I started my riding with second hand saddles, a Röösli, added a Kieffer, Passier GP, followed by Equipe dressage (new saddle), Prestige eventing, changed the Equipe to Kent & Master GP drop panels for my chestnut and Albion K2 all second hand saddles. Now finally I got the Samba from Macel. It came highly recommended by Jean Luc Cornille and members of Science of Motion. My expectations of course were high!

First thing I noticed, the leather quality is the best I had so far in my life with saddles and it is very lightweight. I ordered as suggested, 17inch, medium tree, and no further details except for colour and name plate. First fitting with both my horses confirmed that it really fits very different horse types without problems, the high wither, dropped back type of horse, the regular horse, and my friend tried it on middle sized Irish pony and it is a fit.

My horses are happy with the Macel Samba. There is space at the wither, the shoulders can move freely thanks to the special design of the tree and the panels.

The deep seat saddles altered my seat in a very unfortunate way, it kept me in a certain position and did not allow to follow the movement of the horse. I feel much better now what is going on in regard of the movement of the horses. During the chance from the deep seat saddle to the Macel Samba I lost balance once in a while in trot and canter, work in progress to find my balance with the new saddle. The communication between my body and my horses via the saddle is a lot more subtle than it used to be.

So I can truly say that my high expectations were met and my horses can move freely under the saddle.