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Advertisment for the original Equitex |
Wintec saddles were actually initially released as "EQUITEX" however very soon after Ron and Ken were made aware the name was already in use and changed it to Wintec, originating from "Winning Technology".
The focus of the initial Wintec design was to make it cheap to manufacture in order to get the product to the market at a competitive price. (In fact often under half the price of a traditional leather saddle.)
The first Wintec saddles had a centre seam down the seat, no skirt and the top and panel of the saddle remained separate entities that required joining together. The girth points ran through the top flap in order to lock the flap into place around the horse as the Single Knit flap was very soft.
A Wintec fallacy that still exists a little in the market today is that Wintec saddles had or have moulded foam panels. Wintec saddles have NEVER had moulded foam panels.
The first evolution of Wintec saddles incorporated a moveable cantle attached to a high tech flexible tree base. By moving the position of the cantle different seat sizes were created. Unfortunately it was later found that Stubben was using a similar system in his own trees and owned a patent on a changeable cantle.
Stubben trees use a combination of plastic and metal and consist of two main parts in order to form their shape. The main part is a standard plastic base with the second being a range of different shaped plastic cantles which attach to the base. Due to the patent Stubben was able to stop Wintec being sold on this tree in many countries.