HOW TO RIDE. 21 



horse's back depend to a great extent on the stability of the rider's weight 

 — that is to say, on his poise or balance. Why does anything tumble down 

 from the position it has hitherto occupied ? because it loses its balance ; 

 and the rider that does so is sure to meet the same fate, unless the friction 

 of his seat, the stirrups, or the horse's mane are called to the rescue. 



The amount of surface of contact does not increase friction, but, of 

 course, if the whole weight be brought to bear on one or two points of 

 a rider's seat, these will soon require soap-plaster. Here, however, we have 

 to do with an inanimate body, the saddle on the one hand, and a very lively 

 one, the rider's seat and legs, on the other, whose muscular action may form 

 a very important friction ; and the amount of this action does increase with 

 the surfaces in contact, because a greater number of muscles are brought 

 into action. Therefore we can never bring too great an amount of the sur- 

 faces of our seat and legs into contact with the saddle. 



In some forms of seats the rider depends almost entirely on the pressure 

 of his knees against the fore part of the saddle, and relinquishes altogether 

 the advantages derived from steady contact of his seat with the other end 

 of it. The best hunting, steeplechase, and military riders we have ever 

 seen all agreed on this one point at least : that of depending on the thigh, 

 and not the "under-leg," for their seat ; and hence is derived the grand car- 

 dinal rule for a good seat : " From the hips upwards movable, in order to 

 enable the rider to vary his balance, or use his weapons \from the hnee down- 

 ward movable, for the use of the spur, and the control of the horse's hind 

 legs ; atid betiveen these two points, hip and knee, fixed, for the seat." Accord- 

 ing to this rule, the middle of the rider adheres, both by weight and muscu- 

 lar action, to the middle of the horse ; according to the other system, the 

 lower third of the rider clings, by muscular action alone, to the horse's 

 shoulders, aided, perhaps, to a certain extent, by the stirrup. 



But this brings us to the stirrup. Kiding was certainly invented and 

 practised before saddles existed ; and it is nearly equally certain that the 

 first saddles, pads, or whatever they were, had no stirrups, these contri- 

 vances having been subsequently invented for the purpose of giving the 

 rider further aid in addition to that derived from balance and friction. 

 Even nowadays many a man can ride barebacked without stirrups ; and this 

 very short statement of facts ought, we think, to go far to prove that stir- 

 rups are very subordinate in value to balance and friction taken together. 



