Easy Fit Saddle seat leather style

[plinkercases]

I am restoring a saddle where the seat leather does NOT come all the way forward past the forks to cover the front of the bars, the drop down in a curve from the cantle to the inside of the forks and there is a small front "corner" jockey for lack of a better term which returns back under this drop in the seat leather and the skirts are pocketed over the bar ends.

I have only found pictures of few saddles like this and they all seem to be made but Easy Fit. Is this just their style, little trade mark, or is it to save leather costs and ease construction time? In Stolman's volume 1 on the page introducing fenders there is a sketch like it on the top right as he talks about in the earl y 1800's etc... is it just an older approach that they are still using? and would the rear jockey ever have come all the way to the front under the seat leather?

I am not planning to replace the seat leather so I seems to be stuck following the same pattern, not that it looks horrible, but sure doesn't seem to be the norm...

Its built on a Ralide 1500 tree not that it matters to this question I suspect.

Just curious about this approach and why or why not one would use it.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

[Big Sioux Saddlery]

At one time all western saddles were made with a separate front jockey.  There wasn't a specific reason for it, so much as that was as far as the process had evolved, although using a separate from jockey certainly allows for utilizing your leather to the maximum.  A seat made in the modern manner takes a big chunk  out of a side of leather.  Back when separate front jockeys were common, (and I don't know the exact timeline of the evolution of the processes) separate side jockeys were also the norm.  They were nailed to the tree, and later stitched to the seat leather.  The channel forward of the rear strainer plate was open, with the top of the stirrup leathers exposed where they wrapped around the bars.  Later, the seat leather was extended forward and slots cut of the seat, while still using a separate front jockey.  I always wondered who was the first guy to cut the seat from one big piece of leather and eliminate the separate front jockey.

 

A disadvantage of using this method is that it can limit the forward swing of the stirrup leathers, and add some bulk where the seat overlaps the front jockey.  Also, oftentimes there will be a string at that spot to hold everything together, and it is not the best place to be drilling a hole through the tree.  Back when that method was common, riggings often went completely over the fork of the saddle, in the Sam Staff style, and the area of the bar where we fasten riggings today was not as important structurally.  Or maybe I should say it was less utilized and less strain put upon it.

The evolution of the western saddle as we know it today is a fascinating subject and that is a very brief synopsis.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Big Sioux Saddlery
Correct autocorrect

[plinkercases]

Thanks so much. I will let you know if I replace in kind or figure out something with the seat leather.... and wreck the whole deal real good!