Post by Marci on May 14, 2017 1:03:28 GMT -5
Gosh seeing that last link reminded me of my first ever treeless I made. Kerry still has my other one. I sent the other one to someone who wanted to make one himself. It was an old english saddle where the tree had broken over the withers, and then another old tree out of a saddle that was so old the leather was falling apart. (got dumped off it because if that fact.) I used the back half of the one broken tree cut out just so the cantle was there. then added some padding in the form of rubber I think I used dollar tree garden kneeling mats. And the front of the tree to the stirrup part so I could use regular stirrups. It actually worked. At least until the day when Shadow tripped over her tail backing in the sand dunes and took off tripping over reins and going heels over head-landing on top of saddle. Pretty much it was toast, thankfully Shadow was fine as it was in soft deep sand. Though she did mess her tongue up badly, it left a deep scar and i never used a straight across bit again, it was either hackamore of some sort or a bit that put no pressure on the tongue. No snaffle bits either. Tough to thik that was like 20 years ago... long before there were many treeless saddles on the market, and maybe one in english style.
