28 Modern Riding and Horse Education 



Although balance and grip are both component 

 parts of a man's seat on horseback, yet " seat " it- 

 self is so distinct a subject, from the point of view 

 of the various styles in use in historical and modern 

 times, with the reasons governing their adoption, 

 as to merit separate consideration, and instructors 

 of riding should have some knowledge of how the 

 evolution of the present-day seat on a horse was ac- 

 complished. Many of the well-known writers on 

 horsemanship have alluded more or less fully to the 

 subject, but in so discursive a manner as not to 

 bring clearly before the reader the gradual changes 

 which have taken place in the accepted manner of 

 sitting a horse, all of which have had their justifica- 

 tion in the conditions obtaining at the time. 



Four varieties of seat are mentioned in the 

 standard works on riding — the Haute Ecole seat, 

 with the leg straight ; the military seat, with the leg 

 slightly bent; the hunting seat, with the leg rather 

 higher; and what is variously described by old 

 authors as the Turkish, Eastern, or ancient Spanish 

 seat, which now figures in a more exaggerated form 

 as the American flat-racing seat, with tlie thigh 

 practically horizontal. It is a mistake to suppose 



