differences between arena saddles for a specific purpose vs. long-day riding saddles

[greg gomersall]

Bruce the arizona bar was developed for the extra strength they would have by not having both cuts in the bar and they allowed for a slight bridge effect to keep the stirrup leather from creating a lump, I don't use this bar but just wanted to point this out. As for the PRCA rule book being vague look at the clause for rigging position. It states that it must be 3/4 rigged and that the front edge of the ring cannot be back of the center of the swell, that is fine on a 15 1/2 or 16 but lookat these 17 and 17 1/2 seats most of these guys are using nowadays. It is mathamaticly impossible to put the rigging in true 3/4 position as the front of the ring would be back of the the swell center. Talk about a contradiction in desription. I talked with some judges at Vegas last fall about this and thier eyes just glazed over. Greg

[bruce johnson]

Greg,

Good point about the rigging position on the bronc saddles too.

I understand about the double cut weakening the bars and the reason for the Arizona bars, especially on the cutting reining saddles with thinner bars. Playing the devil's advocate here for a second. Denise and Rod posted a pic in the tree section of some skirts off a saddle with Arizona bars. There was a definite groove worn in the skirts at the back edge of the stirrup leather. There was no wear or rubbing on the skirts behind that for a moderate distance. Obviously the stirrup leather edge was putting pressure on, and the middle of the bar was bridging enough to not provide much support. Reason enough for me to rethink bar patterns. I know that a lot of swell forks with Arizona bars are cowboying and roping saddles. My rambling brain is thinking these horses would be happier with some support there, either thicker bars built into the rocker for less bridging and a double stirrup slot or a shim on a reline when it is seen? The increased bar thickness would not raise the rider up any more than is already there, it would fill in down below.

[greg gomersall]

Bruce I fully agree with you on the bar design being a poor choice. I've seen them shimed before but even shims cut out of good stock will pack down considerably over time so the question is will they pack down evenly? If one packs a little more than the other the whole saddle will be out of balance. That is one of the things I like about my big splitter, I can level my skirts and my plugs out evenly before I start even though the skirts themselves could pack down unevenly in the bar area over time. Dale Harwood told us at the TCA seminar last year that if he had to chose between his stitcher and his splitter he would keep the splitter and sew everything by hand. Greg

[greg gomersall]

(Moved here by Johanna from the Cantle thread)

As for Joel's talk at the TCA he said he felt a saddle should bridge a little so a horse can round up under neath it. This is not a desireable trait in a usin rig but I believe that if a person were building an areana only type rig you might reconsider, in reining, cutting etc. a horse is constantly underneath himself and his back rounded up quite frequently, The "slight" brigeing effect at this time might work to your benifet. Greg

Greg, You make an excellent point here concerning bridging.

The slight bridging does add some stability to the arena type saddle when a horse is working with a rounded back as long as it is not an end to end type of bridging.This is especially true when cutting. It is important that there is still flare and relief at the bar ends. If done properly you can still achieve plenty of bearing surface without creating excessive pressure points and this can work well for its intended short term use.Too much bridging can actually encourage a horse to drop his back or refuse to round it when there is too much pressure at the tips (rear) of the bars and of course this leads to other issues.

I totally agree with you on the long term daily using rig.

Respectfully

Blake

Hi Everyone

I apologize for hijacking the thread and taking it away from cantles.

I guess another to to say what I have been trying to say is that on an arena type saddle I would use a flatter bar (one with less rock). Maybe this is a more palateable word than the word bridging. Of course one must make sure the tips and edges of the bars are not digging in. What we ask and expect a horse to do in the arena varies a lot from what we ask a horse to do in the pasture. Greg