36 Modern Riding and Horse Education 



for jumping, the balance of the body must be more 

 perfect in this position than it is in the hunting seat, 

 as the pivot is higher. 



The straight-legged seat is one to grow into and 

 not to acquire after manhood is reached. 



In Tyndale's book on military riding (1797) the 

 soldier is shown astride his horse with a perfectly 

 straight leg, and the writer states that the plate is 

 perfectly true to life ; but I am led to infer that this 

 position was only retained in the riding school and 

 in peace training under the eye of the Riding Mas- 

 ter. Lord Pembroke, in the manual issued by the 

 War Office four years before this date, recom- 

 mended a seat between the Haute Ecole and the 

 hunting with the idea of combining the advantages 

 of both, but apparently this had not had any appre- 

 ciable effect on the soldier's seat. This will be 

 readily understood by those who have been brought 

 up in the Army and recognize the conservatism of 

 Riding Instructors. During the Napoleonic wars, 

 when nearly every soldier became a campaigner, the 

 straight-legged seat, and also Lord Pembroke's, 

 seem to have been abandoned for the hunting seat, 

 as we find that in 181 5, after the declaration of 



