Lady Wade

[raftert]

See if anyone has heard of a Lady Wade or Wade Lite saddle. I have a client the expressed intrest in this. I am trying not to look like a moron I looked it up on the internet. McCall Saddlery offers this and says it narrowed down with a inskirt rigging. I am wondering if the build the ground seat diffrent or if the tree has been narrowed down?

Tim Woods

[bruce johnson]

Tim,

I am not sure what they specifically do with the ground seat on the Lady Wades. We have a little discussion going on the trees themselves and groundseats for ladies over on the "Saddle Supplies, Tools, and Trees" section under the thread of "tree modifications". I have a Timberline Wade on the shelf, and have been told the "half-narrow" trees are the Lady Wade pattern. They are made with a narrower bar and the bottom bar spread width through the waist of the tree is narrower than another similar tree I have from another maker. I have built three on the narrower bar pattern for a guy who likes them.

[raftert]

Tim,

I am not sure what they specifically do with the ground seat on the Lady Wades. We have a little discussion going on the trees themselves and groundseats for ladies over on the "Saddle Supplies, Tools, and Trees" section under the thread of "tree modifications". I have a Timberline Wade on the shelf, and have been told the "half-narrow" trees are the Lady Wade pattern. They are made with a narrower bar and the bottom bar spread width through the waist of the tree is narrower than another similar tree I have from another maker. I have built three on the narrower bar pattern for a guy who likes them.

Bruce,

With the narrow bar does the affect the gullet depth and hight. The problem is she rides throubreds and I am worried about gullet rubbing the higher withers

Tim

[bruce johnson]

Tim,

This is all somewhat independent of the gullet/handhole width and height to a degree. The barpattern itself is just narrower at least through the center. Since these are the only Timberline Wades I have used, I am not sure how it corresponds to their "standard" width bars. I don't know if the overall pattern is narrowed or just through the waist. I measured it at the rear stirrup leather cut as that looked to be the narrowest spot. I compared it to a Nikkel Wade tree I have with the same handhole width. The Nikkel tree was wider, but that is a bit deceiving because the bars on Rod's tree are deeper all the way through and should have more surface area on the horse.

This particular customer's complaint with his last saddles were they were too wide. He likes a dropped 4" round ring rigging, and wanted a narrow ride. I called Timberline and told Randy what I needed to do. He suggested the "half-narrow" bars to narrow things up a little. The first worked out well. He ended up and ordered another, then his sister ordered one. He rides that one too. Later I heard the half-narrow bars are the Lady Wade pattern. I haven't ordered another Wade from them, and didn't think to ask last time I ordered other trees from them.

I am not entirely sold on the concept of narrower bars to make a narrower seat. The right ground seat build up will make a wider one sit narrower, and a lower build up will make a narrower on sit wider. Also does that extra 1/2" of bar extending down my thigh where I can't bend anyway make me get a closer grip? It is on the same plane as the horse's side. Sitting on them bare on the stand you can tell a difference. Sitting rigged and covered on a horse I am not so sure. The groundseat work I think plays a bigger part in this.

[raftert]

Tim,

This is all somewhat independent of the gullet/handhole width and height to a degree. The barpattern itself is just narrower at least through the center. Since these are the only Timberline Wades I have used, I am not sure how it corresponds to their "standard" width bars. I don't know if the overall pattern is narrowed or just through the waist. I measured it at the rear stirrup leather cut as that looked to be the narrowest spot. I compared it to a Nikkel Wade tree I have with the same handhole width. The Nikkel tree was wider, but that is a bit deceiving because the bars on Rod's tree are deeper all the way through and should have more surface area on the horse.

This particular customer's complaint with his last saddles were they were too wide. He likes a dropped 4" round ring rigging, and wanted a narrow ride. I called Timberline and told Randy what I needed to do. He suggested the "half-narrow" bars to narrow things up a little. The first worked out well. He ended up and ordered another, then his sister ordered one. He rides that one too. Later I heard the half-narrow bars are the Lady Wade pattern. I haven't ordered another Wade from them, and didn't think to ask last time I ordered other trees from them.

I am not entirely sold on the concept of narrower bars to make a narrower seat. The right ground seat build up will make a wider one sit narrower, and a lower build up will make a narrower on sit wider. Also does that extra 1/2" of bar extending down my thigh where I can't bend anyway make me get a closer grip? It is on the same plane as the horse's side. Sitting on them bare on the stand you can tell a difference. Sitting rigged and covered on a horse I am not so sure. The groundseat work I think plays a bigger part in this.

Bruce,

I agree that narrow bar don't make a narrow seat, and I believe it is mostly in ground seat. If I may ask what saddle tree co. are you talking about. I have not been making saddles on my own enough to know this comany. The way you talk they know what they are doing.

