When a National Reining Breeders Classic champion wins a saddle, there is no question of quality. The four saddle sponsors that produce the NRBC’s champion trophy saddles are all industry leaders and there is often a waiting list to become an NRBC saddle sponsor.
“It became apparent early on that having too many saddle manufacturers of dealers would reduce the chance for a successful show for our vendors, so saddles and tack became one of the few protected product categories for the show,” said Loren Morris, who coordinates the trade show vendors at the NRBC. For the past decade, the saddle sponsorships have been limited to four manufacturers.
Each saddle sponsor, Bob’s Custom Saddles, Kyle Tack, Continental Saddlery, and Superior Saddlery produce saddles every year and those saddles are always prominently placed and widely admired during the show.
Kyle Tack
At the forefront of the line of saddle sponsors is Kyle Tack, a family-owned business that has been sponsoring the NRBC since the beginning. Marshall and Phillis Kyle own the company while Lainey Kyle-Barshofsky acts as saddle manager with her husband, Robert, serving as office manager.
Specializing in custom silver and leather craftsmanship, Kyle Tack saddles are built in-house by master saddle smiths and are highly sought after in the reining horse industry. The pride of the company is to stand behind its products through the full repair shop in its retail store.
Although Kyle Tack is located seven miles south of Whitesboro, Texas on Highway 377, most customers do business at the multiple horse shows and events that the Kyle Tack crew travels to throughout the year.
With friendly personalized service, the Kyle Tack booth is always a popular place to visit and offers a full range of services and products. The online store at kyletack.com offers easy access and quick shipping with the same individual service found in person at the store and in the booth.
To contact Kyle Tack, email at sales@kyletack.com.
Continental Saddlery
The original Continental Pullman Saddle Company was an Indiana business founded in 1985. Now located atop Sand Mountain in the small town of Ider, Alabama, the company has grown to international prominence largely because of two special individuals. Oliver and Heike Dusterhoff are a husband-and-wife team that began managing the company twelve years before they purchased it in 2008.
Exceptional customer service is paramount to the Dusterhoffs’ business. The two make it a priority to personally man their booths at events where they can create personal relationships with customers.
The saddles are made by hand in-house on “Equi-flex” trees, developed specifically with today’s performance horses in mind. Equi-flex trees eliminate pressure points and bridging that are known to cause dry spots and sore backs on equine athletes.
For riders, state-of-the-art seat padding provides what many consider the most comfortable ride they have ever had while still providing the closest possible contact with the horse.
The combination of excellent customer service and using the best materials available to create beautiful, distinctive, quality saddles at a reasonable price has earned Continental Saddlery a place in reining culture. For more information, visit continentalsaddlery.com.
Superior Saddlery
Since 1998, Superior Saddlery has been providing custom and private label saddles for customers worldwide using only the finest materials available.
For over a decade, Andreas Maschke has been researching, testing, designing, and improving his concept of a new saddle tree. In close cooperation with some of the industry’s most successful trainers, the company developed a variety of saddle trees to cover most of today’s performance horses and improve the performance of horses and riders in competition across the world. SYMMETREES are the very base of Superior saddles. Known for being the most precise and symmetrical trees around, they are made in-house.
Superior Saddles are made 100% in the shop in Texas with all American materials. The skirting leather is made at the Hermann Oak Tannery in St. Louis, Missouri. The sheep-skins are processed and tanned in San Antonio, Texas, and all the hardware is from Texas as well.
To learn more about Superior Saddlery, LLC., email info@superior-saddlery.com or call (940) 391-7476 or (417) 793-1403. You can also visit the website at superior-saddlery.com.
Bobs Custom Saddles
Bobs Custom Saddles has been a consistent supporter of reiners and the reining industry worldwide, endorsing riders and sponsoring events as well as the National Reining Horse Association.
Bob’s Custom Saddles has been building custom saddles for over 40 years. The company takes pride in truly custom creations from intricate, hand-designed tooling and silver patterns to the meticulously crafted seat, tree, fender, and horn variations.
The greatest element of every Bob’s Custom Saddle is formatted from a close contact riding system that the company began developing in 1976. The saddles are designed to sit the rider correctly with a line from the shoulder to the hip to the heel.
The Winning Position is achieved for every rider through three different seat styles and a choice of eight different fender styles and custom lengths. Multiple tree variations provide the horse and rider a better fit and seat while the four different front ends, three different gullet widths, three different cantle heights, and six different horns further customize the ride. By utilizing all these choices to create the perfect fit for horse and rider, the Winning Position helps riders perform better in their discipline to achieve a higher winning score. To learn more, visit bobscustomsaddles.com.