The heart of every saddle is the tree and is the link between horse and rider. The saddle trees used by Grice-Kerr are, spring trees hand-crafted in England, laminated beech wood with reinforced steel and tensioned with Sheffield tempered steel spring bars to provide the required give, when the rider sits in a spring tree saddle the weight is in fact taken by the webbing of the tree and the effect of this is to pull the pommel and cantle of the tree slightly together, this is counteracted by the spring bars providing the most comfortable seat for the rider.

Grice –Kerr spring trees are bar-plated for extra strength and fitted with a front arch made from specially strengthened steel which both protects the wither from injury and keeps the saddle in the correct position behind the horses shoulder the unbreakable never rust stirrup bars are recessed into the tree ensuring that the stirrup leather buckles do not interfere with the riders contact.

The English spring tree is both expensive and difficult to produce, but is quite unique. Grice-Kerr saddles are crafted with English hand curried finished finely grained supple saddlery leather for the flaps ,skirts and girth straps with quality local leathers used for the seat panel.

Design

The basic criteria in making any saddle is that the wither, shoulder and spine must be free to move uninhibited and with a flocked panel that follows the contour of the horses back with a wide bearing surface for stability with the riders seat centered in the deepest part of the saddle between pommel and cantle, this also places the riders weight over a larger area; the riders correct seat and flap length is also paramount.

All these factors are taken into account when a Grice-Kerr saddle is ordered.