Hermès @ Presents At The Highest Echelons Of Competitive Riding

Hermès has accompanied the victories of champions for over 60 years: those of world top 10 show jumper Simon Delestre, with the Hermès Cavale saddle, as well as the sporting achievements of Romain Duguet, winner of the Grand Prix at the 2015 Saut Hermès at the Grand Palais and presents at the highest echelons of competitive riding and a long-standing partner of the equestrian world, The legendary Steinkraus evokes the Olympic gold medals won by Pierre Jonquères d’Oriola at the Helsinki Games (1952) and by Bill Steinkraus in Mexico City (1968). In dressage, the Corlandus saddle calls to mind the brilliant career of Margit Otto-Crépin.

The development of equestrian sports is accompanied by new equipment responding to the challenges of an equitation that seeks ever greater perfection, in which horses have become more athletic, the house is continually innovating, applying the exacting standards of the greatest champions to every aspect of their work. The expertise of around twenty partner riders from France and overseas, combined with the skills of a specialist veterinarian, a master saddler and a team of engineers, enables the ergonomics, the quality, and the performance of the saddles to be constantly refined. 

Research into shapes and developments in materials provide all Hermès saddles with high sporting efficiency, combining technicality, lightness, comfort, and elegance for all the disciplines, for both competitive and leisure riding. Constantly endeavoring to meet the needs of every rider, Hermès offers a wide range of possibilities: seats of different depths, with or without seams, varying twist widths, trees in standard or wide sizes guaranteeing every horse and rider a perfectly customized saddle.

In the workshops at 24 Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris, the skills and expertise of the master saddlers and harness-makers are expressed in every saddle. Each one is handmade by a single craftsman, and saddle-stitched to ensure reliability and durability. Hermès only uses full-grain leathers, worked in such a way as to enhance their natural characteristics. This “transparency” of the leather is a guarantee of its quality and its capacity to develop a patina and become more beautiful over time. The experts at Hermès work with every rider to identify the model of saddle that corresponds to their riding style and to their horse. From the first meeting to the final adjustments in the field, they adapt the saddle to the rider and to the morphology of his or her mount notably with the aid of the Equiscan® tool that reliably transmits to the workshop ninety measurements taken from the horse’s back. Numbered and recorded in a register, each saddle is unique and benefits from a personalized after-sales and maintenance service. Hermès provides support in the long term for the rider and the horse, its first customer since 1837.