Before we placed our order for trees and leather our saddle builder friend Randy Fagins invited us down to the ranch to try on trees, or saddles that is. All ones he has made. So we took our two mules and two horses down to the ranch with us, down near Sonoita, to see how they fit and what was what. It is really wonderful and I can’t tell you how insightful it is to have a saddle maker help you in any plans for a new saddle, no matter how you acquire it.
Clara mostly went along for the ride. Her saddle that was made for both Clara and I that was done up several years ago by Randy and is still in really good shape. Her saddle does not fit anyone else at all. It IS Clara’s saddle. Randy made it and I love it. I can ride it all day long because it fits both of us so well.
Part of the reason to get going on these is because we have several other saddles. Three of these are in pretty good condition and the rest not so great. However, they are all a bit large for these other three animals Penny, Norman and Cochise. They want to drop down too far in the shoulder and getting too close to the withers. One of the good ones is pretty close to a good size for these three animals and we have been using that one without causing any problems but knowing the situation could be better. We use the 1 1/8 inch 5 star pads and that had kept the saddle up well enough.
It is really is a great experience to go saddle shopping with a saddle maker. He can see by looking at you and your horse what you need and can explain why. He had us sit in several saddles and explained we can design and build ours any way we want constantly giving us ideas. Mine will be built pretty much like Clara’s. Ollie wants to cut hers back as much as possible to cut down on weight. So hers will be in skirt rigging with trimmed down skirts with plates in the skirt for strength. It will be plenty strong enough for her and how she rides. Rough in the mountains will be fine, but no roping, she doesn’t rope anyway. So we think that is fine and Randy agrees.
Deciding how much dish in the cantle we needed in the seat was trial and error checking all of his saddles for how they fit us and making note of the ordered dish measurement from when he ordered that particular tree back when he made a particular saddle. He keeps great records thankfully. It makes a huge difference if you don’t want to be pushed forward out of the saddle with every step, which has been a bit of an issue with Ollie, my wife. When she rides Clara in Clara’s saddle it does not happen. She rides Clara quite a bit especially in the rough stuff.
Then we looked at the cantle width for comfort without getting sloppy in the seat again checking the original orders. Also at the cantle height which is mainly for comfort and a little for style. If you go a little higher you can find a bit more room for your cantle pack back there but you also have to consider your rear end up against it and will it rub? Then the type of finish on the top of it, a pencil roll, a Cheyenne Roll or…. I would not have thought to look at all of these things if I was sitting in a showroom full of new saddles. Which I have done before without getting much help from the salesmen. It was just see what feels good to you. That is totally useless. I never did buy one that way because I just never felt sure enough about it. But then again all of those are on the same tree with identical measurements except for the length. You are out of luck if you want something a little different than the standard.
Then we looked at the front end and styles of trees like a wade which has the lowest horn setup so that ropers can get the pull of the rope down lower to the horses back to create better leverage and less wear and tear on the rope horse. Doing a lot of pulling from a higher elevation can be hard on the saddle and the horse as the pulling brings it forward on the horses withers. Lower down it is less stress, or at least that is the theory. We also looked at Bowman which has a higher rounded but narrow swell. We looked at a Will James style with a bit wider and angled out swells. We looked at options for gullet width and height. These measurements determine how far down the saddle will sit on the withers and shoulders. One of our main goals for our new saddles was for the saddle to not sit too low. We looked at horns too.
We also looked at styles and poster board patterns for the final plans. Randy has lots of patterns to look at. Fenders is another important thing to look at. A lot of saddles are made for tallish people so they have room for adjustment down. However, if a saddle made like this ends up in the hands of a shorter person the top of the fender shape gets shoved up into the saddle disallowing freedom of swing for the stirrup because the top of the fender is too wide and bulky which can really adversely affect riding and leg communication from rider to horse. Randy had an old Porter there that Ollie really liked the shape of with small rounded skirts in the back and may go after that look. I want one very similar to Clara’s with the wider squarer skirts. So we had lots to talk about and to think about. Order is going in by the end of the week.
Join me next time to see the final decision on the trees. Thank you for stopping by.
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