© Mountainport Farms 2011

sheri@mountainport.ca  (306) 542-4429

Cayenne is the whole reason why I started looking into treeless saddles in the first place.  She came to me as a trade for a beautiful but neurotic pinto gelding that was way more horse than I wanted to work with.  I was assured Cay was well broke to both ride and drive and was a calm, stable-minded horse.

 

It took us a while to actually complete the trade and when she came to me, she was in rough shape. Her feet were cracked and split all the way to the coronary band and she’d lost at least 100 lbs since the last time I saw her.  

Cayenne’s Story

6 months later, wearing a

Free Wind Expressions saddle

After some good grub and some TLC

Cayenne, shortly before coming home

After some time to let her gain some weight and get those feet fixed up, I started riding her.  She was, indeed, well trained and stable minded.  The person I got her from had purchased her at an auction and I started to wonder why someone would let such a nice horse go to auction, but as our rides got longer, I found out.
On longer rides, Cay would get increasingly agitated and eventually, would start to give small
crow hops in which she kicked out hard with one hind leg. It didn’t take long to figure out why such a sweet horse would turn into a monster all of the sudden.  The saddle was bridging badly on her admittedly somewhat swayed back and the back end of the saddle’s bars were putting enormous pressure right over her kidneys.  POOR GIRL!  I immediately stopped using the saddle and rode her bareback while I looked for a better saddle.  I tried several traditional treed saddles but couldn’t find one that didn’t hurt her in some way.

 Then a friend let me try her treeless saddle.  For the first time since the saddle ordeal began, I rode a happy, willing Cayenne.  She moved out freely and, to my surprise, wanted to trot…something she hadn’t offered the whole time I’d had her.  I was thrilled – until I heard the price of the saddle.  I would have gladly paid that much for Cayenne’s comfort, but I simply didn’t have that kind of money.  So, I went looking for a less expensive alternative.  What I found was, quite simply, there wasn’t one, unless I wanted the cheap garbage offered on eBay.

 Determined not to give up, I dug deeper, reading, researching and contacting manufacturers.  To make a long story short, I finally found a manufacturer willing to work with me to develop a good quality yet economical treeless saddle.  The result is the Free Wind. I chose this brand name because with the very first test saddle sent from the manufacturer, Cay seemed to melt beneath me into a relaxed, happy horse and moved out as smoothly as the wind blowing through her mane.  In that instant, I knew I had to share these saddles with other riders who love their horses enough to give them less.
Go Treeless and let your horse be as Free as the Wind!