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Western Saddles - A Brief Survey

Trail Saddles

The most popular type of saddle, trail saddles are designed for comfort over rough terrain and many miles. Designed for comfort they are lighter than ranch or roping saddles which are designed for heavier work. New materials and features often appear in trail saddles first due to their popularity. Some features include an easy to hold thin horn, a higher fork for stability, a deeply recessed cantle for comfort, wider stirrups treads and padded seats. Rounded or cut out skirts may also be present to further reduce the weight.

Ranch Saddles

Ranch saddles, also called buckaroo, cowboy or old time are heavy weight saddles designed for heavy work. Made for long hours in the saddle and for functionality around the ranch they may include comfortable deep seats, low swells to be out of the way when working and thick horns. Other features include plate rigging for better strength, a high cantle, double rigging and rope straps.

Roping Saddles

Designed for freedom of movement these saddles are made for heavy duty. Maximum freedom while roping and chasing cows is ensured by the saddle tree design and the strong horn. A wooden saddle tree covered with bull hide, a rounded low fork, double rigging and a deep suede or rough leather covered saddle all contribute to the ease of use while working. High cantles allow easy mounting and dismounting and the stirrups are forward hung to help the balance.

Cutting saddles

For cutting out single cows from the heard, cutting saddles were developed. A cutting saddle needs to endure good balance for the rider during extreme turning, starting and stopping maneuvers. Features include easy gripping with a tall thin horn, long flat seats, slim stirrups, low cantles and forward hanging fenders for extra balance.

Reining Saddles

For reining sporting events a purpose designed reining saddle is ideal. These saddles need very close contact between horse and rider for ease of execution of circling, spinning and sliding stop maneuvers. Subtle communication between horse and rider is ensured by the close contact which, if properly carried out will not be seen by the spectators. Because of the close contact reining saddles are also popular as training saddles.

Endurance Saddles

For competitions involving long rides of up to 100 miles, endurance saddles are needed. They must be light weight and well made to stand up to the long miles of riding. Bulk must be minimised while at the same time maximising close contact. In addition for the long hours in the saddle they must be comfortable for both rider and horse. Because they are designed for comfort they are also becoming popular for trail riding. They feature comfortable padded seats, no horns, lower weight short skirts, deep stirrups and multiple saddle strings for your gear.

Show Saddles

Show saddles, unlike the other types are designed primarily for their looks in the horse show arena. Fashion is important and designs change frequently. Ornate and deep tooling and decorative silver ornamentation are used extensively on show saddles. Designed for good looks rather than work these saddles follow fashions and change accordingly. For show saddles the latest fashion is important! Other features include deep skirts for more decoration turned stirrups with silver trims, and padded seats.

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Mans Search for the Ultimate Aphrodisiac

The Medicine Market in Guangzhou had an assortment of items considered to have aphrodisiac qualities. These included deer and tiger parts as well as ginseng and various fungi and small animal life.

Man’s Search for the Ultimate Aphrodisiac

Throughout the generations Man has always been on the search for that ultimate Aphrodisiac that gives that ultimate enhanced performance. Whether it is for the one evening, or with constant and regular use, improved and improving performance capabilities, the search for the miracle potion or notion continues.

The search has been greater in China, Korea, Japan and India, where the smaller physique, has led to the concept that personal attributes would also be smaller, so the necessity for stamina and enhanced performance is necessary for added enjoyment. Somehow man has always erroneously believed that the longer he can perform, the better the performance, and that taking additions to increase staying power, will somehow make him a star performer.

This is not a discussion on how to be a great lover, but rather a discourse on what has been imbibed in the way of aphrodisiacs with a view to increased stamina, and automatically, increased love-making and erotic skills. It follows that the eating of a bowl of dog soup automatically makes one a hot date for the evening, as does the taking of Viagra or the drinking of a six-pack. Oh how easy it is in the mind of the man!

In Korea the main enhancements were dog meat, oysters and Ginseng.

The dog farms and dog industry did very well out of this as they were able to charge astronomically high prices for their meat because of its highly potent capability. Men will travel to the countryside to feast on bowls of dog meat or bones, the price varying from expensive to ludicrous, and then return to the city to visit prostitutes and pleasure girls, convinced in their physical capabilities, which are now also improved by their drinking of cheap, potent Korean wine. After a night of eating, drinking and visiting pleasure houses, they will return home totally plastered, and be yelled at by their wives, as they also drunkenly try to mount her as well in this new found euphoria, and finish the night asleep on the lounge room floor usually minus domestic copulation.

