Pletch Eventing and Saddle Fitting

Pletch Eventing and Saddle Fitting Full Service Boarding and Lesson Facility specializing in the discipline of eventing through the USEA Prelim level. Lessons available to beginnners and up.

SMS trainee saddle fitter and representative for Bliss of London since 2017. Full stall and pasture board providing all the ammenities. Ages 5 and up. Lesson on your personal horse or ride one of our school horses. Beginner western and english, dressage, and jumping. Trailer-in's allowed for open rides for a fee and at a scheduled time. Limited training available for your horse.

One responsibility of being an independent fitter: sourcing and stocking any flocking material you might need. Natural a...
07/08/2025

One responsibility of being an independent fitter: sourcing and stocking any flocking material you might need. Natural and synthetic. It’s been a while since I’ve taken a count on my stock, I’m up to 9 😳! Why is it important to always put in the appropriate material?

Erreplus is coming to IN and surrounding states! Over the last couple years, I have been working to bring on one more br...
06/25/2025

Erreplus is coming to IN and surrounding states! Over the last couple years, I have been working to bring on one more brand. As my clients know, I am picky picky when it comes to horse welfare. I wanted to find something that brings a different feel for the rider to the table without sacrificing anything for the horses. As I go on appts and see different brands, how healthy their backs are, and hear what the riders have to say; Erreplus became a top contender. When I began speaking with the US agents, I was even more intrigued. This week I did some brand training on the saddles and here I am making this announcement. The fitting options, ethics of the company, the quality and attention to detail all align with who and what I want to work with. Stay tuned, demo saddles will be ordered this week, but won’t be fully available until September. If you would like to get on my schedule, go to https://pletchequine.com/saddle-fitting and fill out an appointment request form. First up.. ME! Cannot wait to put myself and Lottie in an Elevation Extra dressage❤️

Clinic weekend with Lesley Grant-Law felt like stepping back 8 years. Another weekend with my ride or die, Annie, to kee...
06/22/2025

Clinic weekend with Lesley Grant-Law felt like stepping back 8 years. Another weekend with my ride or die, Annie, to keep Lottie from over cooking her baby. So much extremely useful instruction and the proper accountability we all needed. I appreciate fresh eyes and insight into helping make all my people better. I am forever grateful for the time, effort, and knowledge she has always been so generous with. She has been helping me for years and is one of the biggest influences in helping me be the coach and rider I am. Now, Lesley and I are both at the airport as I head back with her to get in some saddle training!

My dream team. Nothing would be possible without these two. They run the show at home. They keep the horses thriving and...
06/19/2025

My dream team. Nothing would be possible without these two. They run the show at home. They keep the horses thriving and me on the road saddle fitting. We all better hope they never leave! They work so hard managing the farm, teaching lessons, riding horses, and improving their own riding. They deserve so much praise and appreciation, so when you see them, they love hugs 😂😂😂, or a thank you is probably enough.

06/14/2025
IEA is always my favorite event of the year, and this year was another great one. It was very chill without me riding 😢,...
06/02/2025

IEA is always my favorite event of the year, and this year was another great one. It was very chill without me riding 😢, but gave us time to enjoy each others company even more! We celebrated 3 birthdays, two riders got to do their first USEA show, won a division, did some antique shopping, ate good food, and laughed a lot.

Lesley Grant-Law Lessons June 21/22 Lafayette IN$170 private flat, $140 semi private/max 3 group SJ or XC lessons20x40 i...
05/28/2025

Lesley Grant-Law Lessons June 21/22 Lafayette IN

$170 private flat, $140 semi private/max 3 group SJ or XC lessons

20x40 indoor flat, 100x200 sand outdoor SJ, XC field with water, ditches, banks, mounds for all levels

Lesley is a former upper level eventer transitioned to full time show jumper. Married to Leslie Law, our new US Eventing Chef de Equipe and Olympic Gold medalist, so she comes with years and years of knowledge backed by the best! Join us for a laid back weekend of improving your skills! Email [email protected] to sign up!

Being in the horse industry is hard. Saddle fitting is no different. You are always learning, improving, doing better, p...
05/14/2025

Being in the horse industry is hard. Saddle fitting is no different. You are always learning, improving, doing better, practicing self reflection, putting ego aside… if you are in it for the horse. This is exactly why I do not carry any brands that come with stipulations that don’t support the horse first mentality. Having a quality relationship with a company that has integrity and proper priorities is number one to me. Saddle companies that provide support and brand training. Companies that vet their fitters before hiring. I often read or hear about negative opinions on fitters that carry a brand. As an independent fitter, it is so important for me to find and carry these brands for you, my client. I am out here doing the leg work and putting my money on the line for you. I can advise and educate all day long, but at the end of the day, if I can’t help you into what you need, I am not fully doing my job. So you can rest assured, if I carry the product, I BELIEVE in it.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about saddle fit in the upper levels, especially the connection between back atrophy and high-end “custom” saddles that aren’t doing what they claim to do. I wanted to offer my perspective as someone who’s seen the inside of the machine. For a time, I worked as a brand rep saddle fitter for one of the major French companies, the kind that markets itself as “different,” “elite,” and “horse-first.”

It was, hands down, the most disorganized, chaotic, and ethically slippery company I’ve ever been a part of. Orders were managed on paper forms and Dropbox folders, shuffled between departments with zero accountability. Saddles regularly arrived built incorrectly. When that happened, which was often, it wasn’t seen as a crisis, it was just another day at the office. Clients would wait up to six months only to receive a saddle that didn’t match the order and didn’t fit the horse.

