Ask someone who is unfamiliar with the equine field what words they most closely relate to horses – you’ll probably hear a chorus of “spurs,” “bits,” and “blinders” intertwined with the most common answer: saddles. 

To some, a saddle is a saddle, but those people could not be more wrong. 

In western horse raising, no two saddles are going to be perfectly identical, nor will they serve the same purpose. A barrel racing saddle shouldn’t be your first choice if you’re in a roping event, nor vice-versa. 

The first step in choosing the right saddle for you and your horse is understanding the differences between some of the western horse saddles.