My new (to me) show saddle

I just have to laugh that I’ve spent months looking for a saddle far and wide.  I’ve looked on Craigslist, eBay, and other websites that sell new and used saddles.  I’ve gone to many stores in multiple states. And I have had friends on the look out as well.  In the end, it was a friend that found it after we got back from our vacation. 

On the 4^th of July, Sharon was at the Half Moon Bay Feed and Fuel and saw it at the front of the store.  She texted me and even though we didn’t know what kind of tree it had we decided to take it for a fitting.  She picked it up on the 9th and brought it down to the ranch.  It was sitting on a saddle rack when Todd saw it and he thought it was going to be too narrow.  But when he looked at it closer he thought it had promise because its construction gave the leather more flexibility and he thought it might change shape once it was on Blu.  So the next step was to put it on Blu without a saddle pad.  Todd looked at it from many angles, put his hand up between the saddle and Blu’s back and he said it fit!

I then added a pad and saddled up for my lesson.  I wanted to see if he moved freely, or had any rub marks or inappropriate sweat voids after working in it for an hour.  And I had to see if it was comfortable for me too, of course.

The saddle turned out to be super comfortable.  It’s an Equitation seat and I settled into it nicely.  It was a nice fit though I’ve got to work on finding the correct stirrup length.  It was on the shortest setting and I’d changed it to quite a bit longer, but it needs to be adjusted until I find the right length.

The saddle came with a matching breast collar and bridle, which is great - more tack I don't have to buy separately.

Looking at the positive from all of the saddle shopping – it did help me learn a bit about Western saddles.  I’m no expert, far from it in fact, but I do feel like I understand about the tree, rigging and seat better than I did before.

Now to find my best options for cleaning it.