I’ve owned several Wintec saddles over the years. Until now, they’ve always arrived with the right size gullet.

Until this one.

A few months ago I bought a Wintec Pro Jump on Ebay. I like the saddle a lot. I’d owned one before and sold it because I didn’t think the flap was forward enough for my leg. But I missed it so I waited until I found one for a good price and bought another.

This one came with a wide gullet installed while Freedom really needs either a medium or, at most, a medium wide. It can’t be that hard to swap the gullet out, I thought. So, I watched the instructional video below and, armed with my Phillips head screw driver, I quickly and easily took the gullet out.

It was simple. It took five minutes.

Then I tried to put the smaller gullet in. The saddle apparently wants to stay “wide”. I could not get the structure of the saddle to narrow enough to allow me to put the screws back in! It was like wrestling with a small animal. And it won!

After about 15 minutes I gave up and put the wide gullet back in. Thank goodness for Mattes correction pads!

Later I called a tack store that sells a lot of Wintecs and asked them about the problem I had. “No,” they said, “it’s not unusual for it to be difficult to bring a saddle down two sizes. But you can really muscle that saddle without hurting it.” I didn’t want to break my “new” saddle before I’d used it so I’d backed off before jumping up and down on it. I’m still not sure I’m strong enough to compress it that much!

The other alternative is to buy a gullet that’s one size down (a medium wide), installing that one and giving the saddle time to adjust to it’s new size.

Now, I do think the system is pretty straightforward. It just works better when you aren’t making major size changes.