Want To Do This, But Slightly Confused......

[hh1302]

I'm still kind of new to all of this, but have been following along on tutorials, other sites, etc, but have come across something that has me puzzled.

I have a ca 1950s [what we call a] dogging saddle. Basically slick fork with a very low, very sloped cantle with Cheyenne roll. I've been using it to introduce horses to a saddle because, should they roll, there's nothing there to hang up, drag, etc. But anyway, I digress.

The stitching on the horn cover has torn and "opened"--for lack of a better term--revealing the insides. It is a Mexican/pelican style horn, and from looking at pictures on here, I know that what i can see are the four nails that went through the horn cover and--supposedly--into the tree originally. But, there's no rawhide around the horn. It is steel, and the "bowl" under where the horn cap should be is just a hollow bowl of steel. Inside the bowl, there are some chunks of something unidentifiable to me. It looks almost like clay, broken into dried chunks. If you scratch a rough edge on lumber, etc, it marks it like chalk. I've been wanting to try my hand at some stitching, and would like to do this repair. But I need to know what to put back in the bowl, etc. I'll try to get some pics in the next day or so if this isn't a clear enough description.

Any advice/information would be appreciated.

Hugh