I seem to see them more on barrel saddles than anything else. That one of mine has only the slimmest margin of padding- I wanted something a little different so I ordered it that way. Only slightly modifies the feel of the otherwise slick seat/saddle.
My saddlemaker has since passed, and my budget was realistically less than 1500.00, period. I don’t live in 2K saddle world 
and I did NOT want a ton of tooling to clean.
Well I just got my trial saddle in the mail and gosh the leather is beautiful and soft and supple. The seat is a regular full seat, I guess you’d call it, and it has minimal tooling (just around the edges) and a few silver conchos. I’m looking forward to giving it a try at a clinic this weekend to see how I like it. It is “only” 25 lb., but I don’t know how much more I could handle, swinging it up on the horse and carrying it and getting it on and off the saddle racks on my trailer. I don’t know how people with heavy saddles do it!
Maybe I’ll see if I can get some pictures of it this weekend. 
[QUOTE=aktill;7144069]
I also got a “dressage seat” in mine, and with these stirrups never find myself fighting to keep a balanced seat:
http://www.easphotography.com/Tindur/TindurMartinBlack.jpg[/QUOTE]
What features of that seat make it a dressage seat?
[QUOTE=Fillabeana;7144440]
A bicycle seat is a seat padded in just a small area, rather than the full-suede style:
http://www.freckerssaddlery.com/images/saddles/27.jpg
that’s the ‘bicycle’ or inlaid seat
versus a ‘standard’ padded seat… this one’s in ostrich, but most of them are in suede:
http://www.nrsworld.com/prodimages/10626-DEFAULT-l.jpg[/QUOTE]
Yuh huh.
The look of these is growing on me, but I have to ask about what happens to the soft pink parts (on a man or a woman) when so many seams and edges cross there. Think about the layers involved.
Anybody been bitten in the a$$ (literally) by their fancy inlaid seat?
Mine has been ridden on long days in the mountains many times. No problems.
[QUOTE=Fillabeana;7144109]
Ooooh, Adam, would you be kind enough to share your experience at the Martin Black clinic? Start another thread?[/QUOTE]
Sure, I did up a report for some friends who were interested, I’ll post that a bit later.
3/4 rigged on Tin would be like centerfire on most other horses, sort of funny. I’ve moved away from the pack cinch to alpaca cinches from and back, but those big gaited horse shoulders do sort of dictate full rigging for a roping rig. You can’t really “float” the bar tips like with a non-roping saddle based off the way his back slopes.
He does definitely “fill up the leg” a bit:
http://www.easphotography.com/Tindur/IMG_1495.PNG
The saddlemaker who made the tree for the Wade came out and measured him, but even still got the tree way wrong IMHO. It’s the tree on the left, the right is a picture of a “normal” tree from the Nikkel’s website. The light coloured area on my tree are shaped balsa wood shims I tacked on to show him what the shape ACTUALLY needed to be.
http://www.easphotography.com/Tindur/TindurTree.png
This is the tree I got Rod Nikkel to make for him earlier this year, no shims required. Winter project for me:
http://www.rodnikkel.com/content/index.php/saddle-tree-blog-from-shop-and-desk/from-this-to-that-part-2/
[QUOTE=tinah;7144338]
You ride a thewell pony! What a cutie![/QUOTE]
You’re not the first to make that comment, funnily enough lol
[QUOTE=Pocket Pony;7144358]What’s a bicycle seat??
And I love Tindur - especially that picture of him with the cows! How does he like cow work?[/QUOTE]
He’s all business there. Gets quite annoyed if they won’t move out. I was trailing a herd out the gate and tapped Tindur off to turn back and let the other person close the gate, and Tindur popped up on his hind legs a a step as if to tell me that our job wasn’t done yet.
Gotta love a horse with work ethic, makes life much easier.
[QUOTE=MistyBlue;7144751]
And one issues (among many) I’ve had has been that being narrow hipped, many to most western saddles have been uncomfortable for me.[/QUOTE]
Padded seats are only as good as the ground seat underneath them. If those aren’t shaped correctly, then the padding is just lipstick on a pig.
