ADVANTAGES OP A GOOD SEAT. 231. 



weakest part of the body, and very easily injured. 

 From the same mistaken notion was the saddle 

 formerly placed nearly a hand's-breadth from the 

 shoulders, which, of course, added to the mischief ; 

 but modern practice has entirely remedied this, as 

 it is now placed as near as possible to the shoulder- 

 bones, so as not to interfere with the action of 

 them. 



Next to the advantages of a good seat to the 

 horse, stands the ease and elegance of it in the 

 rider. In the first place, what is natural is easy, 

 and there must be no formal stiffness of the body 

 of a man, or of a woman, who wishes to look w^ll 

 on horseback. When we see a man sitting as up- 

 right as if he were impaled, and his body not ap- 

 pearing to yield at all to the motion of his horse, 

 we cannot fancy his having a good hand upon him, 

 because he cannot be in unison with him in his 

 action ; neither can he be firm in his seat. But to 

 some persons a good seat is denied by their shape 

 and make. For example, a man with short legs 

 with large calves, and very round thighs, cannot 

 sit so close to his saddle, as another whose legs are 

 thinner and longer, and of course yield him a firmer 

 clip ; and whose thighs, instead of being round, are 

 hollowed out on the inside, as we see in the form 

 of our most eminent jockeys. The seat of the 

 short-legged, large-calved, round-thighed man, has 

 been jocularly termed the " wash-ball seat," and 

 not inaptly neither, for, like a wash-ball in a basin, 

 he is seldom at rest in his saddle, from the absence 

 of a proper clip. The thighs, in fact, are a most 



