Wednesday, Apri 15th, 2020, has been dubbed World Art Day. To celebrate, we’re tipping our hat to a certain cowboy artist. The one that handcrafts the most sought after awards saddles in the sport of rodeo.
Renowned western artist John Rule, husband to barrel racer Dona Kay Rule, spent a decade as the official saddle maker for the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association’s world champion saddles. He’s got more than 50 years worth of experience as a leatherworker, having made his first saddle at age 16.
We caught up with Dona Kay last week to chat about her husband’s work building custom trophy saddles for world champion cowboys and cowgirls.
It all started at the Lazy E.
“In 1984, the Lazy E was finished by Ed Gaylord and he [John] was granted the National Finals Steer Roping. We made the average champion saddle for that event,” Dona Kay said.
The 1986 National Finals Steer Roping Champion Saddle was awarded to Jim Davis. Photo courtesy of Dona Kay Rule
It wasn’t long after his work for the NFSR that another opportunity presented itself, the biggest one of his career.
Photo courtesy of Dona Kay Rule
“We sent examples of our work and as they say, the rest is history. We are very grateful to AG and Ed for that!”
Ty Murray with his 1990 All Around Cowboy Champion saddle, hand-crafted by John Rule. Photo courtesy of Dona Kay Rule
The road to becoming the official saddle maker of the PRCA finals is one less-traveled. And being the wife to said saddle maker is a full-time job. Dona Kay had always dreamed of barrel racing at the National Finals Rodeo before she married John. Just last December, at 69 years old, she competed in her first NFR. Months later, she was Reserve Champion at RFD-TV’s THE AMERICAN.
“I remember being at the Cow Palace with my dad in the late 60’s and early 70’s and seeing those barrel racers with their lame’ gold pants and fancy shirts running there and just knowing one day I want to do that,” Dona Kay said.
She used to cut out pictures of Jeana Day, Jimmie (Gibbs) Monroe and Gail Petska from the Western Horseman magazine and tape them to her mirror for daily inspiration to get better.
“In 1979 I married John, and in 1980 and we raised our family, worked at and owned National Saddlery until 2009 so I never was able to “go” but I always rode and continued to try to improve my horsemanship.”
Dona Kay Rule and Valor competing at RFD-TV’s THE AMERICAN in March 2020. Taylor Gilkey
Dona Kay’s time helping John with the saddle business during its early years was monumental to their success.
“The very first year we worked so hard and worried our way through preparing and crafting the World Champions’ saddles,” she said.
The detail that goes into these saddles is unmatched.
The 1997 PRCA Announcer of the year, won by Bob Tallman Photo courtesy of Dona Kay Rule
“Everything we did was to the T, followed every bit of the instruction in the contract, no stone unturned so they were perfect.”
Dona Kay and John even took the extra step of hand-delivering the saddles themselves because they didn’t trust UPS to get them to Lewis Cryer safely. While she delivered saddles, John stayed back and got caught up on orders that were put aside while building the trophies for the World’s Champions.
When Dona Kay arrived in Las Vegas from Oklahoma City with the world champion saddles, she took one in to show Cryer. He looked at them and said, “I don’t want ‘World’s Champion’ on them, I want ‘World Champion’ on them.”
Dona Kay thought surely he was kidding. “I kind of laughed and looked at Tom Feller and said, ‘Are you serious?’”
They were serious.
She then looked at Tom and said, “There is no way I am going to call John and tell him that we have to re-make every one of the fenders, you are.”
After hearing the news that the fenders were wrong, John and Dona Kay got back to work on the Wolrd Champion saddles, under a miserably tight deadline.
“That was tough,” said Dona Kay. “We worked 16-20 hours a day to redo them and carried them to the NFR just a day ahead of the awards banquet and changed them out. The PRCA paid us for the change because we did what the contract said but whew….it was a chore!”
Herbert Theriot poses with his 1999 World Champion Calf Roper saddle. Photo courtesy of Dona Kay Rule
What a lot of people don’t know is that during the first five years John was making the PRCA world champion saddles, he was also making the IPRA world champion saddles.
Dona Kay explained it as “jumping through hoops for a lot of years.”
Barry Burke receives his 1993 PRCA Rookie of the Year saddle. Photo courtesy of Dona Kay Rule
When it comes to the importance of quality in a custom saddle, Dona says that’s something that remains constant.
“The quality of a custom saddle doesn’t really change,” she said. “Attention to detail and custom fit cannot be done half way. The biggest change is mass production and marketing in the average saddles, not to minimize the quality of some of them but if you are mass producing an item it cannot compare to a custom fit.”
The 1999 WPRA Rotation Saddle was awarded to Tona Wright by the President of WPRA, Caroline Vitor. Photo courtesy of Dona Kay Rule
The 2000 PRCA Announcer of the Year saddle, hand-crafted by John Rule, was awarded to Bob Tallman. Photo courtesy of Dona Kay Rule
Photo courtesy of Doona Kay Rule
Visit John’s website to see more of his leatherwork and sculptures: https://johnrulesculptures.com/
