We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

A couple weeks ago Rod finished and used the new jigs he had been working on.  Cutting the slots in the back of the bars on sawbuck pack trees has always been a bit of a chore.  With these new jigs, now correctly set, things should go a whole lot faster on the next one.  Here's some of the process that goes into making a sawbuck pack tree, and how the new jigs fit in.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

I'm moving on to section two of the good reasons to order a hand made tree:  Relationship with the treemaker.  While these may be true of any company, the larger a company gets, the harder it is to maintain that "personal touch".  Because there is only two of us, you get to talk to us directly, and when our name is on the tree, we want to make sure you are happy with it.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

We shipped this tree out last week.  The customer wanted things a little different - nothing really dramatic but mixing and matching some different factors involved in the look of a swell fork, and it turned out looking really nice.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

With the background I laid in the previous post of the importance of the history and therefore the design differences between English and Western saddles, I want to move on to talking about some of the "saddle fit rules" you can easily find on numerous websites all over the net.  These "rules" vary in number depending on which site you are reading and they tend to be pretty standard with the occasional exception.  But in all cases they come originally from the world of English saddles and are very commonly transposed directly onto western saddles without understanding that western saddles are designed very differently.  So here is my assessment of these "rules" and how they do or do not apply to Western saddles.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

Maybe this post should be called "a tale of two horses".

Meet Mouse.  He is a Fjord.  He's short.  For those familiar with the Dennis Lane system, he reads D10 at A, larger than D10 at B, and D9 at C with a rock between 9 and 12.  For those not familiar with the Dennis Lane system - he's wide, flat side to side and has a lot of rock in his back.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

Well, I'm back to anatomy again, discussing a very important muscle of the horse's back which can really be affected by a saddle - the longissimus dorsi.  Actually, there are a number of muscles that have "longissimus" in front of them - longissimus lumboram, thoracis, cervicis, which together with the spinalis and semispinalis all make up what is often just called "the longissimus".  The longissimus is the major back muscle which runs from back to front of the horse - but not like you may think...

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

There is a lot of discussion - on the internet, written in books, put into video form, etc. - about how saddles should fit horses.  But for a western saddle tree maker's assistant with a background in veterinary medicine (ie me), it is an exercise in frustration reading what is said about fitting a western saddle.  Sometimes what is said is just plain wrong, stated by people who don't understand how saddles really work but who present their unsubstantiated statements with confidence and authority.  Sometimes it is wrong because people are following a set of "rules" and applying them without thinking through what they are doing, and without understanding how saddles really work.  And very commonly it is wrong because "the rules" of fitting an English saddle are transferred onto Western saddles without understanding the differences in design of a western saddle versus an English one, and without understanding that these differences mean the whole way of looking at how the saddle functions has to be different as well. 

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

There are very few things we won't build when it comes to saddle trees.  Sometimes there is a learning curve for things that we haven't built before or different disciplines we aren't very familiar with, but if a customer is willing to work with us to help us understand how they want something built, we will do all we can to make it the way they want.  Except... we won't build something that we feel will negatively affect the fit or function for the horse - and Arizona bars fall into that category.  We never have, and never will, build an Arizona bar.  Here's why...

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.