Santa Fe/mountain Man Saddle

[Timbo]

Okay, heres the story on the saddle. In the first pic you can see the saddle as I bought it from a used sporting goods store. You can't see the cheap plastic stirrups but they weren't even covered. As a whole the tree and the leather were in really good shape. The down side was it needed cleaned and oiled. Under the mochilla I found one piece of skirting nailed to the tree as a ground seat and it was sunk down between the bars. It was like sitting on a couple 2x4's spaced 3" apart. The sad thing is you can tell it had been ridden quite a bit like that. As for skirts.......it had none, just a couple of pieces of skived skirting nailed and glued to the bottom of the bars to make a channel for the stirrup leathers.

So I stripped it all down to the bare tree. The tree and rawhide were in good shape but the rawhide in the cantle hand holds had shrunk pretty good and was pretty ugly. That was when I decided I needed to cover the cantle and do it the way I did. Anyway you can see what I did from there. the corner panels on the mochilla were to correct some curling and keep it from happening and they are horse butt. The cantle bind is also horse.

I wanted it to have a sort of old Santa Fe/Spanish feel and thought that flower would work. It was originally found by Will Ghormley and he gave permission to use it as he said it wasn't his he had found it on an old unmarked holster. So I expanded the flower a bit from the original and used it all over the saddle.

The stirrups are from Weavers. They are their military style stirrups. The stirrup leathers are twisted and laced.

The swell cover......well I knew I wanted it covered but wanted it to come off with the mochilla. So I came up with that design. The bottom of the horn cover is keyed to a piece of leather sewn under the bottom of the swell cover to keep it from moving around.

All the strings and conchos are also horse butt.

The skirts are small and pocketed and don't move around at all, just pockets and strings.........I will probably put in a screw or nail in them in the gullet though.

Under the mochilla it is pretty much just a skeleton rig, with the front rigging going around the swells. Pretty simple design that was in excellent shape so I didn't change it.

Oh yeah, It has a full leather half seat ground seat. It actually looks pretty good without the mochilla.

Once it was done it is very comfy to sit in and am sure I could sit in it all day without a problem.

There sure aren't many Santa Fe style saddles on the net to look at. Googling santa fe or mochilla doesn't yield very much, so I abandoned authentic for what I pictured in my head. I did however antique it so it looks old.

Tim

Edited April 9, 2011 by Timbo

[oldtimer]

Great work , Timbo ! Now you have a comfortable saddle for the trail and without any unnecessary weight to carry around.

I am very fond of those old timey mountainman saddles, built o couple myself and very soon I´ll make me one based on a Pony Express tree, but without a mochila.

From the shape of the horn and the over all style, I think your saddle is a reproduction of the "Ashley contract saddle". I have seen a couple of those on mountainman web sites. You can read more on mountainman saddles in the UMO Cayuse handbook ( Upper Missouri outfit ) if you are interested.

I built a mochila saddle a couple of years back andd you can find pics of it here on the LW. Search for "Mochila".

/ Knut (a Scandinavian mountain man by heart)

[Timbo]

Thanks for the compliments. And yes it is pretty light too. I know your saddle very well. I studied the pics at length. It and one oher on the web is about all I could find. Just not a lot of them out there.

After lugging around a 45lb TexTan all one summer I am hell bent on building light weight saddles.

Thanks again!!!

Tim

[oldtimer]

Thanks for the compliments. And yes it is pretty light too. I know your saddle very well. I studied the pics at length. It and one oher on the web is about all I could find. Just not a lot of them out there.

After lugging around a 45lb TexTan all one summer I am hell bent on building light weight saddles.

Thanks again!!!

Tim

I also have had enough of heavy saddles for my personal use, so I´ll stick to light weight saddles.

I like the tooling on the corner pieces of the mochila, just enough for the period !

In the old days they put ornamented lead weights on the mochila corners to keep them from curling

Do you have a pic of the rigging ?

/ Knut

Edited April 10, 2011 by oldtimer

[Timbo]

No I don't have any pics of the rigging. I was too excited getting it together and forgot to take any pics without the mochilla. Its pretty simple. Just a strap going around the swell with a ring at the ends, tied off with latigo. Then there are 2 straps, one on each side that runs back to a piece behind the cantle, tied to it with latigo. The saddle strings, front and rear, come up thru the bars and thru the rigging. I couldn't believe how solid the rigging was once it was all tied in and the strings snugged up. It doesn't move around at all. The rigging leather was all in good shape when I got it, so I left it figuring that at least all the stretch was taken out of it so why start over.

The corner pieces on the rigging were put on to correct the curl it already had and to keep it from curling in the future. Sadly though most of the curl people complain about in saddle skirts is done due to the way they store the saddles. This was the case in this saddle. But, yeah I think they came out nice. Just a simple swivel knife only design. I repeated it throughout as usually thats how they did a lot of the old stuff I have seen. Pick a design and stick with it everywhere.

Thanks for the compliments. I'm glad you understand the saddle. Some people don't.

Tim

[oldtimer]

No I don't have any pics of the rigging. I was too excited getting it together and forgot to take any pics without the mochilla. Its pretty simple. Just a strap going around the swell with a ring at the ends, tied off with latigo. Then there are 2 straps, one on each side that runs back to a piece behind the cantle, tied to it with latigo. The saddle strings, front and rear, come up thru the bars and thru the rigging. I couldn't believe how solid the rigging was once it was all tied in and the strings snugged up. It doesn't move around at all. The rigging leather was all in good shape when I got it, so I left it figuring that at least all the stretch was taken out of it so why start over.

