>>> I think they are possibly British - I have heard of them here...
I doubt it, not for the price. Ascot made the infamous "ebay Icelandic saddle" I still have one of those and it's amazingly "ok" for what I paid for it...which was something like $180. The leather isn't particularly cardboard-like, as with many super-cheap saddles, and actually is reasonably nice. I had my saddler look at it, and she was rather suprised that it was as good quality as it is - even the flocking material wasn't too bad. This one isn't a super-wide saddle - they now occasionally offer draft sizes on ebay, and maybe that's what Kristen has - so all of my horses eventually outgrew it. (Ok, Sina outgrew it VERY quickly.) I'd guess that the one I have is probably a 33cm - pretty similar in width to a wide or x-wide Wintec. Unfortunately, I don't have a horse I can use it on now, and it was always MISERABLE for me - the twist wasn't right for MY conformation - but several people thought it was comfortable. I keep this saddle simply because I couldn't sell it for much, and it's nice to have something to show the padded seat that's typical of an Icelandic style saddle. I also use it to point out that it's a lot wider than many Icelandic saddles - but still too narrow for all of my horses. I know a lot of people like to say "you get what you pay for" but I don't believe that - maybe much of the time, but certainly not always. My saddler thought the quality of the Ascot was pretty similar, maybe slightly better than, the Duett dressage saddle I used to have, and it was about $1100, and she said she'd seen $2000 saddles that were worse quality. Was mine typical of Ascots? Who knows - I might have gotten the only decently well-made one they ever produced for all I know! Of course, quality aside, I HAVE to look at fit for the horses first, and for a brief period, that Duett worked better for many of my horses. I had more really young horses then though, and as they matured, even the Duett stopped fitting. I didn't come to be a believer in treeless saddles lightly, but that belief evolved. I wouldn't say that I'd never use a treed saddle again, but we had way too many issues with the many treed saddles we tried. Karen Thomas, NC
