“There’s as many different kinds of saddles as there is different kinds of people, I guess,” said Kramer while looking over a saddle he was building at his shop south of what remains of Denbigh. “Everybody kind of has different tastes, so we try and do our best to cater to all of them. Everything is custom. We pride ourselves in that, catering to the customer’s tastes and building them to what they want and how they want them to look.”

Building saddles and custom leatherwork is a family affair for Kramer. His wife, Melissa, is the go-to person when it comes to reconditioning old saddles. Jack, one of four sons, has virtually taken over leather tooling.

“He helps me a ton,” said Shawn Kramer. “He does just about all the floral designs, all the fancy stuff. He’s the artist.”

“Both my parents are really artistic,” said Jack Kramer, 20. “I guess I always wanted to do it. Maybe one day I’ll get my own shop.”

Kim Fundingsland/MDN Shawn Kramer, left, and his son, Jack, work together at Sandhills Saddlery near Denbigh. Kramer craftsmanship is evident in every saddle they make.

One of the recent works of art produced by Jack Kramer was tooling done on a saddle raffled off by the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame. It sold for $44,000.

“I was pretty proud of the job I did there,” Jack Kramer said quietly.

Obviously, plenty of other people liked the work too. While the Cowboy Hall of Fame saddle fetched a premium price, the starting price for a custom-made saddle at Sandhills Saddlery is around $3,200. From there it is up to the buyer what they would like their custom saddle to look like.

While saddle making might seem like a profession catering to a craft riding off into the sunset, that’s just not the case. Demand for good saddles, especially good looking and good working saddles, is perhaps as high as it has ever been.

“There’s still a ton of people that ride and make their living on horseback. The industry is good,” said Shawn Kramer. “Now, with the internet, it’s worldwide. I’m building a saddle now for a guy in Australia. Last week I shipped some chinks, short chaps, to a gal in Sweden.”

Kramer has built saddles for riders in South Africa, South America and across Canada too.

“Definitely all over the United States. The majority of business is out of state, but there’s some local,” said Shawn Kramer.

While ornate saddles are sought after by many, Kramer always makes sure that his saddles will perform as his customer’s desire. He likes building a “plain Jane” as well as the ultra-fancy.

“It’s really fun to build for guys that you know are going to spend a lot of time in it and try to wear it out and know it holds up,” remarked Shawn Kramer while one of a dozen horses in a nearby enclosure nuzzled against a window of his shop. “Guys that are good hands that are using them give a holler back and say they really like the saddle and that it fits the horse good. Gratifying? You bet.”

Kramer knows saddles. He should. He knows horses too. Before he got into the business of making saddles he was a professional saddle bronc rider, at least until he had to have a knee rebuilt. It was during that time away from rodeo, in 1993, that Kramer ventured into saddle making.

“I’d never picked up a piece of leather before. I went to a saddle making school and just loved it!” exclaimed Shawn Kramer. “I made a couple of saddles and a pair of chaps and came back to Denbigh. My first saddle shop was in a spare bedroom. Then I moved out to the garage and finally down here. I have been doing it ever since.”

Kramer says he looks back on his early days of saddle making and knows he has improved at his craft throughout the years. One of the reasons why, says Kramer, is that other saddle makers have come to learn that sharing information is good for everybody. It wasn’t always that way.

“In the past, a lot of times, you’d go into a shop and a guy would throw a blanket over what he was building so you didn’t find out their secrets,” said Shawn Kramer with a smile. “Nowadays it’s really kind of the opposite. We’ve evolved to the point where we know it is going to benefit all of us.”

Kramer says there’s “lots and lots” of saddle makers in the United States. Maybe so, but some of the finest saddles anywhere come from a small shop with a very skilled saddle maker, Sandhills Saddlery, near tiny Denbigh.

(Prairie Profile is a weekly feature profiling interesting people in our region. We welcome suggestions from our readers. Call Editor Mike Sasser at 857-1959 or Regional Editor Eloise Ogden at 857-1944. Either can be reached at 1-800-735-3229. You also can send e-mail suggestions to msasser@minotdailynews.com.)