118 THE AMERICAN HORSEWOMAN. 



then the body must be kept erect, yet flexible. 

 A rider who depends entirely upon the pommels 

 to enable her to keep her seat is a bad rider, 

 who will soon acquire all kinds of awkward and 

 ridiculous positions, and expose herself to much 

 severe criticism. 



The opposite of the " dead- weight seat " is 

 what may be termed the " wabbling seat." 

 This is seen where the old-fashioned saddle is 

 used ; the rider, instead of sitting firm and 

 erect, bounds up and down like a rubber ball 

 tossed by an unseen hand. This can be rem- 

 edied by the substitution of the English saddle, 

 whose third pommel, when used judiciously and 

 aided by a proper balance of the body, will give 

 the required firmness of seat, which should be 

 neither too rigid nor too yielding. 



The correct seat, universally adopted by fin- 

 ished riders, is the following: The lady should 

 seat herself exactly on the centre of the saddle, 

 with her body erect, and her backbone in a di- 

 rect line with that of the horse, at a right angle 

 with it. A spectator can readily tell whether 

 the rider is in the centre of the saddle by ob- 

 serving whether the space between the buttons 

 on the hind flaps of her riding-jacket corre- 

 sponds with the backbone of the horse, and also 

 with the chamber of the saddle. (Fig. 19.) Or 



