty for several years in the Wintec 500AP (LONG saddle fitting story). It was comfortable for both of us and my trainer was surprised at how balanced it was. More than worth the cost. I sold it a couple of years ago for almost what I paid for it (the list price has gone up).