You see Seafood restaurants, which are really small cafes with huge fish tanks loaded with live shellfish, including oysters, having groups of men sitting around mid table open barbecues, on which living shellfish are placed, to sizzle their end for the enhancement of the soujo drinking hopefuls. They will eat oysters by the bowlful along with soujo believing that when they guzzle a huge amount, they will have the necessary requirements to get their money’s worth out of the pleasure girls of the night.

Korea is full of small hotels which they call Motels, which one hires by the hour. For $25 you get a luxuriously tacky room with sometimes a pink bed shaped like a circle, with heart shaped cushions, TV, tissues, and all the bathroom essentials for a wash and change. This includes, oil, shampoo, after shave, hair spray, brush, hairdryer, and everything you need for a touch up job after a 20 minute workout. The beauty of these Motels for the traveler is that for the same price you can stay the night, and that is what most travelers do…cheap accommodation with all the frills but not the thrills. One room I took in Seoul had Korean floor mats for twelve, with the explanation that this was a group sex room. I was enthralled, and piled up all the twelve mats for a softer bed, and slept soundly alone and undisturbed.

Ginseng is popular with regular intake, and pills are taken a few times a day. Ginseng is also drunk in a soup with chicken, dog meat or fish, and it is certainly an excellent health product when used in this way. Many sports people take ginseng for physical strength. As a female body builder, my diet was laced with three monthly heavy ginseng doses, and throughout the centuries, ginseng has always been valued for its rejuvenating and energy properties. In Korea, there are tiny ginseng drinks that range from $5 to $40 a bottle that are very popular with men. The women somehow do not drink the ginseng as much as they are led to believe it is sorely for the use of the men and used to enhance performance.

However, ginseng is to be highly recommended for more than enhanced performance for both sexes, and ought not to be simply saved for the male. It is an excellent energy drink and said to enhance youthfulness.

China also believes in the use of the above products but have some other products that have left me gasping for breath. There are many medicinal markets in Korea and China that focus sorely on medicinal products and walking through them is a complete eye opener, and there are products that one would never even envisage as being edible, let alone medicinal, let alone aphrodisiacal, such as the dried millipedes and scorpions.

The belief is that by eating or imbibing the product one assumes the characteristics of the product, thus the deer horn, which is long and hard, gets incredible prices for this assumption. The age of the deer is also relevant, as the younger the deer, the more sexually aggressive and thus green horn is considered even better than old dried horns, regardless of the experience of the old boys. In New Zealand the deer industry was doing extremely well selling horns and velvet instead of the venison it started farming to produce. The chief buyers were the Japanese.

In Guangzhou I saw boxes of every deer part dried and packaged. There were long thin legs, hooves, horns, small pads of musk, and other parts all packaged and sold for soups.

You can now buy deer parts at airports and duty free shops, and in supermarkets and corner stores. Deer has become as popular as ginseng overseas as Asians travel, and the availability says it is selling.

Tiger parts are far more expensive and there were a few small open stalls selling tiger parts. The tiger’s leg was dried, and you can also buy a tiger tooth for 50 yuan, ($10). A single claw was sawed off the dried feet and sold separately. Wearing these are also said to enhance performance, though it did not look like an attractive ornament, and looked like what it was, a piece of tiger claw. The claws are very beautiful and feel like polished ebony, and they look very powerful. I was also offered a dried monkey who looked like an Egyptian mummy, and rather sad with drawn back teeth and an expression of a cruel and painful end.

Goat horns were there but not as plentiful. I wonder why the goat and the ram have not attained the heights of the deer, because the males have the same rampant qualities, but maybe they lack the beauty and drama of the Deer.

These are some of the products enjoyed by Koreans and Chinese, and also the Japanese and the Indians, in their search for the experience that is more than mind blowing. The same products are now being exploited by westerners who travel to Asian countries searching the same Euphoria and the same products can be found in most countries of the world where Asians have traveled to. You can buy oysters and ginseng anywhere, but you need to come to Guangzhou for the Tiger leg and the dried deer musk.

The interesting thing about aphrodisiacs is that what is considered an aphrodisiac is also an acclaimed health food, so if you eat healthy food, you will have the stamina you need for peak performance, and for this to be mind blowing, you then need a partner who is attracted to you too, but then, this is a purely female point of view and subjective. Eating seafood, proteins in the form of meat and fish and nuts and beans, and fresh vegetables, followed by a good red, is a superior meal to stewed monkey with tiger claw and ginseng, sprinkled with deer horn dust, as opposed to bull dust and Viagra.

Photo album at One-true-Media…. http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=5160af99104fbbe787b932&skin_id=601&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url

About the Author

writer, Poet and Photographer with an interest in Travel, Art and Social Anthropology and Learning Research

New Years at Brian Horn's pad