The American Eagle Saddle

The American Eagle saddle is a design I made on a vintage tree which didn’t have a horn. That gave me the room to add the Eagle head. The idea is inspired by American carousels. The american carousels from around 1900 are amazing.

I thought why not design and actually make an original saddle, a really special saddle like they carved on the carousel horses?

So there was this old vintage tree which we would not use anyway for anything else and the project was on! Here is the carving of one of the fenders:

You know, the very, very first attempt I made in leather carving was actually a feather!

here you see one of the saddle skirts, tooled and colored. Sorry for the bad quality.

The cantle is carved, (that was quite difficult) and the rigging is in place. There’s still a bit of carving to do, guess where?

For the Eagle’s head I had brought a piece of the wood they use for making wooden shoes. That’s the Dutch bit in this saddle! I spent a whole night cutting and carving wood, because I really wanted to show the saddle on the ”Equitana” horse show in Germany and I was seriously running out of time.  It was later to be painted but a stuck in one of the glass eyes for the picture. I left it a bit rough on purpose, that way it blends in naturally with the leather carving on the saddle.

The finished head on the finished saddle!

The American Eagle has it’s own stand. I think it looks quite happy with it.

And a picture of me, with a classic quarter horse, the American Eagle Saddle, and a very Dutch sky in the background.