skeleton or poor boy saddle

[steve mason]

Reading the small skirt post reminded me of some saddles that I have not seen in a long time. I have heard them called either a skeleton or poor boy saddle. From what I recall the swell, horn, cantle back are not covered, just left exposed. I remember hearing that Bob Douglas rides one of these, while visiting harwood there was one in his tack room and I remember hearing that Chuck Stormse used to make them. Anyone here made one or have any photos of one.

Thanks much.

[TroyWest]

Bob sent me a picture of one he made for himself. I'll try to get it on here.

[Elton Joorisity]

Steve, I have pics of some that I can show you in Edmonton.

[Don101]

Do you mean Hope saddles as they are realy bare, Don

[mtsadl]

Hitching Post Supply in Washington was selling some skeleton rigged saddles built on Laporte cable rigged trees a few years ago they might still be on their website.

[TroyWest]

Sorry it took me so long. Ignorance can be time consuming

Spoke with Bob Douglas today, wanted to make sure he didn't mind me putting this on and he was more than happy for me to do so. Also got a little history. Said he started trying to find comfortable and lightweight saddles after he broke his hip many years ago and just started riding some bare trees with rigs on. Said he got the idea from reading a Will James book called 3 Mustangers. The guys in the book wanted to ride as light as possible and came up with a stripped down model. This is one of the styles Bob came up with.

[Timbo]

I like the gullet rigging on that rig.........any tricks to it??? Would you nail it on the inside of the gullet??

Tim

[TroyWest]

Yes, you would need to nail it or put a couple of screws in it. Bob said he's roped a lot of things in this rig and it has held up well, never using more than a 1 1/2" strap on the front rig. He said if it works on those Mexican saddles it ought to work on one of these.

[Echo4V]

That rigging reminds me a lot of the style of rigging that was popular before the Sam Stagg rigging took over. If you look in the leather history forum for a thread about the coolest PDF, or something like that, you can see a lot of pictures of pre-Sam Stagg rigged saddles and the rigging mostly looks like this.

David

[oldtimer]

I built this light weight saddle for a lady last year. I believe this style of rigging is called mexican rigging.

/ Old timer