I have one horse and three saddles. One fits him and is in use, one I love but fits a wider horse so I’m happy to hang onto it for a potential future use.
The third saddle was cheap new, and is now old and the seat seam is splitting. The panels are foam and aging, the leather is so-so. It sits in my garage and I condition it once in a while. It serves no purpose now nor can I think of a future purpose. It is not nice enough to even donate.
Is this saddle destined for a landfill?
I’d try donating it and/or asking your local FB group if anyone is interested in it. You’d be surprised. A few years ago I gave away a Kieffer with a broken stirrup bar; it had some value but the repair cost was more than I could sell it for once fixed. I gave it away with that disclosure - someone snapped it up immediately, repaired it, and it’s been serving quite a few horses at their barn over the years since.
Turn it into a purse. Or a swing.
I use old saddles for colt starting. As long as they’ll stay on and don’t pinch, they’re good for training.
This would probably be the best use. I don’t know any colt starters - need another?
I love rehabbing the leather on old, ignored saddles, but it has to be a usable saddle, I can’t do repairs on structure or seams. Several times, I got inexpensive saddles of good brands that had been ignored until the leather was dry and stiff, and conditioned the leather until it was soft, then resold them.
Some old leather smells really bad to me and no amount of leather conditioning I do seems to remove that unpleasant odor. These old saddles have gone into my trash bin. There may be moldy flocking involved as well.
Sometimes designers are looking for them for “decor” check with them
Or this time of year maybe someone is doing a haunted house and could use it, or a school drama dept
If you have a local Pony Club, you can ask if they would like it for educational purposes. They can be stripped back on one side to show the different parts of the saddle, or can be used as an example of unsafe tack, etc.
I gave one to a local artist to make a rocking horse for his daughter…in return he gave me a lovely small framed painting of a local marsh!
My local Pony Club parent base is so affluent they would probably buy new saddles for that!
Good idea, though. I honestly never thought about disassembling one of my old saddles for my own education. Now it’s on my list.
Here’s a matching “how its made” video to go with: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3jre_rfhkhI
(Part of a great series of videos outside of saddlery as well)
I sold mine to a friend who makes bar stools out of them. I think I got about 40 bucks for it which was awesome as I was just trying to get it out of my house.
I’ve also seen some pretty old worn out saddles for sale as decor in antique malls, so maybe somebody with an antiques business would want it.
I hung a few out of my trees. Just an eclectic look after we got 3 hurricanes in 13 months. Everything blew around and flooded so we just made it look like they[/img] got stuck in trees.
This!
Won’t be cheap, but Calyse-co.com - in NH, IIRC - makes gorgeous purses from saddles.
This was my DH’s close comtact:
Bonus Points if you’re old & Midwest enuff to know why I asked this be included :
I’d cut the billets and then donate or sell as decor or for a crafter to reuse. I won’t let a compromised piece of equipment leave me without making it unusable because there are still some deeply ignorant people who really don’t understand saddle fit and will use a saddle in any condition.
I would expect the Si Jayne model to be black and blue .