SEATS AND SADDLES. 



again, why dangle the legs ? They have a better chance 

 of lying close to the horse's body if the stirrup be 

 placed nearly under the seat, which does not involve 

 their being too long; and further, how if the rider's 

 body be made to dangle in the air over the horse's back, 

 in consequence of the attempt to tuck up the legs ? 

 This is still more dangerous : one sees every day horses 

 reeling in trot under riders that adopt the very " lofty " 

 English style ; the centre of gravity gets a couple of 

 feet farther away from the basis, which is just equivalent 

 to the latter being decreased proportionately. Every 

 one knows that a man with a long back and short legs 

 rides heavier than a long-legged one. 



It is scarcely necessary, after what has been already 

 said, to demonstrate over again how conducive to handi- 

 ness, perfect mastery over the horse, independence of 

 the rein, and therefore good bitting, a central position 

 of the saddle, stirrups, and seat must be ; and these are, 

 we take it, the conditions under which road-riding 

 may be done safely and agreeably. High speed not 

 being the object, nothing can be gained by throwing 

 the rider's weight forward ; on the contrary, it has this 

 further positive disadvantage in addition to those already 

 pointed out. Corns with our horses are as equally 

 prevalent as broken knees, and the latter are very fre- 

 quently a consequence of the former. Now we have 

 shown (see Fig. 2, C) that the consequence of throwing 

 the weight forward is to make the horse overstep with 

 his hind foot the track of the corresponding fore foot ; 

 and this being very much our habit, our horses do very 

 frequently overstep, and by so doing the risk is run of 

 tearing off the fore shoes. We have got into the habit 

 of using very short shoes, the web of which does not 



