Equestrian Life Magazine put the Very Important Pad through its paces at the Royal International Horse Show at Hickstead. This article describes how the VIP benefited both horses and riders: 

Here at Equestrian Life, we are asked to review a wide range of equestrian products; from clothing to tack, books to feed. This review is on The Very Important Pad but just what is The Very Important Pad?  

The Very Important Pad offers:

Superior textured structure giving high tensile strength, the key to maintaining shape under extreme and prolonged compression
Soft, flexible and seamless with no pressure causing trims that molds to your horses back like a low profile second skin
A thin film gullet eliminates pressure on the horse’s spine
Only 8mm thick so does not alter your saddle fit
Bobbles increase surface area, alleviating pressure points and evenly distributing weight
We’ve tried it ourselves and were so impressed but don’t take just our word for it. Read below what one of our readers had to say.

VIP pad where have you been all my life?

 We have a sensitive maxi cob who is more often than not fairly cold-backed and requires working on the lunge in his tack prior to mounting. We also have a very flat backed HW cob and can have an issue with the saddle “rolling”. We took the pad to the Royal International Horse Show at Hickstead to give it a whirl and we were more than impressed. The pad is easy to use and actually sits very comfortably and above all discreetly under the saddle. It’s very slimline ensuring that the saddle still sat well on the horse. The pad didn’t make the horse sweaty which is a real bonus to minimise sweat marks during the conformation stage.

On day two we actually shared a saddle between the two horses. Due to classes following on, the maxi cob was mounted without lunging and had no reaction when mounted whatsoever! The saddle was more stable on our heavyweight cob and the rider felt secure in the saddle during an impromptu spook at a flapping flag.

 Our rider (who is nearly 60) also commented that after hours spent in the saddle he actually felt surprisingly comfortable in his own back when using the pad! The pad was really easy to clean with either a run over with the hose pipe or after dipped in a bucket removed any traces of hair really easily and the pad remained in shape simply flat dried over a towel.

I would recommend this pad wholeheartedly and over any brand of pad I have used previously … clearly a gel pad is not just a gel pad!