Crates visits Horse Saddle Shop

Horse Saddle Shop was privileged recently to welcome Dan and Elise Crates from the Crates Leather Company in Chattanooga, TN. We enjoyed several hours of good ole shootin the breeze and covered topics from family to the history of saddles. It’s great to listen to Dan talk about his to commitment to quality because we consistently see it backed up in the products he puts out. Mr. Crates knows there are a lot of ways you can cut cost on a saddle, but he repeatedly emphasized that a few bucks of savings isn’t worth the price of lower quality. We were also privileged to see a prototype of a new Crates saddle soon to be unveiled and honored to give our input. That’s all we can say for now, but stay tuned because we’re excited about this upcoming event. Above are a couple pictures of Dan (left) and Dale (right) looking over the extensive inventory at Horse Saddle Shop and reviewing a Crates saddle. What a wealth of knowledge is represented in these pictures!

Cincinatti chooses Tucker Equitation Endurance saddles

While taking an overnight trip to Cincinatti with my family, we were able to catch a Cincinatti Reds baseball game. We’re actually Cubs fans but we always enjoy going to a major league game and seeing a park we haven’t seen before - the Great American Ballpark certainly lives up to its name. After the game while walking the streets to get to our van, it was my pleasure to meet three of Cincinatti’s mounted police. The department recently purchased sixteen Tucker Equitation Endurance saddles, and they are were very pleased with them. It was their first saddle purchase in eighteen years and based on the quality of Tucker saddles, I’m sure they will be enjoying these saddles for many years to come. Congratulations to Cincinatti for choosing a great saddle. If you know any mounted police, please put in a good word for HorseSaddleShop.com!

We also visited the Creation Museum just southwest of Cincinatti. What a great monument to our all-wise and all-powerful God who has so generously created this beautiful world for us to enjoy Him in. It was very impressive, and so refreshing to see the truth of creation on display in a museum. I would recommend it anyone.

Introducing...HorseSaddleShop VIDEOS!

We're pleased to be able to bring you in depth saddle reviews by our experts down at the shop. Hopefully our video library will rapidly expand in the coming months. For our first series, we chose to review our top ten bestselling saddles---the models that hardly stay in the shop. Check out our first video here, where Charlie reviews the Billy Cook Arbuckle Wade Ranch saddle:

Make Your Own Fly Trap: Death to the Pests!

I, Stephanie, have a personal vendetta against flies. I can't stand the way they sound. I can't stand the way they look---all hairy and buggish. I can't stand the way they relentlessly bother our equine friends. Which is why I'm delighted to bring you a cheap, quick death trap for these abominable pests. Hang a few in your barn and your fly population will swiftly decrease. Now if you have a tender heart toward insects, there are fly traps you can make where the flies are humanely trapped, not killed. Then I suppose you'd drive them to the nearest state park and set them free to frollick among the lilies. Me, I'm all for disposing of as many as possible.

To make your own fly trap, all you'll need is the following:

Empty 2 liter bottle, heavy scissors or knife, duct tape, 24inch long piece of twine or rope

For the bait: Dish soap, water (I used freshly filtered. See? I'm providing the best for their last moments upon the earth. Now excuse me while I pat myself on the back.) You'll also need vinegar, sugar, and a banana. Mine came out of the freezer. What? Doesn't everyone have half a dozen black bananas in their freezer? You can also just use a chunk of raw meat, but....ew.

To begin, take the label off your bottle and using scissors or a knife, cut the top of the bottle right were the top of the lable was.

Now stir in 1/2--1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup vinegar, a couple drops of dish soap, one banana peel (you can throw the fruit in if you're feeling generous. Me? I'm making banana bread.) Add two cups of warm water and give it a good stir.

Take the top of the bottle that you cut off, place it spout down over the bait, line up the edges, and duct tape the layers together. Use your scissors to poke two holes on opposite sides of the bottle, then take your twine and tie knots to secure. Your finished trap should look like this:


Hang your traps in the barn and dispose of them when you deem them full. Your horses will thank you. And until flies are on the endangered species list and I develop a conscience about killing them, I will too.
Anyone have more tips on fly control?

Ugly Photo of the Month

Well it's that time again, folks, where we reveal the difference between what the saddle looks like in the catalog and what it looks like in reality. This month's prize goes to a Tex Tan saddle that we recently began to stock called the Gresham Pleasure. Take a look at what photograph you'll find just scanned from the catalog wherever this saddle is sold online. Now this picture isn't terrible, but it definitely isn't high quality. You can go ahead and zoom in, but don't expect the picture to get any better. If you want to get up close and personal with the saddle, you'll have to visit HorseSaddleShop.com. Once our saddles have been professional photographed, you'll not only have a high quality shot to stare at, but several different angles of the saddle. The picture at right is from Tex Tan's website. Most online saddle shops simply copied and pasted this picture to their shop. The color looks fine, and you can get a general idea of the saddle, but it's just generally low quality. We think that if you're going to make a purchase of hundreds of dollars, you deserve to see better. Take a look:

Now although our word is reliable, you don't have to take our word on anything--you can check out each detail of the saddle yourself.

Meet our Staff

This isn’t a full blown introduction to our staff members, just a quick how-do-you-do mainly to clear up a misunderstanding. Here at HorseSaddleShop.com we have four people on staff that interact with our customers and several others that pitch in elsewhere. So it’s kind of surprising that two of us have the same name. That’s right, there are two of us named Charles - of course, Charles is just the name we were called when we got in trouble. Fortunately, we grew up with different nicknames. So Charles Klockow, our owner, goes by Chuck. Emails directed to info@horsesaddleshop.com go to Chuck. The other Charles is Charlie Hueni, our main customer service contact. Emails to the Help Desk at support@horsesaddleshop.com go to Charlie. You may have also talked to Dale if you have called us. Dale is the senior member of our team and has run The Saddle Shop for 24 years. And does the name Stephanie ring a bell? It does if you read our blogs because she is a regular contributor. And if you haven’t seen her blogs, you’ve definitely seen her work as she diligently maintains our website information.
So there you have it. Of course, any of us are willing and able to help you when you have a question, but we thought it might be nice for you to know who you are communicating with.

Children's Book for Horse Lovers

We all know how important books are in the lives of our children (and grandchildren if you have them). We probably all have pages of our favorite picture books embedded forever in our minds. (Who among us doesn't have a picture of the man in the yellow hat buried deep in our grey matter!) Sticker books were the greatest books I could imagine as a kid. I can still taste the sticky stuff and see those dotted lines.
This week horsesaddleshop.com heard from Picthall & Gunzi,a UK based children's book publisher. They produce photographic educational books worldwide, for children between 0-10 years. Their books are designed to be educational, to encourage learning, and to be entertaining to children. They are currently designing a horse and pony book called My Horse and PonySticker Activity Book. The person in charge of research for images for this book saw our quality photographs of saddles and tack and asked us to work with them on this project by supplying images. Of course we will! What a great opportunity to use the talent at horsesaddleshop.com to reach into another sphere. The book is currently scheduled to be published in April 2010. We're excited about this opportunity and we're hopeful that the book will be released in the US for many of us who would enjoy giving it to a child we love.