[QUOTE=mvp;7145042]
What features of that seat make it a dressage seat?[/QUOTE]
Stirrups set further back, less rise to front of seat, low point of seat set further forward, wider flat spot at low point of seat.
western saddles tend to make me feel less free to move or trapped or…something…not sure.
Yeah, lots of western saddles are made to put the rider in a chair seat, with cantle behind and swells in front, and with your leg out front, heels braced down, lower leg off the horse, with spurs in case you need to signal the horse:
http://www.fappaniperformance.com/userfiles/photos/large/1809959684b0c4c21e7009.jpg
That’s a high-caliber reining guy there.
I just don’t want to ride like that. The more things on the saddle that ‘hold you in’, the less close you are to the horse. Galloping in a 2-point position in a saddle like the one above…miserable. Your leg won’t stay right under you, even if you’re standing right above the stirrup bars.
Not very many western saddles are made so you can use your leg in a dressage-type seat, much less support that as the ‘neutral’ position. But they do exist!
I’m looking forward to giving it a try at a clinic this weekend to see how I like it. It is “only” 25 lb., but I don’t know how much more I could handle, swinging it up on the horse
Pocket, make sure you know how to swing a saddle onto a horse properly.
If you ‘started english’, you will have old muscle memories that can easily get in the way, and make it WAY harder than it’s supposed to be. Ask at the clinic, either Bryan or someone else there will be able to help you with that, if only to confirm that you’re doing it right.
And there is a good way to carry a western saddle, tilted sideways against your hip, that makes it much easier. Carrying a western saddle like you would a dressage or jumping saddle, with the saddle level in front of you…no, I wouldn’t want to do that, either!
Here’s a video…it has the ‘P’ word in it…just turn the sound off and go to 0:46 or so, and ignore everything else, and you’ll see how to carry the saddle comfortably. I don’t ever put my hand through at the gullet and carry the saddle cantle-skyward on my hip as shown in the video, I carry the saddle sideways against my hip as shown at 0:46.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJOLFBUeoBg
And maybe someone else can find a video of swinging a saddle onto the horse. All the ones I found were…wrong.
[QUOTE=aktill;7145228]
The saddlemaker who made the tree for the Wade came out and measured him, but even still got the tree way wrong IMHO. It’s the tree on the left, the right is a picture of a “normal” tree from the Nikkel’s website. The light coloured area on my tree are shaped balsa wood shims I tacked on to show him what the shape ACTUALLY needed to be.
http://www.easphotography.com/Tindur/TindurTree.png[/QUOTE]
That walnut tree is beautiful in and of itself. What a shame to cover it with leather.
I bet it added to the weight of that saddle.
The saddle maker I went to raved about old tree-- hardwoods, covered in rawhide. She ranted about the new plastic ones. She even said that a horse who flipped over on a traditional wood tree probably wouldn’t break it.
Both of us agreed that I’d just have to work out harder and keep the old 35+ # saddle… even if I’m still 5’ 1" and put it on the 16+ h WB.
[QUOTE=aktill;7145472]
Stirrups set further back, less rise to front of seat, low point of seat set further forward, wider flat spot at low point of seat.[/QUOTE]
Thanks. I’ll keep your words in mind as I look at the picture of your saddle and others together. It would be nice to get as good an eye for the geometry of western saddles to match the one I have for close contact English saddles.
[QUOTE=aktill;7143872]
Then it WAS a wade tree, and no longer is. That’s not even a roping horn, let alone a wood post, dally horn.
Also: http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/announcement.php?f=107&a=23[/QUOTE]
The horn type does NOT change the tree type; where do you get that idea? Of COURSE it’s Wade tree…it’s a Reiner horn, this saddle as not built for roping, it was built to fit wide backed horses well, and comfort for the rider.
