The Only 6 Western Saddle Brands You Can Still Trust

Two saddles can hang side by side on a tack store wall, both carrying the Billy Cook name, and only one of them came out of the shop in Sulphur, Oklahoma where Billy Cook spent his last decades. The other traces back to a 1980s foreclosure that cost him the exclusive rights to his own name. A buyer who doesn’t know the difference can pay handmade money for a saddle that was never touched by the people the name implies.

That is the Western saddle market in miniature. Brands have been bought, licensed, merged and moved, and the name stamped on the fender no longer tells you much on its own. What still tells you something is whether a maker says where it builds, whether its ownership can be traced, and whether it publishes anything specific about the tree and leather under the tooling.

We checked six American Western saddle makers against those three questions, using manufacturer pages, trade press and published ownership announcements. All six passed. They are ranked below from solid to the one we would look at first, with a scorecard, a checklist for spotting a genuine Billy Cook, and a plain list of what we could not verify.

The scorecard

A pass here means the brand can be traced to a real shop and a real owner. It is not a fit guarantee. No saddle on this list fits every horse, and a well-built saddle on the wrong back still causes damage. If you have not checked your own horse recently, the five levels of saddle fit is the place to start.

6. Fabtron: lightweight, and still in Tennessee

Fabtron has been in business since 1977 and builds in Maryville, Tennessee, where sellers describe a 45,000-square-foot facility handling manufacturing, warehousing and shipping. The company describes itself as family-owned, under Stan and Brad Headrick.

Its reputation rests on weight. Fabtron builds all-leather saddles and leather/synthetic hybrids, which put leather where the rider sits and lighter material elsewhere. For long trail days that matters to both horse and rider.

One correction to a common claim: Fabtron did not buy Crates. Since June 2016, Fabtron has held an exclusive license to manufacture and market Crates-branded saddlery, while the two companies remain separate. Crates’ own history page lays this out. Fabtron also keeps a Crates serial-number archive, which is useful if you are buying an older Crates saddle secondhand.

• Best for: weekend trail riders who want lighter weight without an import.
• Look at first: the hybrid line and the wider-tree options.
• Limit: Fabtron does not publicly name its tree supplier.

Wide or draft-cross horses are a fit problem of their own; we cover the options in saddles for hard-to-fit horses.

5. Tucker Trail: built for the trail from the start

Tucker began in the late 1970s building performance saddles, then shifted to trail after a field-trial rider asked for a better-looking version of its Trooper saddle. That request became the Endurance Trail saddle, which Tucker says is still one of the most popular styles in its line more than 25 years later.

The features all point at long days. The patented Gel-Cush seat absorbs shock, the ErgoBalance Trail Glide stirrups have a wide cushioned tread to take strain off knees and ankles, and retailer listings describe a fiberglass-reinforced, covered wood tree with felt-lined skirts. The Heritage line currently has six models, including a no-horn Heritage Endurance with a 3.5-inch cantle.

Tucker is part of the Circle Y family and operates in Yoakum, Texas. When Kaspar Companies bought Circle Y’s assets in August 2023, Tucker came with it.

• Best for: riders who log trail or endurance miles more than a couple of times a month.
• Look at first: the Endurance Trail if you ride under low branches; the Heritage line if you want the newer tree.
• Limit: we could not confirm current Heritage pricing from a manufacturer source.

4. Martin Saddlery: the tree is the story

Martin builds in Greenville, Texas, and belongs to Equibrand, the holding company that also owns Classic Rope, Classic Equine and Cashel.

Its modern reputation traces to Brian Peterson, an Australian former bronc rider who learned tree-making under saddle maker Eddy Powell, returned to Texas in 2003 to set up Martin’s tree shop, and later ran the company. After Peterson’s death, Powell, who had moved to Greenville to work alongside him, helped carry the operation forward. In 2023, Powell’s son Brodie became Martin’s head of production.

Martin makes its trees in-house from kiln-dried South Dakota white pine with a fiberglass coating, and cuts its saddles from Hermann Oak leather. Retailer Teskey’s lists three features worth knowing:

• Axis Tree: proprietary, sold with a lifetime guarantee on the tree.
• Adjustable Rigging: patented, meant to let one saddle sit correctly on different horses.
• SPRS (Stirrup Positioning Rig Slot): keeps the rider’s leg in position across disciplines.

If you ride a string of horses under one saddle, the Adjustable Rigging is the reason to look here. Get the lifetime tree guarantee terms in writing from the dealer before you buy; we could not find them published by Martin directly.

3. Circle Y: a Yoakum institution that changed hands and stayed put

Leland Tucker founded Circle Y in Yoakum, Texas in 1960. The company was family-operated until 2000 and came under new ownership in 2003. In 2021, owner Steve Tucker was killed in a plane crash.

On August 8, 2023, Kaspar Companies, a fifth-generation family business based about ten miles away in Shiner, closed its purchase of Circle Y’s assets, along with Reinsman, Tucker Trail and High Horse. Kaspar’s CEO descends from the Welhausen family behind Tex Tan, the Yoakum saddlery founded in 1919. Kaspar’s saddle subsidiary, Welhausen Legacy LLC, has since bought the Tex Tan, Hereford and Imperial names and brought them back to Yoakum. Circle Y dates that reunion to 2024; the local announcement ran in January 2025.

What sets Circle Y apart in the mid-price range is the tree. Its patented Flex2 uses two bars: a rigid, high-density bar that carries the rider and a flexible, low-density bar that gives at the shoulder and the back of the tree. Retailers also report that Circle Y fits hundreds of horses a year for its own tree research.

