Monday, May 4, 2020

Tack

      Depending on who you ask, I either have a lot of tack or not very much tack. If I was a black hole collector, I would have a lot more tack than I do (and some really interesting hobby history!) but I spent a lot of years incredibly poor where sometimes selling tack and models was required to pay bills. I also have gone through tack purging phases (everything purging phases) where I decided if I didn't use a piece or if I didn't love the fit for the dolls or the horses, it could go. I like everything in my collection to be usable. At least in traditional scale. Today I thought we would have a brief tour of a chunk of my tack collection. I am not going to show everything individually, because I am not that patient. I also, sadly, don't know the maker of every piece or when it was made. If something is not signed I may know almost nothing about it. But here we go. 
     This is the view of the saddle wall of my miniature tack room. The wall mounted saddle racks were made by Enterprise props and I believe the pink was a custom order. I might be wrong on that. 
      This is a really bad view of my English saddles. All of the custom pads were made my Studio Maire, a couple of them specifically to fit particular saddles for me. Maire does such gorgeous work! The single saddle racks on the back wall were made by HandcraftedByKari on etsy. 
     I own a lot of bridles. Or enough to fill a long wall and a short wall in my tack room anyway. I made all of the bridle hooks from bent wire, drilled tiny holes in the wall, and glued all the hooks in. 
I own a couple of spectacular braided bridles made for me by Danielle Hart. 
       One of them, maybe this one, she finished just in time to express ship it to be before TRXC. My mail carriers often will skip bringing us express packages and just leave a slip in the box, but this time she stopped to deliver. She said to me that it was express, so she felt it was probably important. I told her she was the only one but I appreciated it. Royal blue looks excellent on Bootlegger, and he usually wears this bridle. 
     I have a beautiful halter that Fabian gifted me, which perfectly fits Caramel Latte. I am almost positive she was wearing it when she got the last showmanship card she needed for her superior event horse award. That award was years in the making.
     I made one in a similar color, but tiny, for Halestorm. I think he has only done showmanship once, but I was looking to get him some "other" performance cards for a versatility award. I have actually not had a lot of opportunities to show CM and AR horses for awhile. There were mostly OF only shows for a bit. And now of course there are no shows. Eventually though, I will have shows to show at and cool tack to use at those shows. 
     I have a really cool halter/bridle/breastcollar endurance riding set that Sara Bowman made for me and debuted at TRXC 2019
Sara Bowman 2019
     My endurance saddle was made for my by Mandy Claussen. She is a somewhat new tack maker but she does excellent, clean work. My custom order endurance saddle was not a run-of-the-mill order, but she did an outstanding job on it!
Mandy Claussen 2019
I own a vaulting set made by Jennifer Buxton in 2018. 
Braymere custom saddlery 2018
     I believe I have owned this particular western saddle longer than any other that I currently have. I got a really good deal on it many, many years ago, right before Breyerfest. It was an I-need-money-for-Breyerfest sale and I got lucky. It is not signed and I have never know for sure who made it. 
Western saddle by unknown maker
I bought this working western saddle from Pam Perkins a lot of years ago. I love Pam's work!
Pam Perkins #330
     This western pleasure saddle was also made by Pam Perkins. I custom ordered this one from her after happily using the working set for years. I have owned many sets made by Pam. Sometimes I wish I still had all of them!
Pam Perkins #459
       This saddle was made by Nikki Hertzog, though I don't know what year. I have had it for a long while now and really enjoy showing it. It usually gets used with my pink and black Danielle Hart bridle. 
saddle by Nikki Hertzog
      I bought this Stone Pony sized saddle last summer on Model Horse Place but I forgot to write down the maker and it is not signed. It fits the Stone pony perfectly (Halestorm is a custom Stone Pony) and it fit the Copperfox pony nicely as well. It is an incredibly clean piece. 
Stone pony saddle by unknown maker
     I actually have a pretty good collection of tack pieces made by Jennifer Buxton. I wish I still owned all of them, but I do not. Currently I do still have this really awesome piece made in 2012
Braymere  Custom saddlery 2012
      This one made in 2015, originally to fit a Jasmine artist resin mule. 
Braymere Custom Saddlery 2015

It even has a name plate on the back!
My pink and black set from 2016 (I love this set so much!!!)
Braymere custom saddlery 2016
This tiny pony saddle made in 2007, but acquired last summer from a friend. 
Braymere custom saddlery 2007
And this pony size western saddle made in 2019. 
Braymere custom saddlery 2019
      I have also owned a western saddle made by Jennifer, a side saddle, and at least one or two other regular hunt seat saddles. Clearly, I am a big fan of things that come out of Braymere custom saddlery I also own a bunch of nameplate halters and would love to own more. I have owned English saddles made by many other tack makers, including a couple I made myself. I have also owned quite a few other western saddles, several of those made by me. I love tack. I love having a nice full tack room. Some day I would like to acquire pieces from other tack makers as well. I would love to be able to expand my miniature tack room. That would be awesome!



3 comments:

timaru star ii said...

Awesome indeed...!! Congrats on your Buxton collection; I only have 1 of hers. I looked through my entire collection of pictures of other people's Western saddles. I'm coming close to thinking your oldest Western is a Terry Newberry, based on the edging, tooling, conchos and buckles. A Very Early Newberry -!! On your dark brown clean Pony Western, a lot of people could've done it, from Teller to Stoddard to Skybova to Maurer to Fail to Wendy Ward. The light green reminds me of McKinney.

ShamrockFarmsInc. said...

***drool!***
So much lovely tack! I was just thinking the other day of asking people to share their tack collections online!

Laurie said...

That pony saddle looks like it might be one made by Steffi Honrath. It looks like her work.