Some Recent Work......

M MaverickFZX750 I'm not sure how traditional the beavertail is. I think its popularity is a mixture of things mostly. I think folks like a little exotic there but it has to be tough enough for it to last too. I've had a pair made out of sharkskin. Beavertail is pretty tough, its exotic and it has the really cool texture. Probably the cool texture more than anything. Real old days the slicker was rolled up and tied in front there. Kinda been the thing last few years to accent the saddle and I've seen bucking rolls in all kinds of colors and exotics. Nichole has a pair made out of turquoise roughout:

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She's got one of her vests on too in that shot. That green was by far the most requested of the wools shes ever had. Enough that she'd bought multiple rolls of it and now she can't get it any more. Yep she's pretty handy.

Thanks @Dusty One!
 
I see. Thanks a lot. That's interesting. And one more thing I want to ask you. I can always see some round braided ropes or braided fragments of tack , it's rawhide I guess. So, is that machine braiding or handmade, are seems so hard and tight? Or it depends on place to use?
 
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M MaverickFZX750 so several things there. The reins are braided rawhide. The kind we use go from the bit in the horses mouth to the riders hand then there is another piece attached called a romal. you can see that folded over the back of the girls' left hand so that it is out of the way when roping. Nichole's horse Josie is not completely trained yet. She is in what we call the two rein. So there is a rawhide bosal around her nose. This has a horse hair rope rein attached to it. This forms another set of reins that Nichole holds onto too. These are actually the primary reins right now in Josie's stage of training. The rawhide reins attached to the bit are secondary. Gradually over a long period of time (maybe even a couple of years) the rawhide reins attached to the bit becomes more and more primary until eventually they become the primary and only set of reins. That is how Mannalito Janine's little black horse is. He is ""straight up in the bridle". He has a little smaller rawhide noseband called a boasalito that is attached to his forelock. This is simply a badge of honor for his finished place in training in our system. Josie has a Master's degree and is working on her PhD and Mannalito has a PhD (doctorate) already.

Nichole's reins are a separate kind, pretty fancy (and expensive). they are called Santa Ynez reins which is interesting cause that is the town where this picture was taken. They split from one strand into four separate strands after the knots and then come back into one strand. Difficult braiding obviously. Janine's are very special too as they were braided by the master's master, Vince Donelly and they were braided specifically for Mannalito because he is a very small horse and normally sized reins simply are too big for him.

Here's a pic of Janine showing Vince how the normal size reins (these are actually a small set I loaned her) are too big for Mannalito. This was back in July and Josie was in an early stage of training. She is in the hackamore. Just a braided rawhide bosal with a horse mane hair rein (mecate).

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Janine and Vince going over the details:

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That's a quirt on the right. Note how Vince changed the braiding as it goes down its length. He really is the master's master of braiding. And one heck of a nice guy too.

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In the pic of Janine and Nichole above both of their bosals (the nose bands on both horses) are by Vince.
 
That's amazing! This awesome big handle quirt is really piece of art of braiding. Creating things like these should take a lot of time to make and huge craftsmanship. How long can such things live? Thank you for sharing this.
 
Taken care of rawhide can last a long time. I had one pair of reins that I used almost exclusively for25-30 years. These were used hard but cleaned and conditioned. I just recently stopped using them as a couple strands on the romal were starting to break M MaverickFZX750
 
I grew up as a wannabe cowboy until I found how hard it was to make a living. Still love the gear and love your threads. Your gear looks as fine as any I have ever seen.
 
Thanks! Z Zidfeldts Yep not a lot of money in it for sure. Average working cowboy probably makes around $1600 to $1800 a month. Makes it tough to save up for a new saddle when they're going for $4500 to $7000 ish.
 
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