• Best for: riders who want a large company’s support behind a handmade saddle.
• Look at first: the Flex2 trail models if off-the-rack trees have never suited your horse.
• Limit: the claim that Circle Y owns a separate tree company could not be confirmed.

2. Cactus Saddlery: built with competitors

Cactus makes its saddles and strap goods by hand in Greenville, Texas. Its own site currently names it the official saddle provider for the NIRA and WSTR. Retailer copy for the brand says its endorsees hold 38 world champion titles and that the shop has 150 years of combined saddle-making experience.

Cactus’s pitch is that its competition saddles are designed and ridden by its endorsees rather than simply licensed to them. For competitive ropers and barrel racers, that is the point of the premium: seat geometry shaped by people who use it for a living.

• Best for: competitive ropers and speed-event riders.
• Look at first: the model built for your event, not the most decorated one.
• Limit: older retailer copy lists Cactus as the PRCA’s official saddle; Genuine Billy Cook now claims that title. Check the current association list before relying on either.

Pro-level pricing is a real decision. If you are weighing it, what a saddle is actually worth at each price tier breaks down what the extra money buys.

1. Genuine Billy Cook: the name worth checking twice

Billy Cook opened his shop in Greenville, Texas in 1953. His later company went into foreclosure in the 1980s and was bought at auction by Don Motsenbocker, owner of Action Company, and with that sale Cook lost exclusive rights to his name and his original dies and patterns. In 1988 he incorporated Billy Cook Harness & Saddle Manufacturing, Inc. and moved to Sulphur, Oklahoma. He died on October 1, 2019.

The Sulphur shop carried on. Jody Ramer, a Sulphur native, started working alongside Cook in 1991 and took over saddle production in 2018. Rutilo Osornio, with the shop since 1979, runs tack production. Genuine Billy Cook describes its saddles as handcrafted and made to order, and currently calls itself the official saddle of the PRCA.

How to tell which Billy Cook you are looking at

1. Find the maker’s stamp. Genuine saddles from the Sulphur shop are marked as made in Sulphur, Oklahoma.
2. Read the brand name exactly. According to the Cotton Museum’s history of Cook, saddles labeled “Billy Cook Saddlery” were made in Greenville, Texas; those labeled “Genuine Billy Cook” came from Sulphur.
3. Ask the seller whether they are an authorized Genuine Billy Cook dealer, and confirm with the shop if you are unsure: Billy Cook Harness & Saddle, Sulphur, Oklahoma, (580) 622-5505.
4. Register the saddle with Genuine Billy Cook after purchase. The company offers registration for warranty and authenticity.

• Best for: anyone who wants a handmade saddle across trail, ranch, reining or roping.
• Look at first: the model built for the riding you do most.
• Limit: durability figures and bestseller rankings often quoted for this brand could not be traced to a source.

Billy Cook is not the only small American shop still worth knowing; we cover others in American-made tack brands still worth trusting.

What we could not verify

Several claims circulate widely about these brands and about the saddle market. We left them out of the rankings because we could not trace them to a primary source:

• That about one in seven saddles sold online is counterfeit.
• That some imported saddles contain pressed paper between leather layers.
• Figures for the number of “certified” saddle makers worldwide; we found no certifying body.
• Average service-life figures for Martin, Circle Y and Billy Cook saddles.
• That five of the ten best-selling Western saddles are Billy Cook models.
• Current prices for Tucker Heritage and Cactus competition models.
• Details of Trevor Brazile’s involvement in Cactus saddle design.
• Whether Cactus Saddlery shares a parent company with Martin Saddlery.

If a manufacturer can document any of these, we will update this article.

Disclosure

Hoof & Honest was not paid by any brand named in this article, received no products for it, and gave no brand advance sight of it. This article contains no affiliate links. Every claim above traces to a published source listed below; claims we could not source were left out and are listed in the section above.

Related: why the tree you can’t see decides everything · saddle pads worth buying and avoiding

References

1. American Horse Publications, “Kaspar Companies, Inc. Acquired Circle Y Saddles, Inc. Assets,” August 2023. americanhorsepubs.org
2. Lavaca County Today, “Historic Saddle Brands Tex Tan, Hereford, and Imperial return home to Yoakum,” January 2025. lavacacountytoday.com
3. Experience Guadalupe Valley, “Saddles and Soul: Circle Y Rides On in the Heart of Texas,” September 2025. experienceguadalupevalley.com
4. InfoHorse, “Handcrafted Saddles by Circle Y Saddles” (company history as provided by Circle Y). infohorse.com
5. Crates Leather, company history (Fabtron licensing arrangement, June 2016). cratesleather.com
6. Fabtron, company homepage and Crates saddle archive. fabtron.com
7. Horse Trails of America, “A Saddle Maker’s Story: Learns About the New Tucker Heritage Line,” September 2024. horsetrailsofamerica.com
8. Tucker Trail, Endurance saddle page. tuckertrail.com
9. Barrel Horse News, “Passing the Torch: Martin Saddlery’s Legacy Continues,” October 2025. barrelhorsenews.com
10. Western Horseman, “The Best Seat in the House: Inside Martin Saddlery,” January 2026. westernhorseman.com
11. Shop Talk Magazine, “Martin Saddlery: They Know the Ropes” (Equibrand ownership). shoptalk-magazine.com
12. Teskey’s, Martin Saddlery brand page (Axis Tree, Adjustable Rigging, SPRS). teskeys.com
13. Cactus Saddlery, company homepage. cactussaddlery.com
14. Genuine Billy Cook, “Billy Cook’s Story.” genuinebillycook.com
15. Cotton Museum, “Billy Cook and Jeana Yeager,” June 2024. cottonmuseum.com