Ray Vierra’s work is thorough and assiduous. A conscientious craftsman, he brings a concerted effort and tough-as-nails love to comply with the inelastic requirements of the long-established profession he’s dedicated himself to.
Vierra is a saddle maker. To him, saddles are more than just seats or pads used to support the rider on a horse; they’re the crafty consequence of a lifelong labor of love requiring inordinate time, patience, concentration and diligence.
This Victor man’s unexpected saddle building foray happened following an occupational injury which catapulted him into a new line of work. A former California police officer, Vierra’s department even paid his apprenticeship program fees, to a saddle making school in Bishop, CA. The 10-week long curriculum taught Vierra the necessary nitty-gritty and essential facts of saddle making.
“We’d build saddles 10 hours a day," recalls Vierra. “We learned how to do things the hard way first, and then after you mastered the hard way, then you were taught the easy way. I’ve always been interested in the design and the build of saddles, and how they’ve been put together."
In 1993, Vierra took his curiosity and education in saddle making a sizable step further, forming Vierra Saddle Company, and since that time he has remained immersed in his adept area of interest. “Older saddle makers typically had one way of building things. I build whatever the customer wants. A lot of guys out there are building a saddle for their own ego. I let the customer pick the tree, the horn height, and the horn shape."
Really, it didn’t take Vierra long to appreciate and underscore the differences between production style saddles and his custom made ones.
“Companies that have semi-custom production saddles are mainly interested in doing things the fastest way, not the right way," says Vierra, adding that such production saddles are based on speed, instead of precision and care.
“I’m not motivated in turning out saddles quickly but by quality workmanship. When you order a saddle out of a catalogue it can’t be fitted properly to your leg length and width. You’re getting a generic seat."
Using only the best specially selected leathers, all of Vierra’s saddles are cut, dyed and skived by hand. Brass fittings, exterior components, riggings and intricate and artistic tooling complete the authentic detail.
Today’s technology provides a choice of polyurethane, fiberglass and plastic trees (structures used for framework in saddle making.). Vierra’s preference is for the ul trahide and rawhide (untanned leather) trees. He also uses trees that are custom made to suite the measurement of any horse, which results in a better fit to the horse and closer contact for the rider.
Vierra custom-made saddles can be used for mustering, camp drafting (cutting), trail-riding, equestrian events and general use. All of these laborious offerings are “one off," a unique method of production that Vierra learned from Darby saddle maker Pete Gorrell, who never built the same saddle twice. Other old-time traditions Vierra employs: When folks order a saddle, Vierra travels and meets the horse and fits the horse by examining the shape of the animal’s back, and he asks that all his saddle purchasers visit his shop to stick their haunches in the incomplete apparatus to ensure comfort. “Hand-made doesn’t make a custom saddle and custom means it’s built to fit your rear end," explains Vierra, adding that a saddle maker who builds a shoddy or defective product won’t be in business long, because horse people ride in small social circles.
The products of Vierra’s effort and endeavor usually average, when fully rigged and ready to ride, about 35 pounds, because he tries “to keep things as light as possible." The time he spends per saddle ranges from 160-200 hours for ordinary saddles, and up to 400 man hours for pieces requiring detailed tooling. Tooling work or ornamentation, the stamped or gilded designs on leather, can be particularly taxing.
Vierra can build a saddle to fit a multitude of horses or he can construct a saddle to suite a single horse, building it to the rider’s requirements and the horse's shape and size, ensuring optimum performance.
“Just like people, all saddles are not alike. Just because it’s a horse doesn’t mean you can buy a saddle in a store and throw it on a horse. A lot of people put their comfort before the horse, but if the saddle doesn’t fit the horse, the horse feels it. If you’ve got an improperly fitted saddle on a horse, sometimes the horse acts up and somebody gets hurt."
An inadequate saddle can also lead to muscle and chiropractic problems for the rider, says Vierra, who believes that the saddle maker will never be an adroit artifact of the past, because serious horse people will always demand such a capable crackerjack.
Vierra’s saddle making, the working with his hands to create a finished product from what were once just straps of leather and sheets of metal, is certainly an artistic outlet. “I say this to people, some scoff and laugh, but it’s an art," says Vierra, skiving part of a saddle (shaving the leather thinner.)
“When I’m in the shop it’s an artistic and stress release to be doing what I do, either putting a horn on or hanging rigging, or sewing a candle binding on. I get lost in a zone," says Vierra, sewing the binding on a nearly finished saddle, which will be complete after a bit more oiling, sticking, glueing, stretching and trimming.
Concentration is important for Vierra, something that can be especially difficult to maintain when he’s a bit weary after a long day (he works full-time as a machinist in Hamilton ); good thing Vierra knows when to say when.
“You know, dealing with expensive leather and trees, and sharp tools that can poke and cut, things can go wrong. I’ll walk away for the day when I have to."
Vierra, who puts his pride of both business and name into each saddle, compares the feelings of saying goodbye to a finished saddle to emotions felt by parents when sending a child off to college. “You put your heart and soul into it and want to see it treated right. I joke about going through a grieving period."
Being that it’s not a product that you just effortlessly “pump out," a quality custom saddle, when properly taken care of, should last at least 50 years. Indeed, one has to own a custom saddle to fully enjoy its uniqueness and value.
And finally, the customer must not mistreat the merchandise, certainly not in front of this strict saddle maker.
“If I see somebody just toss it roughly in the back of the truck like a bag of grain, I’ll give them their money back and I’ll keep the saddle. They’ll need to appreciate it."
Ray Vierra lives in Victor and may be contacted at 642-9543.
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