Finished Racing Saddle

Racing saddles were some of the first pieces I made when I got into tack making. They weren’t that great, but I was happy enough with them.
I can’t believe it’s taken me around twenty years to make another one! (has it really been that long?!)

I built this set to fit my Cigar model:

In my last post, I mentioned that this pattern is a blend of different things I’ve seen on racing saddles. If I should make another, I think I’ll widen the flaps for the stirrup leathers to go through, as well as the keepers for the overgirth.

I made sure they were wide enough for the elastic to pass through, but didn’t take the leather ends & buckles into account. So this girth is permanently attached. 😅 Honestly I don’t see that as a bad thing as it’ll all stay together now.

Here’s the underside of the girth. The girth channel is a strip of fabric with the ends folded inward, like bias tape. I placed twisted embroidery floss in the folds to raise the edges up a little, then glued the girth directly on top so I don’t have to fiddle with it when tacking up.
From what I understand the overgirth buckle should be in the center underneath the horse (closer to Cigar’s seam line, if you can see it) so mine is off just a bit. That’s an easy adjustment though!

At most TB racetracks, there are specific colors used for the numbered saddlecloths. In this case, #3 is a blue cloth with a white number.
This is just cotton fabric. It’s got a 1/4″ hem that I could only accomplish with careful folding and basting in place before taking it to the machine. It’s so tiny but it was worth it!

The black piece is cut from part of a reusable shopping bag… I think this material is non-woven polypropylene? It’s thin and doesn’t fray. I was trying to imitate a non-slip type of fabric in miniature. I noticed that a lot of horses have some sort of material folded here… a towel, chamois, or something similar.

Underneath is a square of grey felt. I rounded the corners and stitched around the edge to make it look more finished. This varies a lot on real horses too… I’ve seen simple foam pads to thicker padded ones. And weight cloths sometimes?
I figured it was better to just keep things simple in model scale!

Both the cloth and pad are tucked between the black piece. The whole thing was glued together to help reduce frustration. 😄

I’ll admit that I don’t know much about racing or racing tack. (it does seem like there’s a lot of corruption in the horse racing industry though, which is really sad) What I’ve created is based on observation and a few helpful YouTube videos, so I hope there aren’t any glaring faults. It was fun to attempt another one of these saddles after all these years!