Rossi x Bush Journal - Apr 2023

The saddler

A good day for Ben Robinson involves cattle work in the morning and saddle making in the afternoon. The 30-year-old ringer lives and works at Myall Park, a 20,000-acre cattle property in Glenmorgan, about 170 kilometres from Dalby in Queensland’s Western Downs region. From here he also runs BKR Saddlery with his wife Cassie, handcrafting custom-made saddles from a woodshed-turned-workshop. “I’ve always enjoyed horses and saddle making,” Ben says. His supportive boss encourages his side-hustle. “When I get busy he lets me have a bit more time to do saddles.”

Ben grew up around horses, on a hobby farm near Rockhampton. He spent holidays at his uncle’s cattle property where the lifestyle got under his skin. His interest in leatherwork began when he was 14. “I started plaiting hat bands with a bit of roo lace that Mum had,” he says. “I do like the feel of leather.”

Serendipity saw him stumble on an advertisement for a saddle making course at Hervey Bay. At 16 he enrolled, and found a mentor who was instrumental in helping him master the craft. “I did saddle school with an old fella called Archie McManus, he’s a proper, traditional saddle maker,” Ben says, with reverence. “Old Archie taught me a fair bit about traditional hand stitching… he’s an old legend.” Then Ben went to Toowoomba where he gained production-line saddle making experience in factories, making five saddles a week: “Just knocking them together”.

Now with his own saddlery, Ben spends 25 to 30 hours hand crafting bespoke saddles to order. His fender saddles are a hit with local camp draft competitors, and he says people appreciate having a piece that is made specifically for them and their horse. “A lot of the ones that are mass produced, they don’t fit on the horse as good,” Ben says. “What’s good here is you can bring your horse to me, and you can fit ‘em up, change things for them—I think people enjoy that.”

Ben uses a combination of Australian and imported English cowhide, and includes a bit of kangaroo for the welts, to join the whole thing together. He says roo is “nice and fine and strong”. He likes the challenge of working with natural materials. “Every bit of leather is different,” he says. “You get one piece that goes on real good, and the next bit you buy, you can’t do anything with it!” He uses some machinery, such as a trusty leather press, but the bulk of the leather is hand cut. He has a prized Pearson sewing machine for stitching, “which would be about a hundred years old—I looked it up,” he says.

Thanks to favourable word-of-mouth from clients, and savvy online marketing by wife Cassie, the saddlery is “flat out” and booked-up 12 months ahead. Ben enjoys seeing customers competing at camp drafts, riding saddles he made for them. “You feel pretty good when you think ‘I built that saddle, and it got into the finals,’” he says. “When you’ve got a happy customer… and they come back and get one for their kids or something, you feel like you’re doing a good job.”

Despite the abundance of motorbikes in modern cattle work, Ben believes his traditional wares will continue to have their place. “As long as people still need horses, we’ll be right!” He hopes to teach his three children the craft when they’re older, and believes it’s important the knowledge is kept alive. The dream is to run the saddle making business full time one day, as long as it doesn’t take Ben away from the land. “One day I’d like to own my own little block, run some cattle and do my saddles,” he says. “People will always need saddles.”