Friday, June 4, 2010

Field trip Friday

After three long days in the studio, I was ready for a break. Rather than spend another five frustrating hours working on a single boot, I opted to join my friends Carol and Cara for an afternoon of window shopping at Down Under Saddle Supply.Although this store is located less than ten miles from my house, I visited it prior to today.
I have no explanation for that oversight. This is a really cool store with stacks of saddles everywhere.Seriously, this store is filled with saddles!
Of course I had to sit in one.
Cara did, too.
The girl who was working at the store was really nice and was more than happy to talk about Australian saddles all day. I especially appreciated the tacking up lesson.
Now that I understand how all the pieces go together, I really want to make an Australian saddle!
I took lots of pictures of all the different colors and styles...
As well as lots of detail shots.
The cantle of a standard type Australian saddle.
The cantle of a Western style Australian saddle. Can you spot the differences?
There was lots of other cool tack to look at.
Saddle bags.
Saddle pads.
More saddle pads.
Cruppers.
A breastplate with built in water bottles.
There was also a small but interesting selection of clothes. Carol tried on several items.
I did, too. Poor Cara. Grown ups are so embarrassing!
Down Under Saddle Supply can be found on the web at http://www.downunderweb.com/. Tackmakers take note, they also have a free catalog with good pictures of most of the items pictured in today's post. If you're looking to make (or buy) Australian tack, this is an awesome resource.
Posted by at
Labels: ,

3 comments:

  1. brindleladyNovember 25, 2011 at 11:31 PM

    Australian Stock Saddles are hands down one of the most comfortable saddles out there!

    In my early teens I had the misfortune of falling and breaking my hip. Riding after that was terribly uncomfortable.

    Then, I had the great fortune to ride an Aussie Stock Saddle for 12+ hours at a Brittany Spaniel Field Trial and was able to walk that day and there after when normally logging that kind of time in a standard Western Saddle would leave me practically chair bound for days.

    If you have the chance to ride one of these saddles, do it, you will be quite pleased.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jo K.February 22, 2012 at 12:40 PM

    I have been having a wonderful time looking at old posts. This one is great. The next saddle I make is going to be a LB scale Aussie saddle!!! I have not worked with tack in this scale, so should be fun!! Thanks,
    JO K

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownJanuary 26, 2015 at 4:59 AM

    I ride in stock saddles all the time. Although if the saddle is too small, the 'wings' (i think that is what thay are called) press into your thighs when you rise trot , so you have to sit trot. But other than that they are great

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)