The corner pieces on the rigging were put on to correct the curl it already had and to keep it from curling in the future. Sadly though most of the curl people complain about in saddle skirts is done due to the way they store the saddles. This was the case in this saddle. But, yeah I think they came out nice. Just a simple swivel knife only design. I repeated it throughout as usually thats how they did a lot of the old stuff I have seen. Pick a design and stick with it everywhere.

Thanks for the compliments. I'm glad you understand the saddle. Some people don't.

Tim

Most people don´t !

Knut

[Timbo]

I never really thought about it........but Peter Sherayko liked it and said it looked like a Mother Hubbard............I guess he's right. It does look like a Mother Hubbard. So what does everybody else think......Mother Hubbard, Santa Fe, Mountain Man????????

[abn]

Really nice job. It must feel good to restore and improve a worthy saddle. Sounds like you'll be enjoying it for years to come!

[oldtimer]

I never really thought about it........but Peter Sherayko liked it and said it looked like a Mother Hubbard............I guess he's right. It does look like a Mother Hubbard. So what does everybody else think......Mother Hubbard, Santa Fe, Mountain Man????????

Interesting question , Timbo ! and one of my big interests !

Yes, they look almost the same, with a mochila, but there are differences:

The Mother Hubbard saddles dates from around 1850 and forward.The never had handholes as it was a cowboy´s saddle, and he had no use for cantle handholes. The Mother Hubbard style was popular during the long cattle drives from Texas up north. and most of them had apple horns, which was the fashion at the time. The horns were covered with leather and some had a cheyenne roll.

The mountainman- / Santa Fe saddles ( often named Spanish saddles ) dates from about 1820-1830 - and had cantle handholes ,that´s the most visible difference, also there was often a mochila, . The cantle handholes made it possible to use the riding saddle as a makeshift pack saddle .

Not many of those Mother Hubbard saddles "survived" the harsh conditions to this day during the long cattledrives. No original mountainman saddle is found in a museum according to the UMO Cayuse handbook.

Also, I believe your saddle is a reproduction of the Ashley contract saddle by the shape of the horn and horn cap and the over all style. The Ashley contract saddle ( Col. Willian Ashley ) was made originally in St Louis by the well known saddlemaker Thornton Grimsley for the American Fur Company at $ 5 each , saddlebags at $ 3.50 each and curb bridles at 3.75 each. Those were the days .....

As long as there are cantle handholes in your reproduction saddle and a horn without leather I would call it a mountainman / Santa Fe saddle, and not a Mother Hubbard saddle. Mr Sherayko had a point in the fact that it looked like a Mother Hubbard saddle but that´s where it ends.... like the girl said : " It is a big difference between carrots and d*cks"

References:

Drawings by Alfred Jacob Miller, early western artist,

The book "They saddled the west" by Lee M. Rice, and R. Vernam

The UMO Cayuse Handbook by The Upper Missouri Outfit website: www.lg-usa.com

The book "Saddles" by Russel H. Beatie ISBN: 085131.365.5

/ Knut

Edited April 19, 2011 by oldtimer

[oldtimer]

Interesting question , Timbo ! and one of my big interests !

Yes, they look almost the same, both with a mochila, but there are differences:

The Mother Hubbard saddles dates from around 1850 and forward.The never had handholes as it was a cowboy´s saddle, and he had no use for cantle handholes. The Mother Hubbard style was popular during the long cattle drives from Texas up north. and most of them had apple horns, which was the fashion at the time. The horns were covered with leather and some had a cheyenne roll.

The mountainman- / Santa Fe saddles ( often named Spanish saddles ) dates from about 1820-1830 - and had cantle handholes ,that´s the most visible difference, also there was often a mochila, . The cantle handholes made it possible to use the riding saddle as a makeshift pack saddle . The mountaiman / Santa Fe/ Spanish saddles had "naked", rawhide horns.

Not many of those Mother Hubbard saddles "survived" the harsh conditions to this day during the long cattledrives. No original mountainman saddle is found in a museum according to the UMO Cayuse handbook.

Also, I believe your saddle is a reproduction of the Ashley contract saddle by the shape of the horn and horn cap and the over all style. The Ashley contract saddle ( Col. Willian Ashley ) was made originally in St Louis by the well known saddlemaker Thornton Grimsley for the American Fur Company at $ 5 each , saddlebags at $ 3.50 each and curb bridles at 3.75 each. Those were the days .....

As long as there are cantle handholes in your reproduction saddle and a horn without leather I would call it a mountainman / Santa Fe saddle, and not a Mother Hubbard saddle. Mr Sherayko had a point in the fact that it looked like a Mother Hubbard saddle but that´s where it ends.... like the girl said : " It is a big difference between carrots and d*cks"

References:

Drawings by Alfred Jacob Miller, early western artist,

The book "They saddled the west" by Lee M. Rice, and R. Vernam

The UMO Cayuse Handbook by The Upper Missouri Outfit website: www.lg-usa.com

The book "Saddles" by Russel H. Beatie ISBN: 085131.365.5

"Man made Mobile" by Smithsonian Institution www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancontributions/.../pdf_lo/SSHT-0039.pdf Very interesting reading about the evolution of the western saddle !

/ Knut

Sorry - must have slipped with my thumb - double post!

Edited April 19, 2011 by oldtimer