By Danna Burns-Shaw

Trying to find one title that best describes the Skyhorse’s is impossible. Loren and Lisa Skyhorse are a rare husband and wife saddle-building team that create out-of-this-world leather masterpieces. Once you meet and spend time with them, you will never think of them as just saddle makers; they are truly multi-talented, cosmic human beings. Lisa and Loren were given the “Skyhorse” name by Native Americans and adopted into their culture, as a gifted exchange for all the service and kindness they’ve rendered towards indigenous people around the world.

Residing outside of beautiful Durango, Colorado, the Skyhorse’s home/ranch sits at 7,500 feet above sea level, with a stunning backdrop of the La Plata Mountain Range and adjacent to picturesque Lake Durango. This is the earthly space they visualized and thoughtfully designed, which includes the horse property, sacred home, magical workshop and stunning playground. As Lisa states, “It’s all been a happy accident,” mentioning that the love of the horse brought her and Loren together and everything they do is based in that love.

Two Hands Become Four

Lisa began leatherwork while attending UCLA as an art major. In 1973, she took an apprenticeship with master saddle maker, Lawrence De Witt. At 24, she built her first saddle and began her love affair with working in leather.

Loren was a biologist that did much of his work on horseback. Lisa taught Loren how to build saddles. They studied in England, where they learned the art of English saddle making and they also studied Western boot making with Randy Merrill.

Read more: Lisa and Loren Skyhorse, Humanitarian Saddle Makers

by Nick Pernokas

They say that a good writer should never interject himself into his stories. They say a lot of things. When dealing with “legends” of the West, they say when the legend outshines the fact, print the legend. Only sometimes, you don’t have to and this is one of those times. Most of the story that I’m going to tell you came from Don King, in his own words, over a cup of coffee in 2005. The rest came from his friends who knew him best over the course of his life. And now, you’ll know him as well.

Don was the grandson of a cowboy who went up the trail with the herds eight times from Texas in the late 1800’s. Don was born in Douglas, Wyoming, in 1923, and his parents divorced when he was five years old. His father, Arch, was an itinerant cowboy and Don was raised on the road, sometimes spending only a couple of months at one ranch, before moving on to the next. The next few years were spent in Arizona. Sometimes Don would live in the bunkhouse with his dad and sometimes he would be boarded out so he could go to school. Later they would cowboy in Wyoming in the summers, and spend the winters in Arizona or California. Arch was a horse breaker and he would hire on to ride the rough string and get them broke for the other cowboys.

Although Don did okay in school, the gypsy life was hard on his education. In high school, he dropped out and went to work for a boarding stable in Phoenix. In his spare time, he’d go in and visit the stampers and saddle makers at Porters Saddle Shop. The work fascinated him, but most of the old timers in the shops he’d visited didn’t really want to teach a kid leatherwork. At Porters, his persistence paid off.

A young saddle maker named Cliff Ketchum told Don to get some leather scraps and showed him how to make stamping tools from nails. Don even made some stamps from wood and a simple swivel knife. It was simply a blade pushed into the bottom of a twig, with a piece of tin on the top for a yoke. A nail held the tin on and allowed the yoke to turn. From then on, Don couldn’t wait for some time off to indulge in his hobby. Eventually, he was stamping belts for shops in the towns where he was cowboying. His first large order came while he was working for a ranch in Palm Springs. The owner of New York’s famed 21 Club was vacationing there, and impressed with King’s work, he bought 24 belts to take back to his employees.

Read more: Don King: The Man in the Center

by Nick Pernokas

Ronnie Nettles’ legs were bothering him. His narrow oxbow stirrups, the norm for cutting horse trainers in the 1980’s, were rubbing on his shins. It probably wouldn’t have bothered a guy who just had one horse to ride, but as a cutting horse trainer at the top of the game, Ronnie had a barn full of horses to work every day. He got relief by wrapping his legs with Vetwrap every morning.

Still, Ronnie was one of the lucky few that have been able to hang out their shingle, and make a living doing what they love to do. Ronnie didn’t just make a living though; he was successful enough to be a major player in the National Cutting Horse Association events.

“Horses have always been a passion with him, not a job,” says Gala Nettles, Ronnie’s wife.

The Madisonville, Texas, trainer won the NCHA Cutting Futurity in 1984, which is the dream of every cowboy that swings a leg over a cutting horse. He followed this by being co-champion of the NCHA Superstakes in 1985, co-champion of the NCHA Derby in 1989 and numerous other awards along the way. Ronnie realized that even with the financial boost winning those titles brought, long-term security could be fickle when depending upon the luck of the draw. The oil boom, which had supported much of the horse industry in the Southwest, was coming to an end. Customers who had paid the training bills were starting to have hard times. He wanted something else to ensure stability for his family.

Ronnie had inherited a love of woodworking from his father, who had been a carpenter. He had a small shop where he built items for the ranch as a hobby. One Christmas, Gala had searched for an heirloom quality rocking horse for her first grandchild with no luck; none of them met her standards for size, appearance or sturdiness. Finally, Gala found a picture of one in a magazine that was really nice.

“Do you think you could build one of these in nine days?” Gala asked Ronnie. They had just returned home from a grueling two-week futurity in Fort Worth; Ronnie welcomed a different challenge. Working late every night, he cut, glued and sanded until he created a beautiful rocking horse. He topped it off with a replica of a saddle that he carved from oak. Only one thing remained – he needed to find some miniature stirrups.

“I wanted everything realistic, and to scale, and there weren’t any small stirrups to buy,” chuckles Ronnie, “so I cut strips of white pine, soaked them in water, then built a little jig to hold the pieces and glued it together.” The first Nettles Stirrups were born.

Read more: Nettles Country: Stirrups for Every Foot