Why Trail Rider saddles?

When Arkab Mirarti, with Janita aboard, embarked on his 100 miler career, several things happened. After the first ride she had on him, she declared that nobody would survive a 100 miles on him. Only the fact that the children and Gendane, who were his riders, could manage to ride him, did she force herself to adapt to his hollow frame. But she schooled him with a Chambon and spent many hours trying to get his back rounded and supple, with some degree of success.

They did their first 100 miler, then the second, one month later when he developed firstly a shortened stride, and then two huge white patches appeared both sides of his withers.

Mirarti placed himself in that special class where no stone would be left unturned to make him comfortable and happy, so we tread everything about saddles we could lay our hands on and realized his saddle did not fit! After stripping all our very smart imported endurance saddles, we came to the conclusion that something different would have to be done. A friend recommended Liversage, Janita was very much against the idea - she had a pre-conceived idea of his work, but Van Duyn said, "At least give it a try!"

We contacted Leon and he arrived with about 20 different trees and saddles and thus started the most exciting phase in developing a saddle to please a horse, not any horse, Mirarti and all the rest of the endurance horses, who now have the privilege to ride under a Liversage saddle.

The whole family and all our friends had to ride Liversage saddles, in different stages of development, training and in competition!! Even riding 80 km on a bare saddle tree with only the thinnest numnah to protect the horse! After the ride would come the thorough examination of the horse's back - poking and prodding to pinpoint the slightest soreness. The tiniest problems were addressed and Leon never lost his cool, even under the most straight forward criticism possible, even when told that the newest tree was a rotten concept, he had to try again. Mirarti winning his 4th 100 miler at Potchefstroom

And he did, spending hours looking, listening, evaluating and producing experiment after experiment. Apart from the white patches rapidly disappearing, a remarkable thing happened to Mirarti, he started rounding his frame, his Chambon and straps were taken off, he developed the most rider comfortable paces and is currently ridden in a halter at competitions.

When Leon was satisfied with the horse's comfort he started looking after the rider. Every rider had to report in detail any problems they encountered - this resulted in a super comfy saddle for horse and rider.

That is the reason why we ONLY ride on Liversage saddles and start all beginners in the riding centre on Liversage saddles because they are comfortable and put the riders in the correct position, saving the instructor a lot of shouting to keep a straight line from shoulder to ankle!

Some statistics about the kilometers done with Enduro saddles:

Mirarti has done 9 100 mile rides, winning every one, including 2 Nationals, 2 Fauresmith's - 1 winning the National Lightweight division with Gendane Mtimunye and many 80 km in between over 3 years, doing 2752 km's without ever suffering a sore back and with his lovely ground covering stride in full swing again.

We always have about 6 - 8 horses riding 80 km competitions, Fauresmith and 100 milers. Two to three horses carry heavyweight riders over 100kg's over these distances and never a sore back amongst them.

Since February 1999 family and friends have ridden their horses more than 10 000 kilometers in competitions, achieving many wins, 3 National championships and many top 10 placings.