About Us
Welcome to Riders Choice! With a deep family tradition of saddle making, our goal is too provide the best quality American made saddles at the lowest prices on earth. Beginning in the 1970's my family started a saddle shop in the northeast corner of Alabama. For many years we sold saddles strictly to wholesalers and distributors. Our saddle makers products were sold all over the world, the only difference was they had the name of the distributor on the saddle instead of our name. In 1999 we made a bold move, we decided to cut out the middle man and sell our products directly to the public. Also, one of our missions is to buy our materials from local markets. As much as we can all of our leather, padding, fleece,and hardware are sourced through American companies. We are a true American family run business, who is now getting help from our third generation of up and coming saddle makers.
Our Riders Choice brand saddles are handmade here in Bryant Alabama. They are a great saddle at an exceptional price for an American made product. To keep prices low we build them as a ready-to-buy product. If you wish to make a small change to one we can try to accomidate your wishes. Small things like color changes and sizes can be done. As we began to touch base with our customers we realized that more wanted to be able to customize the saddle beyond the limits of what we could do with the normal Riders Choice saddle styles. We needed a full custom saddle designer that could do anything to a saddle. Billy Williams was that answer. Billy has been building saddles since 1964. He is one of the best and part of an art form that takes great skill and patience. Billy builds our custom saddle line, the G.W. Crate saddles. Each saddle is cut out by hand with a knife, each decorative tooling is embossed by hand with a rawhide maul, and stitches are sewn into the saddle by hand.
Our G.W. Crate saddles are built using only the finest leather and materials possible. Normally we work with each buyer to create a one of a kind saddle, whether it be forhard to fit horse, or they just want a unique decoration that no one else has. Angela Payne does most of the decorative carving and lettering and she would be happy to work with you on a simple build or something more spectacular.
Along with our great saddles we build a line of saddle pads, bareback pads, and a few leather tack items. Jerry Payne mans the office and can help you with any questions you may have about the saddles or fitting. We hope that you choose Riders Choice for your next saddle purchase. We thank you for stopping by and hope you have a blessed day!