Why a Wade Saddle?

[pella]

Why do Wades style saddles seem so popular, i see them everywhere on the net! Custom saddle makers seem to like them too.

Do they have a special feature i am unaware of? or it is just a fashion...i agree they look nice

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

I'll start by saying that the most likely reason Wades are so popular today is that a number of popular clinicians and trainers use them so it is a trendy, fashionable type of saddle to ride these days even if you don't work cattle.

That said, the reason some clinicians use them is that they were working cowboys before they were clinicians, and the Wade tree is a good tree to use for roping. That is why it is a very popular saddle for working cowboys to use depending on the area of the continent you are from. One advantage is that the base of the horn is closer to the horse while still clearing the withers on a Wade than on a tree with a metal horn or on a wood post swell fork. Another advantage, depending on the type of roping you do, is the larger diameter of the neck of the horn.

A Wade tree has a wooden horn. If a tree has a metal horn, it is a metal horn slick fork of some sort, not a Wade, regardless of the name tag that comes with it. A fork with a wood post horn that is well made from good quality wood and rawhide has less distance between the base of the horn and the top of the handhole (which we call the gullet thickness). You need enough wood to be strong enough, but no more. For a tree with a metal horn, you need enough wood to hold the screws well. On our trees, we have almost an inch more wood to hold the screws than we need for strength with a wooden horn, so the base of a metal horn ends up that much higher off the horse even with the same clearance at the handhole.

A swell fork can also be made with wooden horn, but if they have any undercut on the sides at all, you can't make them as low as a Wade without distorting the shape. The shape of a slick fork or a fork that rounds into the bars without undercut (such as a Buster Welch type) allows you to lower the gullet height without affecting the shape too much. Something like an association can only be lowered so far before it starts looking like one of those squashed photographs and there is no room left under the swell for the rider's leg. So to keep the shape of most swell forks, they have a taller handhole and gullet than a Wade needs, which raises the base of the horn relative to the horse.

The reason you want the base of the horn close to the horse's back is so when you rope a cow, the pull is low down and doesn't have as much of a leverage effect on the saddle. It is much easier on the horse and helps keep the saddle stay in place better even though 1000 pounds of movable beef is trying to displace it.

Wooden horns have a larger diameter neck because you need more wood to equal the same strength as a metal horn. The larger horn means that you need less wraps when you dally to get the same amount of friction than you do with a metal horn. This is why you see more working cowboys riding Wade type saddles in areas that come more from the vaquero tradition of roping (dallying), and more swell fork, metal horn saddles in the areas where the tie hard and fast roping style was traditionally used. Traditions die hard.

For plain old ordinary riding, fork type makes no difference. It is just personal preference.

Note: "Wade" is now a description of a shape of the fork, and does not have to relate to any other part of the tree, especially bars. Wades do not "fit better" or differently than other fork styles (except in that they are often lower under the gullet) because they have a Wade fork on them. If they do fit differently, it is because they have a different bar pattern, but that is something separate from the shape of the fork. All trees with Wade forks do not have the same bars under them.

[pella]

thank you for this useful answer, they are always interresting.

Another advantage i could see maybe is that you can place the reins lower? As i ride with 2 hands often, i dont like to have the horn in my way...i dont rope at all. Maybe a wade without horn...! But thats would not be a wade of course.

O yes, another question...i see that the wade fork is quite deep, does it begin at the same distance where the seat is, just going deeper on the front bar? or do it place your farther back on the horse back?

[greg gomersall]

Pella it begins at the sma point and extends farthur ahead. Greg

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

The Wade fork is thicker front to back (stock thickness) than a "normal" metal horn fork. This measurement varies a lot between all styles of forks and tree makers, but slick forks of any type often have a greater stock thickness than swell forks.

To avoid having to make the bar tips a lot longer than normal, backcut is usually used on Wades and other thicker forks. This means that the front of the gullet goes back as it goes down so the fork is narrower where it meets the bars than where the gullet lip is. This can allow the same length of bar in front of the fork cut as on all other trees.

On Wades, there is often a slightly longer (1/2" or so) bar tip in front of the fork cut. Whether this puts the rider 1/2" further back or allows for the shoulder blade to ride under it that extra 1/2" depends on both the shape of the bar tip and the shape of the horse. The length of bar tip is one thing we can change to help fit horses with shoulders that bulge out or come far back into the wither pocket.

[Romey]

Becuase people read and beleive to much Western Horseman

[pella]

Becuase people read and beleive to much Western Horseman

LOL i have the last issue of western horseman and theres a couple fo wades...

[waddy]

I always wonder why someone would want to have Wade or slick fork of any kind made, then put on those ugly bucking rolls as an afterthought. That's why swell fork trees were designed in the first place. To me, it is like building a beautiful custom home with no roof, then putting a blue plastic tarp over it to keep out the rain. From a saddle makers point of view, the Wade/slick fork saddle is easier and quicker to make, as the swell cover doesn't need welts, and the smaller curvature makes it much easier to stamp. They are very pleasing to the eye, and can be very comfortable, just as a well made swell fork can be. The idea of the lower horn is certainly of merit, though practically maybe more so in our imaginations than fact. Many animals have been roped on swell fork saddles with no problem. I don't intend to insult anyone, and I hope I have not done so. This is just my take on them. My heartfelt thanks to Rod and Denise for their wonderful, clear, backed up with fact explanations on this board. My comments here are just opinions.

[bruce johnson]

Regarding the increasing popularity of Wades, Rod and Denise hit it on the head. They have been popular in the great basin area for quite a while. Since slickforks were the original saddle tree style, they just maintained popularity. Ray Hunt took the show on the road, so to speak, and introduced Wades to other parts of the country. Other clinicians have followed suit. There are several versions of Wades - slightly different fork styles.