Tim

[bruce johnson]

Tim,

The Wades I was talking about came from Timberline. I also got Dee Picketts from them as well that I like. Then I shopped trees a couple years ago just to compare, and ordered the same tree from them and Sonny Felkins on the same day. The rawhide lacing was a little smoother on Sonny Felkins. The rest of the tree was pretty much a twin to the Timberline. Bars, swell shape, cantle, could have interchanged them. Price difference was $150 more and a longer wait. That is is just what I saw. Some guys have had better luck with one or the other, and all treemakers for that matter. Obviously regular customers are going to get a little better delivery times from some makers too.

There is however a bigger price difference between these trees and the Nikkel trees I have bought from other guys, as well as other handmade trees I have seen. The handmades are a step up. Problem is with more saddle makers, there is more demand on the good treemakers, and they can only make so many. For a saddlemaker who has a longer list, this is no problem. For the guy who gets an order and wants to get started, it is. I have now built up enough trees that I have a few options on hand and feel comfortable using any of them.

[JRedding]

Bruce, since I live in the same town as Timberline I've used Randys trees almost exclusively for nearly twenty years. I've built over nine hundred saddles on Randys trees and probably spent weeks hanging out in his shop over the years. His half-narrow is pretty much what you've already figured out, I'm not sure because I've always used the half-narrow but I beleive he builds a full narrow seat bar also but don't hold me to it .I beleive the half -narrow bar seems to help out a little if you're working towards a more comfortable seat specifically for women. Everyone has their own theory about seats for ladies, I just try to keep in mind that a womens thigh in general is a round shape and a mans is more of an oval, even if their the same size they tend to be a different shape. I agree you can make a seat feel the same with your groundwork like you said, but here is my theory on it , it's just a theory but it seems to work for me. Everyone talks about close contact and it's a great thing but there are limits to it, a saddletree has to take up as much room as it takes, a treemaker can only thin a bar, and narrow a bar so much and then he reaches the cut off point and he can't do any more for you.So once he's done all that can be done it's up to the saddlemaker to build a seat on it. The only way to narrow a ground seat is to build upward, you have to go up to go narrow. By building upward to gain narrowness and create an opportunity to make more room under the thigh it's only taking you farther from the horses back, and you're losing what little you can do to maintain that close contact feeling, in extreme cases of building up for narrowness you can create a saddle people refer to as riding on , not in. I think the little bit Randy helps you out with his half-narrow just makes it a little easier to get a narrow feeling seat with a little more room for the thigh with a little less chance of getting that on it not in it feeling from trying to narrow it up. I'm a beleiver it's helpful to the saddlemaker, and the benefit to the rider could only be small but like they say an inch isn't a lot unless it's on the end of your nose . Myself , even if it's only slightly beneficial, I'll take it.

[grumpyguy]

I have seen these terms advertised in the High Country Cowboy web site as well. They also sell the Mc Call saddles. I have recently heard people using the terms in regards to custom saddles. I myself have wondered what this "Lady Wade" was. In looking at only one tree which was supposed to be a "Lady Wade" it appears as previously mentioned a little narrower in the bars. (most noticable) The bars themselves appeared to have been thinned down, the cantle and forks were somewhat scaled down as well, "to lighten the tree." (So I was told) The portion of the bars behind the fork appeared thinner than the average wade while rising slightly higher. I was not able to measure the tree and was not told who had made it. (I did not ask.) Overall this particular tree gave me the impression it was not built for much other than trailriding, meaning I would not use it to rope with. I'm somewhat older and approaching that "set in my ways type of thinking" and at the time was somewhat dismissive. (I'm still young enough to realize I could be wrong too.) I guess the point I'm getting around to, is the treemaker does control the basis for the seat shape and there is only so much a good saddlemaker can do to offset that for a customer desiring something nonstandard. I suspect this style of tree was created for the trail riders who like the look of the traditional wade while limiting weight and size for easier saddling and maybe an attempt to make riding easier on thier prized mounts. The narrower seat is a bonus for the smaller framed rider. Look at some of the old time saddles they are not as flat in the seat, shorter seats and narrower than todays wider, longer versions. (13 and 14 inch seats were the norm.) Those saddles were designed for men and horses which were smaller and carried less weight on them and tended to be "hard muscled" from much physical labor. Horse breeders have also bred bulkier, broader, more muscular horses for todays market. (Thus the saying among Quarter Horse owners, "Big hip, pretty eyes and a broad back," was popular back in the seventies and eighties until those lines were found to carry genetic problems in the mid to late ninties.

I know my daughter has a very diffcult time saddling a 14.3 hand horse with a fifty something pound roping saddle, so weight alone would be a concern for her as well. (Imagine a 16 hand horse.) I'm not any more knowlegeable than anyone else so far but thought I'd add my two cents.

