I am looking at purchasing a Tough 1 Silver Royal Stetson Elite saddle for my daughter who barrel races. Can anyone give me thoughts and opinions on this brand? I ride English so I don’t know much about Western saddles. What else should we be looking at besides seat size? Are there different tree widths to consider? Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!
The tough 1 / silver royal brands are imports. They’re the better imports, since they’re at least visually decent copies of good saddles, but the leather, hardware and tree quality just isn’t there. If you can get one used for <$200 it might make do for a short time if it actually fits the horse, but at the prices they ask for those things new? No way!
It would be a MUCH better use of money to pick up any of the american-made brands new. Even a lower end one will be light years ahead of the silver royal. Used barrel saddles come up on eBay, CL and the FB for sale/trade forums fairly often.
This site is a little basic, but it gives a overview of the different tree sizes/bars/things to consider.
http://www.horsesaddleshop.com/saddlefit.html
