FINALLY. Rewarded with a new saddle!

By "new" I don't mean "brand spankin" but rather "new to me."  I prefer to consider that all the hard work of breaking it in has already been done.  

So here it is, after a good scrubbing with Leather New and a nice rubbing with Horseman's One Step:

Oh my gosh, you know me with my tack fixation.  I actually took the vacuum cleaner to it.  Yeah, I did a bare necessity kind of vacuuming of the rug, then got busy getting every last miniscule bit of barn dirt out of the saddle.  It's a special kind of dirt: dust/ hay chaff/ spiderweb combo.  Hands up if you know what I'm talking about.

Turned out kinda pretty, I think.

I am quite pleased with this saddle.  I wanted lightweight, and high enough in the gullet (that's the space under the horn for non-saddle people) (the horn being the "holygeez handle" for non-riding people) to fit Phoenix.  He's got high withers.  (Bump where neck meets back for non-horse people.)  

I got a little carried away with taking pictures of my new saddle.  I had to get all ahh-ty about it --at least as arty as I can get with my little Cybershot.  

Oh my gosh, do I ever love tooled leather!!!

The really cool thing is that I got the bonus plan yesterday.  I got not one, but TWO new old saddles!  The bonus is a little 13" pony saddle.  

 

I decided a while back to retire my own pony saddle, the one I actually rode my pony with. It looks good, but I know the leather is brittle. It's just a decoration now. My kids are big enough to ride a normal sized 15" saddle, but I'm thinking about the future.  I would like to teach kids when I'm certified, and I feel safer with little people in saddles small enough to fit them.  Apparently a 5'2" 110lb lady rode this saddle. She must have had a smaller butt than me!

The little saddle hadn't been used in years, and was quite dried up.  You can see how the skirt curled up.  I went nuts on this one.  "Hey kids, look!  It's actually kindof reddish brown!"  I lathered it up with Leather New, wiped it down, dug into every curve of carved tooling and picked out the dirt.  And you know what?  I'm gonna do it again.

Check out the fenders and those cute little tapaderos covering the stirrups!

It's carved and tooled from one end to the other.  It's a good solid little saddle and I look forward to getting a chance to use it.  Until then, I'll just oil it up and take pictures of it!!!  Ha!