[QUOTE=Melelio;7145852]
The horn type does NOT change the tree type; where do you get that idea? Of COURSE it’s Wade tree…it’s a Reiner horn, this saddle as not built for roping, it was built to fit wide backed horses well, and comfort for the rider.[/QUOTE]
Filabenna and I disagree on this, but I side with Rod Nikkel and other tree makers that say “Wade” is a fork style:
http://www.rodnikkel.com/content/index.php/saddle-tree-blog-from-shop-and-desk/what-makes-a-wade-a-wade/
Nothing about “Wade” means anything in regards to the bars or cantle in a tree, nor to the stirrup position, ground seat shape etc that’s layered onto it.
Ergo, if you change the horn style, that’s not a Wade. It’s a slick fork tree with a metal horn.
It’s like if I bought a Honda, swapped out a Chevy engine, and still said it’s a Honda. It’s not…it’s a Honda body with a Chevy engine.
From the article:
Re: Horns:
It is not uncommon to see saddles labeled as “Wade” which obviously have metal horns on them. You can even purchase horns, usually aluminum, called “Wade horns” which are made large enough to look like a wood post horn. As well, you can have wooden horns on a slick fork style, but the horn is added in later. They don’t start with one chunk of laminated wood which ends up as the fork and horn combined. (You can check out our Building a Wood Post Horn Fork page for pictures of how we build one.) But - as soon as you attach a metal horn or add a wood post horn as a separate piece to a fork, you change the main factor that gives an Wade tree an advantage in roping over most other styles of fork, and that factor is that - (drum roll please…)
4.) It has a thin gullet.
A metal horn needs to be attached to the wood of the fork somehow. Many are attached with screws, as we do, so you need a gullet thick enough to accommodate the length of screws you use so they won’t stick out the bottom of the gullet. Some production makers bolt the horns on through a hole drilled through the fork, with or without a metal plate on the bottom. If a wood post horn is added separately to a fork, that means they also have to drill out a hole in the fork, often a fairly big hole, to dowel in the horn. Drilling holes through wood weakens it - that is a basic fact - so again they need a thicker gullet to be strong enough to stand up to use when they do this. (There is a picture of this type of construction about half way down this blog post.)
Re: Seat/bars
Just because it has a Wade fork on it doesn’t mean it has different bars in it than saddles with other forks, and “Wade bars” can be put under different fork styles. All the Factors That Affect Tree Fit apply equally to every style of fork, including Wades. It all depends on the tree maker - and every tree maker does things differently.
In the same way, the seat the rider feels is a result of the work of the saddle maker, not the shape of the fork. In a western saddle, what the rider feels is based on the ground seat (or lack thereof) that a saddle maker puts on top of the tree. (We have seen “seats” made of 1/8" of foam and the seat leather on top of a built in ground seat on a synthetic tree. Not much effort into that “ground seat”…) A good saddle maker can put a good seat in any tree style - and a bad saddle maker can put a bad seat in any tree style. Now, some companies may have a certain seat shape that they like to combine with a certain fork shape - or not - but that is strictly that company’s choice. There is no seat shape that goes along with a Wade fork. Wade forks do not mean you sit closer to your horse, more balanced on your horse, or any of the other statements you commonly read on the internet. The shape of the seat under the rider is totally independent of the shape of the fork.
[QUOTE=mvp;7145796]
That walnut tree is beautiful in and of itself. What a shame to cover it with leather.[/QUOTE]
A little bit, but then you can do fun things like this:
http://tcowboyarts.org/wp-content/gallery/okc-2010/okc2011_88.jpg
Which, my Wade? Sure did. When I got the finished product he hadn’t made the changes I’d requested, so I needed to strip the saddle down to the bars and build them up out of leather myself. Figure I added at least a couple of pounds by doing it, and getting the skirts back on square and tight involved swearing.
That’s why I’m making my own from now on.
[QUOTE=mvp;7145796]
The saddle maker I went to raved about old tree-- hardwoods, covered in rawhide. She ranted about the new plastic ones. She even said that a horse who flipped over on a traditional wood tree probably wouldn’t break it.
