Steve Meadows Partners With Sean Ryon to Design New Ranch Riding Saddle

By: Brittany Bevis

The relatively new discipline of Ranch Riding has seen tremendous growth over the past few years, so much so that AQHA has expanded their class offerings in 2016 to include additional events like Ranch Trail, Ranch Reining, Ranch Cutting, Ranch Cow Work, and Ranch Conformation.

AQHA judge and horse trainer Steve Meadows has been a fan of the discipline from the very start. In fact, he recently helped Classic Chrome, a horse owned by customer, Maggie Bellville, win the title of High Point Ranch Riding Horse in the Nation for 2015.

With many a day spent horseback, Meadows has ridden in plenty of well-made saddles. However, he found there were certain design aspects missing that he felt would cater specifically to this new discipline. A casual conversation with his good friend, Sean Ryon, at the AQHA World Show in 2014 led to the design, development, and creation of a new specialty Ranch Riding saddle.

“Sean and I have been good friends for a while, probably ten years, and I’ve always liked his equipment,” Meadows says. “I’ve always been drawn to that cowboy look anyways. When I got hard and heavy into Ranch Riding classes, I started riding in the Ranch Cutter, but I needed a bit of a different style.”

“Sean was getting ready to order some new trees and he said, ‘Why don’t you design a tree for me?’ I corresponded back and forth with his shop manager, and we came up with a tree that I thought would be suitable for these types of events. They mass-produced it and built me a saddle!”

Initially, Meadows started riding in the Ranch Cutter style, which has slightly taller swells, a dally horn, and taller skirts than the typical working saddle. However, he was keen to make a few design changes including modification of the traditional Bowman Reining tree.

“We ended up making the swells a little taller, but still well under the Cutting tree, and we took a quarter inch off the horn,” he says. “Also, we tipped the horn forward, so if you want to grab ahold of it and cut a horse, or dally a rope off it, you can. Plus, the skirts come down a little farther, which gives it more of a show horse look.”

“It’s very versatile in the sense that you can show a Reiner or Working Cow Horse in the saddle. It has a great look and fits the versatility needed to do the Ranch Horse events. I’ve done my research on other places that have comparable equipment and saddles, and for the qualify of the design and leather, you can’t get a better saddle for the money. When I got the saddle, it was way beyond my expectations. It’s really exciting, because the feedback so far has been incredible.”

As far as the cosmetic features of the saddle, Meadows says the tooling, leather hue, and amount of silver can vary. “Of course, in Ranch Riding, they tend to frown on too much silver, but what we’re talking about isn’t show horse silver. It’s decorative cowboy silver,” he says. “Also, I had them put a few conches on my breastcollar. It’s nice, but not too much. The real cowboys had a little silver on their saddles, not just latigo rosettes. But, it has to be traditional cowboy versus the show horse look we’ve seen for too long.”

The base price of this new design is $4,995. A few models are kept in stock, however, most are the result of custom orders.

“This is what the real cowboys ride in,” Steve says. “My grandkids won’t wear these saddles out. The quality of leather and workmanship makes them something I will be able to use forever.”

For more information about Sean Ryon saddles visit www.seanryonsaddles.com/shop/.