Home Forums Gear Horses and ATV's Saddles, what do you ride in.

Talking about stirrup length and saddles.
Dad is an ex jockey who learned to ride that way, I can only think of one time when he rode with stirrups below knee length when sitting in the saddle.
He was most comfortable on a horse when he was squatting above its back and if things looked like they would be a bit hairy or the ground was a bit steep or rough he'd actually shorten his stirrups so if he sat on the saddle with his feet in the stirrup only the lower half of his calf was below the horses back. He rode everywhere in nothing bigger than a seven pound exercise saddle, and I've seen him ride some real rough country.
He used to throw fits at me riding a western saddle, he used to say an English saddle is like riding an armchair and a western saddle is like putting your entire bedroom suite on the horse.

Charley Snell's blog is at www.charleysnell.wordpress.com

Thanks

Got a little under the weather for a few day's, but finally got back to this thread. Like to see the different style's of saddle's, and horses's.
I mentioned my Dad riding mule's, but before he got into mule,s, he raised old line Morgan horses. I remember a couple of the bloodline's he mentioned as being Flyhawk and Senator Graham.

I use mules for our mountain riding now, as a lot of it is no trail but just make your way, timbered and rocky. But I will say I had an old fashioned stocky TW mare that had a great work ethic, was a , You bet, we can do it, kinda mare, had a ton of good sense, on the good road could gait and get it, she was shod normally and naturally as she gaited naturally, and she had a good short lope.

She was sensible and tough, just a good mountain mare. Alot of her gaiting ability had to wait til the countryside was more favorable to her gaiting, she skimmed the ground, overreaching up over her front hoof print a good deal, and she couldn't use that speed hunting. She was very surefooted and would pack anything, could shoot off her more than once (!) She was intelligent and solid as a rock. She save my bacon more than once. I raised a dandy mule out of her, and then sold her at the Great America Trail Horse Sale in Columbia MO, she was the high selling animal over 10 years old there. I felt like she should go to a home where they could really use her super smooth gait, she went to the bridle paths of Pennsylvania, and that worked well for her new buyers, and my current mule works well for my current situation. We still have that mule, and she has the same, You betchya, lets do it, attitude...love her too.

Had the gentleman who made my saddle build me this scabbard. Now were sequenceing



Now we got to get this thing broke in so my rifle doesn't hang up..

Geez, Pat. That's too nice to use!

Very nice, Pat. Mine and yours are almost twins.

All my saddles are built on a Buster Welch tree and don't have much leather between me and the horse. I like to sit right down on and feel the horse. I wouldn't ride a padded by choice.

Had him copy a colorado saddlery scabbadard I have, except beef it up and tool it. Added 2" to the barrel area in case I get a hair brained idea to pick up a ultramag.

i believe those are the saddles my family out there used back in the day, They are all from that area, little dont blink town called ismay. They used to sell horses back in that time to police/military over seas. Might could be your dad crossed paths with some of my family members way back when. If;n your from that way.

Yes, Ismay (which briefly went by the name Joe, Montana) is about 50 miles east of us. I'm third generation on this place and my family has been here for 99 years. Miles City exported more horses overseas from 1890 to 1940 than probably any place in America.

Yea, my family out there were the lennells,shoemakers and the griffins. They had ranchs outside of ismay that they had horses on. Some of them still live out that way, but since my grandpa died were not in touch much with them. Always listend to storys when i was young about my grandpa and the lennel boys and his brothers going to town and getting in fights at the dance halls. haha, one of these times im gonna make it out there.

I don't know any Lennels, but the Griffins are well-known. Bill Griffin graduated in my high school class. Very good people. There was a Shoemaker, now deceased, who once held a knife to my throat years ago in a Miles City bar. That was after he put his .45 ACP away. A lot of great Western history around Ismay. It was named by a pioneer who had daughters named Isabelle and Maybelle. He combined their names to make Ismay. I believe it was "[bleep] Bob" Levitt who had a famous watering hole in Ismay about 100 years ago.

mtrancher, did you ever own on of those early Miles City saddles?

No, my father's, made in 1934, is the earliest I've owned. Miles City, of course, was a huge saddlemaking town at one time. As was Cheyenne, WY. The early Miles City saddles are still to be found and if in good condition they bring quite a bit of money.

my grandma was a griffin, she moved back out this way in prolly 1950 or so with my grandpa who was from wisconsin, dont know a whole lot bout her parents, i guess her dad was a pretty angry/drunk fella, and her mom died when she was young. That sounds kinda like a shoemaker, that side of the family has a bif of a temper. They had a big ranch at one time out that way, and leased a island somewhere up near alaska that they ran beef on for a lot of years.

I know they are highly sought after, seen one listed on ebay a few years back. There was a lot of interest in that saddle.

This looks like a likely spot for my first post.
I ride either a Vinton ranch cutter on a BW tree, or a Circle Y cowhorse.