Both of us agreed that I’d just have to work out harder and keep the old 35+ # saddle… even if I’m still 5’ 1" and put it on the 16+ h WB.[/QUOTE]
Here’s a fun read: http://www.rodnikkel.com/content/index.php/saddle-tree-blog-from-shop-and-desk/we-told-you-it-would-be-good/
[QUOTE=mvp;7145799]
Thanks. I’ll keep your words in mind as I look at the picture of your saddle and others together. It would be nice to get as good an eye for the geometry of western saddles to match the one I have for close contact English saddles.[/QUOTE]
The principles really aren’t any different. Like you said, it’s just zoning in your eye. Took me a while to switch over too.
Nothing about “Wade” means anything in regards to the bars or cantle in a tree, nor to the stirrup position, ground seat shape etc that’s layered onto it.
First, a disclaimer: people more knowledgeable than I am about saddle trees, and that would include Aktill, define a Wade as a fork style.
My disagreement comes from the part where Cliff Wade designed a saddle for himself, copied by Tom Dorrance and used by Ray Hunt, etc. The saddles were designed with a slick fork (no swells) and a post dally horn that was set VERY low to the withers, to create less leverage when roping. The bars on a tree with a slick fork like the Wade can be made wider (I mean with more surface area against the horse, not ‘for a wider horse’), and with a flare that are what tend to make the saddle fit a wider variety of horses than garden variety swell fork saddles. Mr. Wade also designed his saddle to fit its rider with legs positioned underneath, like a dressage saddle. So that’s where I’m coming from- large-diameter horn low, bars wider, stirrups hung for the rider to be in a dressage position (rather than with feet braced out front). That’s how I define a ‘real’ Wade, because that’s how Cliff Wade designed HIS saddle.
In the same way, the seat the rider feels is a result of the work of the saddle maker
Agreed. I rode for a couple of years in a 1940s Form Fitter, it had a well made ground seat in it, and you could ride it all day. Hard as a rock, no padding at all, and very, very comfortable. The stirrups were hung so a rider could get feet underneath, or swing forward for a bronc ride.
It had HUGE swells and a small horn set on high. Looked about like this one:
http://www.heritagehancocks.com/saddle-GeorgeLawrence.jpg
The swells were great if your horse had a really, really big spook/spin/shy, but otherwise they would bruise you. I tore out blouse buttons with the horn when my horse got down-and-dirty fast cutting a cow.
To clarify something, I call a dressage seat something the RIDER has, not something the saddle has. A saddle will, or will not, facilitate the rider riding comfortably with his/her legs underneath him. So a dressage seat, to me, has more to do with where the stirrups are hung for a rider that would fit the saddle, than what the saddlemaker did to create comfort (or lack of same) in the seat.
Of COURSE it’s Wade tree…it’s a Reiner horn, this saddle as not built for roping, it was built to fit wide backed horses well, and comfort for the rider.
And thus I’d call it a Wade ‘style’ tree, not a real Wade tree.
Much like leverage bits with a two-piece, broken mouth are called ‘snaffle bits’. I call them leverage bits with a snaffle-style mouthpiece.
http://tcowboyarts.org/wp-content/ga...okc2011_88.jpg
And mvp, that surely is about as mo’ pretty as you can get!
(Much more to my taste than the Skyrider ones, though probably not much less expensive!)
I can’t believe no one has asked the question yet,… but what do you intend to do with your saddle?
My personal saddles are made by Dale Harwood and Chas Weldon. My husband has a Steve Mecum. They are functional art. They are true Wades. Here is some eye candy for you. http://johnandcatparks.com/The_Trinity_Ranch/Gallery.html#19
If I were to show WP- I would be looking at Blue Ribbon or Harris.
If I wanted a reining saddle- I would go Bobs or Elite.
Whomever posted the TCAA- I went to their exhibit at the OKC museum last year- and it was phenomenal.
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