Probably the biggest reason for the continued popularity of Wades in the west is the bar patterns on the truer to form ones. Generally more surface area on the horse than most swell forks. The great basin is big pasture riding, and so it followed that the bigger bars put less strain on the horses just getting around. When you have one or two saddles and order them custom, most guys order something that has been proven. Not so much for the off-the-rack buyers. Agreed that some swell fork bars are not a problem, but it is pretty hard to look under any saddle and see if the barpads are adequate. There are some swell forks built on good trees, and some have pretty small bars. There are a few varieties of slick fork bars - Northwest, Wade, etc. Each treemakers patterns are probably a little different. I read something I think Greg wrote that Wade trees are probably the most bastardized of any tree style. There are the Homesteads, Cliff Wades, '58, Denny Hunt, help me out...There are a bunch.

With most people it comes down to looks. They see Buck, Ray, Bryan or whoever do some pretty cool stuff with horses, and want to be like them. Yeah, it might be a fad for a lot of people, but there is a definite purpose other than looks for the slick forks to survive.

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Waddy, I know you are talking aesthetics, and everyone has their own taste, but you know, those big blue tarps are used mainly in times of disaster. Maybe the analogy isn't that bad after all...

[waddy]

Ha! Your blue tarp comment gave me a chuckle! I have just read all the posts on your new topic about the Wades. I'm still not totally, absolutely convinced, but obviously the good Wades must work well and have been doing so for many years. I will freely admit that most of my prejudice comes from riding swell forks all my life, and really never even seeing any of the other cowboys riding one until fairly recently. Just one of those territorial preferences, obviously. It has been sneaking up on me in the back of my mind for a long time, and I guess I will have to admit it. I'm going to build one for myself, then I will be able to directly compare. I don't think I can live long enough to put as many miles on it as I have on the many swell forks though.

[cowboygear]

My question is this....Who is credited with making and marketing the first WADE saddles and when? I dont mean slick forks. I mean WADE saddles with a big wood post horns? I have read that Hamley was the first and the Wade saddle was actually named after the fellow who ordered and used it? Obviously the wood post horn originated with mexicans saddles? True wades have really not been around in the United States all that long as I have never seen an american made saddle from the 1800s or even early 1900s with a wood post horn. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[bruce johnson]

Cowboygear,

In short - Hamleys made the second one and an improved third one. Cliff Wade was a neighbor of the Dorrances in Oregon. Cliff had a saddle that his dad brought from somewhere else. Tom Dorrance liked it, and had Hamleys copy it. He didn't like the first one they made, and had them redo the tree a couple years later. I think he said this was late 30s/early 40s as he remembered. The Wade has gone through a lot of changes since then. I don't know of anyone who is credited with making Cliff Wade's dad's original saddle.

Regarding the metal/wood horns. Wood horns were the norm in original trees. They were not always the post horns like the mexican saddles, but a more shaped horn that was prone to breakage. I think I read that Meanea (of Cheyenne roll fame) patented a metal repair horn that bolted over the broken stump and was sold as a repair horn in the 1880s. Within a few years, the metal horns were the norm, either polished and left plain or leather covered.

Anybody feel free to correct me, I am going off a conversation and memory.

Edited August 30, 2007 by bruce johnson

[D.A. Kabatoff]

Here's a couple of photos of a very early 1900's Visalia saddle, probably 25 years or more before Hamley made the Wade tree... you be the judge of what's under the leather.

Darc

[bruce johnson]

I got to look some more stuff up. On the Wade tree, a pretty good little history of it is at www.cowboyshowcase.com/wade_saddle.htm. Pretty well jibes with what I recalled from a conversation with him quite a few years ago. Interesting they wanted to call it a "Dorrance" and he wanted it called a "Cliff Wade". I didn't know Tom very well, but that fits with what a lot of people say about him.

I did find out that the Meanea repair horn was patented in the 1880s also.

Darcy, that is a cool saddle. Thanks for posting the pictures. Interesting leaves. A lot of the Visalia leaves don't have a center stem. They had a single cut line, double beveled, and the veiners radiated out of that. Someone could probably almost tell the stamper by that. Any closer idea of the age? Walker died before 1900, but they used the name stamp off and on through the years. I saw one today seat stamped with the DEWalker, and stamped with the SF mark on the cantle back along with the serial number. That seems to be pretty common. The only problem on this particular saddle, they had a shoe repair guy cut about 1-1/2" off the back of the skirts to shorten them up a few years ago.

I only have one of the Visalia catalogs, a reprint from 1938. They show a model #858. They call it the "Guadalajara" with a short post horn, so they were putting the post on the 3-B at least before that. Griff Durham could probably pin things down pretty close.

[greg gomersall]

Walt Youngman copied the tree of Cliff Wade's dads saddle for Tom Dorrence in 1939. They then improved on that design in what they refered to as a 1940 Wade. This is the tree we refer to today as the wade. The bar angles have changed but the design is basicly the same. the early wades also had a low 3" to 3 1/2" cantle on them.

Darc, by any chance do you know the serial off of the cantle back on that visalia. Greg

[D.A. Kabatoff]

Hey Greg,

I don't have a serial number off that cantle back, I saw the saddle on Ebay and saved the photos. If I remember right the guy selling it said it had been in the family since it was new and was ordered around 1912.

Darc

[greg gomersall]

Darc I was just curious as there were some things about it that made me think it might have been a little newer than that. Greg

[pella]

I agree that the visalia dont look that old...i am not an expert, but the seat jokey in one piece, the conchos (unless they are changed), even the back jockey that is sewn on the skirt, that look more modernthan beginning of 19th century, 1912? Correct me if i'm wrong...i am there to learn, i love history.

can we know you buy it or sell it on ebay? maybe we can contact him? It is an important part of the history!