One normally thinks about the western saddle as an American style of steed riding, but actually it's origins can be traced back to the Moorish horsemen and warriors of the Dark Ages. This coincided saddle they brought with them to the New World. This was called the Spanish Supply Saddle. It was created as a tool for the functioning cowboy and evolved together with the development into the American West, from every little thing to fighting Indians to helping settlers assemble their cattle. The harsh environment and punishing brush of the mesquite of the southwest resulted in saddles developed to shield the biker, therefore making it big, large, hefty and plain. Their saddles were not just smaller than the Texans, yet advanced right into highly attractive items that are still used in show rings today with their conchos and fancy designes of tooling. From the 1700's with the 1950's, the western saddle continued to expand and evolve, with lots of new attributes to sustain cattle job and enhanced building approaches prolonging the strength, resilience and comfort of the piece. They are now designed for a wide variety of uses and bikers such as path or enjoyment, endurance, rodeo candidate, group roper, barrel racer, reiner, cutter, and certainly, working cowboy. Western saddles are currently all over the world, yet regardless of the design or beginnings, all of these saddles have an origins they share from the western stock saddle.
