The Farmers Daughter

Thanks for posting Welshman. I haven't ridden in it, but I been told they are wicked comfortable! Glad to hear from someone who has seen them before.

its a plantation/field trial saddle with western features. commonly used for hunting.

Hi Folks! I had the good fortune to get my hands on a great hand made saddle. Its 30 odd years old but never been on a horse. Its been stored and while the leather is good quality, its dry. Not damaged. Just drier than I would like saddle leather to be. I wanted to ask some advice on the best way to bring it back. Appreciate any thoughts. Thanks.

Interesting point. It doesn't actually say MADE in Mexico, just says MEXICO. Seller said it came from Texas. But that is just word of mouth.

True Luke. It has stainless hardware and the leather is decent. Its not that card board stuff. It is hand tooled. That leads to the question: Is there such thing as a quality Mexican made saddle? I don't want to delude myself. I have heard lots of negative things.

Here's the thing. I had been loaning my younger brother my contest saddle to team pen in. Knowing that I go to the auctions a couple of times a month, he said to pick him up something of his own. Gave me $400. He's a kid and doesn't have a lot of cash. Thinking I am doing a good sisterly thing, I pick up this lightly used trophy saddle. Looks like its only been used a few times, had nice tooling on it and was a 16 inch seat. I confess, I did not look it over real well besides making sure the tree was sound. I won the auction for $375. I was feeling pretty good about myself. I was told it was valued at $1500. Now that I got it home, I started looking it over and found the stamp "Made in Mexico". Be straight with me folks. Did I just get screwed on a piece of crap?

I am truly saddened by your loss. Fire is a horrible tragedy. There are no words, but I am sorry.

Does the flat, wide cap serve a purpose?

Anyone know?

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Thank you Jim!

One of our boarders is considering an Australian saddle for her gaited horse. She has come to me (?) for advice and I am not sufficiently knowledgeable on Australian saddles beyond the fact that there is a lot of knock offs and crap being sold as such. So I turn to you folks for mentoring on this subject. She is considering a Bates and a Syd Hill. She would like to consider a Toowoomba but fears they are out of her price range. She has a TWH x RMH cross who has medium withers, broad through the shoulders but short backed. Thanks for any help.

Thanks Bruce, its an old one. The latigo holder is marked 3 9 63 with the number 2 above the slot. I am not certain but guessing that means it was built in 1963...? Sheep wool panels and many nice details.

Really? Nobody? Come on now, I appreciate any feedback. Don't be shy.

I can vouch for that. Plus, for most of us...common sense would dictate. Sadly, I must have been under the influence of :brainbleach:.

This saddle is a new purchase. I would like opinions on it. It has a rawhide or bullhide (how do you tell) wrapped tree and has beautiful thick leather. Weighs about 30 lbs. No maker marks anywhere. Brass hardware. I'm kinda taken with it myself.

Its not like that Luke, we have a permit issued to farmers who suffer an excess deer population that impacts farming efforts.. . . although granted they probably don't expect us to do anything but shoot them.

Was it the 'rope a deer' part?

I post....so that others may learn.

An Education - I love venison, so I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home. I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it. After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up -- 3 of them. I picked out a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me. I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I took a step towards it...it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education. The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope. That deer EXPLODED. The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a calf or a colt. A calf or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity. A deer-- no chance. That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined. The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals. A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope. I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and painfully somewhere. At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual. Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in, so I didn't want the deer to have it suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder - a little trap I had set before hand...kind of like a squeeze chute. I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back. Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head --almost like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts. The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective. It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds. I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now) tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the bejesus out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day. Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp. I learned a long time ago that, when an animal -- like a horse --strikes at you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape. This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy. I screamed and tried to turn and run. The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down. Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head. I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away. So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope so that they can be somewhat equal to the Prey.

Brilliant! Thanks

Hi Knut - That is a good idea. How did you modify them? They look perfect.

Oh well, it is a little disappointing, but since I only paid $250 for it, I'm not too upset.

I checked on line but nothing came up. I bought a barrel saddle at auction and it says 'hand made by Tim Davis'. It looks to be vintage 1970's. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.