rockingmooreranchllc

Dale Moore Saddle School Saddle.

I purchased this off Dale's Craig's Listing and wonder if anyone else received a saddle through the mail this poorly built?  I took a chance buying off the Internet and have had items shipped to me that were tampered with by mail carriers and shippers and I am hoping this is one such item because I cannot believe ANY saddlery school would teach such horrible building practices.  Here is what I found and why and who I am...................I used to build saddles years ago (about 12-years ago now) and was moving from Texas to Pennsylvania via my wife's Air Force career and defense contracting career which has kept us moving for many years now.  I am an ex-corrective horse shoer and ranch-manager and simply was not set up to build a saddle but needed one for our horses--mine was a Semi-Quarter Horse bar, narrower fork/gullet width and found Dale Moore's saddle in a search.  I paid $2,500.00 plus shipping and thought it a great deal.

About a month or so later, I was oiling it and the horn cap came loose after a "crunching" noise--like rice crispies.  So being a ex-saddle maker I pulled out the tools and went to change the horn cap for a re-glue and found there was no filler screwed or nailed to the horn to prevent a dally from spinning--the horn cap had no wrap--was just a cap and the bottom piece was not nailed or affixed at all to the horn base--in face it was all hot glued together.  The " ears " that normally wraps around the horn to prevent the cap and dally wraps from spinning were cut off at the underneath cap and nothing was nailed to prevent it from spinning.  So I tore the saddle down and could NOT believe what I found--hot glue everywhere.  Cantle back missing skived lower edge under a non-existent rigging--the rear rigging was directly in front of the edge of the forward cantle and didn't attach to the back of the tree bars--making it a Center Fire like rigging.  The rigging was 1/4" off from off-side to even side.  And the only thing holding the strings on, was a ring shank nail--the strings did not go through the tree anywhere and the only  think holding the rear skirts were pockets--no lugs straps and only two u-nails from a nail gun.  There was no skirt lacing to center the skirts at the back and Deck Screws held the front skirts to the gullet.  The ground seat was wrong and had NO shaping or skiving for flatness and was hot glued to the seat only at the cantle dish.  The stirrup leathers were 2 3/4" wide with knock off Blevins buckles held on by two under-sized rivets and rattled.  The Fork Cover was held on by hot glue and three braid nails from a finish air nailer.  The rigging at swells was screwed into the rawhide lacing at odd angles and was not skived to blend with the swells--it was just a rigging lump.  Again nothing held the seat on because all the strings were mounted under the leather rosette concho with a single ring shank nail.  All the strings were cut short. 

I am asking this because honestly, this is what came in the mail and I am wondering if someone didn't remove this saddle and doctor it--I can't believe a saddle school would produce anything this poorly assembled.  I went to corrective shoeing school with friends in the saddle making school--Sierra Equestrian School back in 1992.  And I know what a good saddle is, should look like, ride and be made for reasonably consistent use.  So I question if this is really how Moore's saddles leave the school.