The training I received as a rep? Laughably minimal. We were taught how to check wither clearance, determine tree shape, and “balance” a saddle using foam inserts in the panels. No real education on biomechanics. No instruction on how saddle pressure affects movement or chronic pain. No understanding of equine spinal anatomy. And certainly no discussion of long-term horse welfare. When I mentioned learning more from independent fitters, I was told not to. Literally warned by my boss that “those people have an agenda against French brands.” She even insinuated that a certain independent fitter was the reason the last rep quit.

Management also regularly groaned about clients who wanted to have an independent fitter out at the same time as a brand fitter, labeling them as "high maintenance." It was as though questioning the company's methods was a personal affront, rather than a legitimate desire from owners for the best care for their horses.

From the beginning, I felt caught in a system that rewarded sales over ethics, obedience over insight, and pressure over compassion. I was encouraged to focus not on the horse’s well-being, but on how quickly I could convert a client’s concern into a credit card swipe. Even our elite sponsored riders, some of the most accomplished athletes in the sport, couldn’t get saddles that fit correctly. Saddles arrived wrong. Panels were lopsided. Horses were sore. We all knew the saddle could be wrong, and it often was, but the unspoken rule was to get something close enough and push it through. If they can’t be bothered to properly fit the horses that carry their name into international arenas, what makes you think they care about Pookie, your 2'6” hunter at the local shows?

We were explicitly instructed that if a client had a saddle more than a few years old, even if it was still working perfectly, we were to find something wrong with it. The goal was to sow just enough doubt to get the client to trade in the saddle and order a new custom. Not because their horse needed it, but because their wallet could support it.

That’s when it started to really wear on me. I couldn’t sleep. I would lie awake at night feeling sick: not just because we were misleading clients, but because we were hurting horses. Every day I watched animals be dismissed as “hard to fit” when the reality was that the saddle being sold to them should never have been placed on their back to begin with. The moment that broke me came at the end of winter circuit. We hadn’t met our quotas yet. The pressure was sky-high. One of the top reps began pushing saddles onto horses that visibly, obviously, did not fit. It didn’t matter that this would harm the horse over time, it mattered that the sale was made.

Perhaps the most disturbing part is the panel design we used by default, a soft, rounded latex insert, was built not to support muscle growth, but to fill the void left behind by muscle loss. Our whole system was based around accommodating atrophy, not fixing it. We had specialized modifications to make the panels more forgiving to wasted backs, as if the problem wasn’t the saddle, it was the horse’s inability to conform to it. Back atrophy wasn’t treated as a red flag. It was normalized. Built into the product line.

After six months, I started to unravel. I didn’t recognize myself anymore. I had entered the role wanting to help horses, and moved across the country to do so. I had left a steady job that I was happy in thinking this would be a way to combine my skills and my passion. I found myself trapped in a toxic cycle of moral compromise. Eventually, I couldn’t fake it anymore, especially since I had begun my equine bodywork certifications. I told my boss I was done. I remember saying, half-joking, half-begging for her to understand, that “I’m not making enough money to cry every night.” “That’s just part of the job,” she responded.

That was a year ago. Since then, two more reps have cycled through my old territory.

So if your high-end “custom” saddle doesn’t fit… if your “fitter” keeps blaming your pads or your horse’s shape… if your horse’s back is getting worse instead of better: you are not crazy, and you’re not alone. You’ve been caught in a system that was never built to prioritize your horse’s health in the first place.

This isn’t just a string of bad luck. It’s systemic. It’s built into the model. These brands don’t invest in education. They invest in optics. They train salespeople, not fitters. And they sell you the idea of customization while relying on generic templates and pressure tactics behind the scenes.

I’m not saying every brand rep is malicious. Some are kind, well-meaning, and genuinely doing their best within a rigged game. But when you pay someone a tiny base salary and dangle their entire livelihood on commissions, it creates a perfect storm of pressure and desperation. Good intentions don’t last long when survival depends on making the sale. That’s why I left. That’s why I speak up. That’s why I’ll keep urging riders to work with independent fitters: people who don’t make a commission off the brand, who aren’t beholden to a sales quota, who care more about your horse’s comfort than the label on the flap.

That’s why I walked away. I couldn’t keep selling saddles that were hurting horses and gaslighting riders into believing it was fine. I couldn’t sleep knowing I was complicit in their pain. So if something in your gut has been telling you this isn’t right, listen. Trust it. Ask questions. Get a second opinion. Seek out an independent saddle fitter whose only loyalty is to your horse’s well-being, not a sales quota. You deserve transparency. You deserve honesty. Your horse deserves comfort, freedom, and a fighting chance to thrive: not just survive under eight thousand dollars of leather and lies. Don’t let the system convince you this is normal. It’s not, and the more of us who speak up, the harder it becomes for them to keep pretending it is.

OUT OF “OFFICE”! If you are trying to reach me for saddle appts or lesson scheduling, I am out of town for the American ...
08/26/2024

OUT OF “OFFICE”! If you are trying to reach me for saddle appts or lesson scheduling, I am out of town for the American Eventing Championships and will not be answering scheduling emails. Please expect to hear from me after Aug 30. Thanks!!

If you have to work on a Sunday, better start your day with Beatrice.
08/11/2024

If you have to work on a Sunday, better start your day with Beatrice.

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Lafayette, IN

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Don’t Wish for it, Work for it.

Full stall board providing all the amenities. Lessons available to beginners up through the 1* level.. Ages 5 and up. Lesson on your personal horse or ride one of our school horses. Beginner english, dressage through Prelim level, and Show jumping or Cross Country through 1* level available. Cross Country field with fences ranging from Green as Grass through Prelim. Training opportunities available for your horse.

Saddle Fitting services available on any brand of English saddle. Gina is also the Indiana rep for Bliss of London Saddles from the UK. Not familiar with this brand? Take a look through this page. Nearly every rider is sporting one!