As you embark on finding the perfect sidesaddle for you and your horse, you will find that many guides to determining the proper tree width to fit your horse will suggest making a withers tracing. Just how do you go about doing that? Well, there are a couple of popular methods to use, and I will share one which I have found to work quite well.

You need to go to your local hardware, electrical supply, or Home Depot for the material, unless you happen to live with someone who works in the electrical trades. Buy, or get hold of, a piece of Romex flat cable, at least 36" long (but no longer than about 40"). The piece I bought says the following on it: "BICCGENERAL-P ROMEX 10/2 WITH GROUND TYPE NM-B 600 VOLTS (UL) 314/00 1770." It is a plastic coated 3-wire flat cable, about 1/2" wide. It cost me $.31 per foot, so I paid about $1.00 for the required length. (I recommend this weight or heavier; the lighter cable will work also, but does not hold its shape as well, so it will be more difficult to work with in terms of accuracy.) You may want to tape or otherwise wrap the ends of the cable, so that no rough edges poke out which may scratch or spook your horse.

With 14-18" of the cable's length on the off side (but less than half of your total available length), begin to press the cable against your horse's withers and down just behind the shoulder. Come up over the wither, and down the near side with the longer portion of the cable. This is where the long point of the sidesaddle tree will sit, so it is important to have the template long enough. In shaping the cable to your horse, be sure you follow his/her shape as closely as possible, without pressing into the muscle.

Once you have shaped the cable to the horse, lift it carefully straight up from the horse's wither, so that you don't accidentally bend it. Lay the cable down on a large piece of heavy paper, posterboard, corrugated paper cardboard or similar material. Carefully trace the shape of the cable onto the paper. HINT: If you trace on the inside of the cable, remember to cut OUTSIDE this line, and vice versa. Now you have a template which can actually be placed inside a saddle to see whether the tree is likely to fit your horse!

Remember: while this method will help in finding the general shape of the saddle tree you need, NOTHING will work as well as fitting the actual saddle to the horse, and having a test ride. If possible, have someone knowledgeable with you when you do this, so that they can help fit the saddle, and observe how it sits on the horse when you are in the saddle.

Many folks use wire hangers to create the model, but I personally find these hard to work with. Another method, which I used to create the first template I ever made, is to use two curved pieces of posterboard or cardboard, jointed in the middle. This is placed over the withers, and, through repeated marking and cutting away excess material, the paper model is customized to fit the horse's shape. Once the perfect shape is achieved, the model is frozen in place with tape or staples (so that the joint will no longer move), and the shape is transferred to cardboard, as above. If you use this paper template method, be sure to make the template long enough on the near side!

I can't take credit for coming up with the idea to use Romex; a saddlemaker I know of distributes a shape-measuring tool made of the same material, although of much shorter length, which is what gave me the idea in the first place.

Good luck finding that perfect saddle!