I tried out something different last weekend. A friend let me borrow her Natural Ride bareback saddle. It was pretty neat. Basically, it is like the circingles they use for vaulting. It is like the pommel of a saddle tree, with a real girth and stirrups, placed over a bareback pad. It is secure enough to really mount and dismount without the whole thing rolling over, and the stirrups will take your full weight without pulling the saddle pad over.
I used my own bareback pad, and fastened the Natural Ride with a nylon latigo on both sides of the girth. I ran the latigo through D's on the bareback pad that were meant for its origonal girth, but didn't secure the Natural RIde girth to these in any way. This pretty much kept the pad and Natural Ride togehter.
The pro's: a really nice, very secure 'bareback' ride with a safe place to hang your feet. Reduces fatigue and 'numb toes' during long bareback trail ride.
Nice way to deal with a horse who is inbetween saddles due to poor fit or tight finances.
As mentioned, it is secure - easy to mount/dismount, can hang pommel bags off of it for your snacks.
Stirrups are in a good place to maintain good balance
Cons: only comes in 6.5" gullet width. On my WIDE Haffies it would sort of slide in behind the shoulder at an angle with the 'handle' pointing forward over the wither, compromising wither clearance. On my friend's Arabian this is not the case, it fits well and has plenty of wither clearance.
Riding downhill tends to make it flip forward off the pad and over the wither, I fixed this by using a grab strap on my bareback pad to loop over the handle part and pull in towards my hips going downhill. This also helped keep ME from sliding forward ont the horse's neck!
The bars do not have any flare, they are plum flat on the horse side. A little flare would help it fit more horses better.
Overall rating, I think its a great tool to have and wish I had found it a lot sooner. It is way overpriced from the manufacturer, but I just picked one up form eBay for $60. I wouldn't pay more than $100 for one.
My boyfriend is going to take the basic idea and build one with wood bars that are better shaped to fit a horse, and a round arch 'handle' to allow better wither clearance - and a horn for hanging more stuff off of.