A key foundation of HHA is community connection and gaining perspective from those who have walked the path less travelled. In this pursuit, we discovered “Shortty” and his old school custom saddlery at the base of the Snowy Mountains. Filled with cowboy artifacts, along with the sawdust from perfectly shaped timber saddle trees and leather offcuts from hundreds of hand-crafted saddles, it’s been his artisan’s atelier for 35 years.

All saddles, including our ANZAC pattern packsaddles, for the HHA program are hand-crafted by Shortty in his Bredbo workshop and our veterans will have the opportunity to be taught leatherwork by Shortty during the program. This project is about connecting our veterans to the silent pillars of our community, those who choose to live their passion and use their own hands to create… in his own words, “if his hands can keep up with his heart, he will keep making custom saddles until he dies”.