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 forest? In that case, here are a couple of seedlings and a (relatively) mature maple - because he is Canadian, after all...

From left to right: Greg Cymbaluk, Rod Nikkel, Dusty Smith

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 occasionally hear of people using protractors to try and measure angles off their horse and correlate them to bar angles on saddle trees. You just can’t do that – and 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.

We’ve had an additional body around the shop the past couple of weeks.

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

This is a bridge. It contacts at both ends and has lots of empty space underneath 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.

Merry Christmas everyone!!  OK, so the shape isn't quite right...

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

back in the ‘80’s, there was a cowboy…

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've had the privilege of being able to ride my engagement ring...

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

Some people think that when we get Dennis Lane measurements or back drawings of a horse, we make the bottom of our bars the exact reverse of the back shape of the horse. Nope, we don’t. We have to make a tree that fits that horse, a tree that works whether the horse is standing still or moving, is walking, trotting or loping, is going uphill or down, is dragging a calf to the fire or holding the rope while the cowboy is doctoring the animal. This means that we learn the basic body type of the horse from the drawings or DL measurements and then we make the tree with the allowances built in that are needed to fit that body type.

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

When people discuss saddle fit and try to label trees or saddles to describe their fit, you can get into a real quandary. The old Quarter Horse, Semi-Quarter Horse and Full Quarter Horse labels are so inconsistent that they are not very useful. (We wrote about that before.) Now people like to talk angles, figuring that saying 90 degrees or 93 degrees will mean that all trees with that label will fit the same. Nope. T’aint so…