OklahomaHorses Magazine May 2023

May / June 2023 • OklahomaHorses 21 Leather Company. Included in the assets that were sold were the general intangibles, which referenced the name Billy Cook Saddlery, once used in marketing materials when Cook worked at Potts Longhorn. Although Cook disputed ever having given or sold the rights to his name to Potts Longhorn, Simco continued to use it, and thus mass-produced saddles of its own with the Billy Cook name on them. Simco later attacked Cook for using his name on his own saddles and tack and tried to push him out of business. For nearly 30 years, there was confusion over the existence of two lines of saddles and tack marketed under similar names. The confusion persisted even though Cook had filed for a trademark in 1991, and every product made in his saddle shop was stamped with “Billy Cook Maker U.S.A. Genuine Sulphur, OK,” distinguishing those products from the Simco tack. Unfortunately, because of a lack of resources and sophistication, Cook couldn’t fight back against a big corporate conglomerate, and he was unable to force Simco to stop using his name. A New Era for Billy Cook Saddles Cook continued to oversee his company until he passed away in 2019. After that, the company was at risk of shutting down. That very well might have occurred if it hadn’t been for Adam Trenk, a lawyer from Scottsdale, Arizona, who had long been a fan of the Genuine Billy Cook brand. Although the saddle company wasn’t exactly for sale, Trenk was persistent in contacting the company’s chief financial officer and relaying his interest in purchasing it. “The quality of Billy Cook saddles had gone downhill in the ’90s,” said Trenk. “But I saw this as an opportunity to resurrect the company and make it what it once was. I really didn’t want it to go out of business.” In fact, Trenk’s whole family has a long history with the brand. In 1976, his grandpa went on a business trip to Texas and brought back two Billy Cook saddles — one for Trenk’s uncle and one for his father. Trenk’s first saddle was a Billy Cook as well, and the company’s saddles became the family’s brand of choice. “Some of my best memories were made in a Billy Cook saddle,” said Trenk. Once the company agreed to sell, the deal was done quickly, and Trenk closed on the acquisition on December 29, 2019. One of the first things he did was change the business model by cutting saddle production in half. The goal was to renew the focus on quality over quantity. “I really wanted to bring back the quality of the older Billy Cook saddles,” relayed Trenk. “I wanted our saddles to be something people would be proud to own.” The Billy Cook Saddlemaking Process Billy Cook saddles have always been handmade, and as with all saddles, the process begins with a tree. Ninety percent of Billy Cook trees are made of wood (cottonwood, oak, or pine) wrapped in rawhide, and 10 percent are made of wood wrapped in fiberglass. The seat, fenders, and skirt are all cut from a single hide, and only two machines are used during the entire process — a clicker press, which cuts uniform parts, and a sewing machine for stitching the seat and skirting. The cantle and horn are both hand laced. Tooling is added to most Billy Cook saddles by using a border stamp or fill pattern. Geometric tooling is stamped on, whereas other patterns are carved with hand tools. In all, the tooling takes about 12 man-hours, and the entire saddlemaking process takes about seven working days. In 2001, 18-year-old AdamTrenk and his Aunt Ruth are both riding in Billy Cook saddles. The saddle Ruth is using is the one Trenk’s grandfather gave to Trenk’s uncle 25 years earlier and the one Trenk grew up riding in. Photo courtesy of Adam Trenk. AdamTrenk, proprietor of Genuine Billy Cook Saddles, is shown with a lightweight Wade saddle with a bicycle seat. Photo courtesy of Michelle Mills Photography.