I am not familar with the Timberline "ladywade" tree and if anyone has more info I would be interested. I do plan on building an in skirt rigged trail saddle for my daughter. I have not decided on the tree style yet but I know she favors the slick fork or wade saddles. She currently is using my modified association full double rigged rope saddle.

[bruce johnson]

Grumpy,

The three I have built for one guy on the Timberline half narrow trees are used hard. This guy runs his own cattle and rides for other people too. He doctors alone in the field. One of them ended under up underneath a mare who proceeded to tear up a branding corral. The report I got was that "Hodge would be dropping the saddle off, a fender was off - she ran a hind foot through the stirrup, and then she high-centered in the middle of the seat trying to jump over a Powder River panel. The panel is folded up like a taco. You should have been there". I wish I was there to see a good wreck like that. When I got it, the pins had sheared off the Blevins, that was it. Replaced it, and everything else is sound. I think they can take some abuse.

[grumpyguy]

Bruce,

I've been present for a few of those myself. Taken friends to the emergency room minus teeth, stiches and the sort, wives cringe when we say were going out to work cows. Most incidents seem to happen on the ground but there was this one time, I took a colt that seemed to be coming a long quite well into a liveoak rough after three cows with new born calves. Cows got defensive. Colt decided he didn't like the confined space, the border collie and the cows. (My fault, I knew he was a little green for such antics.) He bolted into a liveoak tree dislocating my shoulder, I found myself clinging to mane hair and hide. I tried to climb partway back up and found I was no longer on the saddle and it was under the horse! I kicked off or was bucked off who knows which and hit the ground hard. (A friend said it looked to him like I just let go.) The colt went off bucking and kicking. He was later found all tangled up in the saddle on his back in the brush. The rig only suffered a broken offside billet (It pays to change those out often.) and a few scrapes. The colt was fine. (I was sure it would all be destroyed.)

If those trees are as good as you say I'll have to get serious about it. I did look them up online and found a site under "Timberline Saddlery" but it did not have trees listed, just ready made saddles. Have I got the wrong outfit? My daughter is driving me crazy wanting her own saddle. Can't say as I blame her. I have a great little mare for her to ride and she does not get much time in due to the saddle being too heavy for her, a lighter weight saddle will be just the ticket. Thanks for the info!

As a side note I noticed on other topics you mention cutting horses and saddles, I got started fixing cutting saddles at first and went on to other western saddles. Do you still compete?

[bruce johnson]

Grumpy,

No you have the other Timberline. This one is in Vernal UT. I don't have the contact info with me. Jim Redding has used a bunch of their trees and could tell you more. I am actually pretty impressed with a lot of trees. Usually when one breaks it is a thinner built saddle like a barrel racer of cutter flipped over on the concrete, a fork ripped off by the handle of a squeeze chute, or run over by the gooseneck when it fell off the flatbed.

I used to compete a little more. I grew up in the midwest with halter and pleasure horses. Roped calves a little too. I worked for a cutting horse trainer named Keith Barnett in college. I was green as a gourd, but he took me on. I got to lope some really good horses and learned a bunch about horses and people. I saw some of the top end horses compete. Doc's Starlight (mother of the "Starlights") was owned by a customer, so was a campaigner named "Kingstream", I got to see the Dry Docs and Doc OLenas. Saw Little Peppy show. I got to see guys like Buster Welch, Matlock Rose, Billy Mowry, John Carter, Shorty Russell, Shorty Freeman, Don Dodge, Leon Harrell, Pat Patterson, and Dale Wilkinson show. It was a pretty special time, and I appreciate it more now than I did then. I graduated and moved to California. Married into a stockhorse showing family and my first wife had run barrels too. We did bridle horse/snaffle bit deal for a while and then got to trading horses and starting colts. I ended up with a heel horse that could cut a little. I cut on him for a couple years, he got pretty solid, and then sold him. My wife died and I went to roping calves on her barrel futurity prospect in the practice pen. My new wife has roped some and made it to the senior pro finals with her late husband. Now we just stay pretty close to home and are trying to figure out what we want to do when we grow up.

[Tosch]

Grumpy,

Phone number for Timberline Saddle Tree Company should be 435-789-8228.

Say "hi" to Randy from the Swiss tourist who asked lots of questions and took lots of pictures when he toured the facility last May for about 2 hours.

Tosch

Edited April 30, 2008 by Tosch

[grumpyguy]

Thanks Tosch,

We'll do! Sweden, thats a way away kind of interesting what brings people together!

Bruce,

I know the names (who doesn't if they have been arond the cutting horse arena.) I repaired alot of cutting saddles for people who wanted to be like the trainers and competitors you mentioned. Thanks again for you help!

Edited April 30, 2008 by grumpyguy