# Kincade saddles?



## barrelracer7155 (Mar 14, 2015)

I am thinking about buying a Kincade close contact English saddle, have you used one? Are they a nice saddle? 


I'm looking more for comfort as I will be doing lots of distance riding with my horse.


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## Saskia (Aug 26, 2009)

I don't think much of Kincade saddles. I'd recommend looking at better brands.

They are kind of a bottom of the range option.


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## freia (Nov 3, 2011)

EEEEEKKKK!!!!!

Don't do it! Save yourself!!!!! Your horse will thank you.

OK, hissy-fit is over. Down to business...

A number of budget English saddles are made in India and Pakistan. Lancer is one of them. They often look really nice, and they fit anyone's budget.
However... The design, material, craftsmanship are not up to par.

OK, so the leather isn't as soft, who cares, right? The leather is often water-buffalo, which can be stiff as cardboard. It's also often tanned using urine. If you don't believe me, wait until you ride on a hot summer day. You'll smell it. Because the leather isn't properly tanned, it won't take the dye. The finish is sometimes more or less painted on. Not all of them are quite this bad, but the best ones aren't a whole lot better.

The steel used for the pommel-head / gullet-plate in the tree is usually poor quality. It can have impurities, air-bubbles, etc that weaken the steel. I call them adjustable trees: they gradually just slowly widen or break as you put enough miles an force on them.

The tree is often asymmetrical or twisted right out of the box - just poor craftsmanship.

The flocking can be quite interesting. Might be foam, wight be "wool" (aka wool sweater remnants, carpet remnants, wads of socks, etc). No, I'm not kidding. There's a thread on here somewhere where someone actually took apart one of these saddles. With pictures. Gasp!

Then there's the rider. They are rarely designed well enough to put you in a proper position. Especially if you're planning on riding some distance, you might be sorry really quickly.

There's nothing wrong with being on a budget. Do your horse and you a favor and get a quality used saddle instead of an Indian nightmare. You can get saddles that originally cost $2000-$3000 for $400-$800 fairly easily, well-used, but in very good condition. We don't call them worn or ugly. A quality saddle gets "patina" ;-)


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## freia (Nov 3, 2011)

Correction. I meant Kincade is one of the Indian brands. Lancer is as well, but Kincade was the topic. Don't know where I got Lancer from.


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## freia (Nov 3, 2011)

If I remember correctly, you're looking for an English saddle to do endurance riding, is that correct?

If so, then here are some things to look for.

You will be mostly trotting. You'll be posting a lot, but will also spend a lot of time standing in your stirrups. Make sure your saddle will allow a fairly long stirrup-length, and that it will have enough support to hold you comfortably balanced when you're standing at the trot. No jumping (aka close-contact) saddles. you will probably want knee-blocks, but not so big that you can't move around a lot during the ride.

Wool-flocked will conform to the horse better than foam-flocked, in general. Wool-flocked can be adjusted to fit. You must have a good fit.

Well-balanced. You don't want to fight a chair-seat for 50 miles, or even 25 miles.

That said, I have seen a lot of different types and styles of English saddles used for endurance.

On the high-end, you have the flex-tree types like the Reactor-Panel and Free-N-Easy.

On the more basic, but high-end, you have all kinds of lovely dressage-saddles. On the more budget end, I've seen successful races completed with happy horses and riders with A/P saddles and Dressage saddles: Wintec Isabelle, Wintec A/P 500s, Bates, Thornhill Jorges Canaves Trail, thorowgoods (yes, the old ones that you can now get for $200 on eBay), Passier dressage saddles, County Competitor, Black County, Duetts, quite a few old Stubben Siegfrieds (my butt really hurts thinking of riding a Siegfried 50 miles, I must say)... All well-balanced, supportive, comfortable saddles - all saddle that fit the horse well. Those are all well-made saddles that don't have to blow the budget.


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## unclearthur (Feb 25, 2012)

What everyone else said. Look for a quality brand - used if you're on a tight budget.


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