Tech Stirrups – Aphrodite Dressage: review

Our reviewer found that the style of these stirrups may not be to everyone's taste, they were technically brilliant

The Aphrodite Tech Stirrup is a lightweight stirrup of aluminium construction. It has been produced entirely in Italy and has been designed to have a greater concentration of its weight in the foot bed to allow for greater stability.

The design of the stirrup eliminates the usual rubber insert to provide grip and instead maintains the aluminium design throughout with a number of sharp peaks on the foot bed to provide grip/traction.

On initial inspection we thought the foot bed was incredibly sharp and while it has not detrimentally affected riding in any way, we have resorted to wrapping the stirrups when run up and stored overnight as it has proven very easy to accidentally scratch the leather of either the saddle or stirrup leathers. While this is a little bit of a hassle, the design has proven to be very effective while riding. It allows very easy adjustment of your foot to find an optimum position on the stirrup.

The stirrup itself looks and feels like a quality product, well made and substantial in design, but may not be everyone’s cup of tea as they do look a little different to the norm, with squarer edges to the arch and a matte silver appearance. However, they have also apparently been treated to preserve their aesthetic quality and at present they show very little sign of wear and tear.

The very top of the arch is designed with a slight cut away on each side to encourage the stirrup to hang on a slight angle on the leather to aid the position for the rider and this does seem to work well.