Have you been frustrated with trying to find the right saddle to fit your horse? It is a common problem with horse owners who either compete or just trail ride. And a crooked tree can happen to an English or Dressage saddle just as easy as to a Western saddle. Western saddles are commonly known to have crooked trees. It is just a matter of knowing how to spot a crooked tree.

Here are a couple of tips and tricks you can use, to spot a crooked tree.

1. Set the saddle on a pole, or a rack, and look straight down the middle of the saddle horn on a western saddle toward the back of the cantle. Get the horn to line up to the middle of the cantle. If you can line it up, then look and see what the symmetry of the rest of the saddle looks like.

If you have to move the saddle around, in order for the horn to line up with the cantle, then the chances are it is sitting cockeyed on the saddle rack in order for you to line it up.

2. If you cannot tell with the saddle sitting on a pole or saddle rack, then set the saddle pommel end down on the floor, and look at straight down and line up the cantle with the horn.

Then look once you get the horn and the cantle lined up, now very carefully without moving the saddle, check and see if the saddle panels are going in the same direction as the cantle and the horn. If they look like they are shooting of to the left or right, you have a crooked saddle tree.