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Tiffany's part in designing the FnE saddle
Tiffany & Les on a rainy ride in 2003
How FnE Saddles began
"This horse is going to kill some one some day!" That remark was made about our first horse, Tiffany, when she was returned to the seller the day after she was bought. Not by us - we bought her next, in November 1993! As is often the case when buying a horse you find out after the event just what you’ve bought! Apart from mud fever up to her armpits and girth area and a very painful poll, she also had a painful back. Getting the poll and mud fever fixed seemed to be easy compared to getting her pain free in the back with a comfortable saddle. So, that winter, 1993-1994, was really the starting point for the design evolution of the FnE saddle.
We had tried several saddles and saddle pads including a saddle pad of our own design, but Tiffany still considered it better that the rider was on the ground rather than on her back, forcibly so if necessary. The next idea was to measure the horse’s back and produce a 3D model, onto which a saddle could be built in the saddle maker’s workshop. This didn’t work out either, as the saddle makers couldn’t fit the 3D models, but more importantly once the horse was more comfortable it changed shape, and we would have to have another saddle made! Then we looked at adjustable saddle designs. What occurred to us was that they all adjusted by a simple change of pommel angle and this seemed to destabilise the saddle, making it flip at the back in the trot when widened or sit too tightly on the wither when narrowed. After much research and design work we tested our own first adjustable flex-panel saddle by riding Tiffany 50 miles in our own local area and then at a 25 mile ride over the Northumberland moors on the day Princess Diana died, in August 1997. After these rides Tiffany didn’t have a sore back.
However, making a saddle that I and Tiffany can use was one thing - making one that other riders and horses can use has proved a different business altogether. The key has been listening to riders and horses through the years, building patterns of comfort and discomfort and improving the design accordingly. Our current designs with a flexible tree, ultra comfortable seat and flexible panels, which mould to the horse’s back, come out of customer (horses included) comment, our own observations and mistakes and the constant search for improvement in materials and design.
