Brown Pinto Western Pony Slip-On Saddle?

Here’s the other interesting piece in that recent box lot purchase, a Brown Pinto Western Pony:

It’s the later, more Palomino version as opposed to the earlier and more Chestnut ones. This variation had been another low-priority want for me, and I was hoping that it would come in a box lot, eventually.

And she did! She has a few flaws, but nothing I can’t live with.

The second interesting thing about her is the saddle. Normally Brown Pinto Western Ponies come with the “Snap-Cinch” saddles, like my earlier example here:

Since the Brown Pinto Pony was discontinued at about the same time that the Slip-On saddles were introduced (ca. 1966), I always assumed that the Brown Pintos never came with the Slip-Ons.

However, this came out of the same lot as the Western Prancing Horse with the Gray Transitional Saddle, so it’s entirely possible that this was another case of saddle switching.

The only things making me hesitate writing it off that way is the fact that this is, indeed, an earlier and more neatly painted version of the Western Pony Slip-On Saddle – and that the saddle itself fits the model snugly.

As anyone who has tried to replace a saddle on a Western Horse/Pony/Prancer knows, it’s not as simple as taking a saddle off one and putting it on another. Every model is very slightly different, even ones within the same production run. After a while, the saddles that come with the model – especially if they are left on the model indefinitely – will conform to the subtle contours of the model that it is on.

It could very well be that the saddle switch happened very early on, and my musings are moot. The only way we’ll ever be able to confirm that it did happen at the factory is to find a Mint in (Unopened) Box Brown Pinto Western Pony with the Slip-On.

While this is not an impossibility (says the girl who has a Mint In Box Breyer Cigarette Host ca. 1950!) the best I can do for now is note it as a possibility in my files.