I ride western and I rope, everything in the world of western tack is like that, be it vaquero, or the mainstream pageantry world. Well established brands like Tony Lama or Lucchese have relatively recently, as in in the past 10-20 years, switched their manufacturing methods to that of modern casual boot, so that their boots are just not quality enough to use for riding. Newcomers to the field, like Tecovas are not much better. obligatory, I have a few pairs of tecovas sitting next to hand me down real cowboy boots of yore and tecovas are already in worse shape from just few years of riding. People just don't know what a well made western boot feels like, nor do they put them through rigorous stress of cowboying, I mean, it's fashion, so if it looks the part but feels like cheap Chinese boot which is what they tend to be, it's good enough. Well it's not good enough under saddle. That is not to say that you don't still have a bunch of cheap Chinese tack from tractor supply, but the difference in quality and feel is stark. People myself included tend to have lists of phones numbers of various last cowboy masters that can braid you a mecate, or a leadline, or work with leather to fix your priceless, because irreplaceable saddle.