§4 Seals and Saddles. 



shown, is an admirable thing in itself, no great advan- 

 tage is derived, so far as the horse's back is concerned, 

 unless the rider be placed in the centre of the saddle. 

 But our saddles have been lengthened chiefly for the 

 purpose of enabling us to get farther away from the 

 stirrup, so as to use this as a point of support, not 

 against falling to the right or left, but to prevent one's 

 being pulled right over the horse's head in fast gallop- 

 ing or jumping ; and thus many riders vsdiose object 

 really is to throw their weight somew^hat forward, be- 

 cause this favors speed, actually come to sit almost on 

 the loins of their horses, where they seriously impede 

 the action of the propellers, and are then compelled to 

 throw their body forward in the most inconvenient and 

 unsightly manner.* No doubt if this system were not 

 found to answer the purpose more or less, it would 

 scarcely be persevered in. When, however, we find 

 some of the best authorities recommending, and many 

 of the best living riders practicing, something very 

 different, one begins not only to doubt its being even 

 relatively good, but also to 1-ook with a more critical 

 eve to its positive disadvantages. They are these : It 

 involves unnecessary w^ear and tear of the horse's fore 

 legs, because the rider's weight is with every bound 

 thrown forward into his stirrups in the direction ^ P^ 

 fig. 4 — that is to say, exactly counter to the direction in 

 which the arm-bone ends its action ; whereas, by sit- 

 ting over the centre of motion, the shock is equally 

 divided over all four legs, and not on one pair alone. 

 This is what we meant by saying that a man may sit 

 far back and still ruin his horse's fore legs. Secondly, 

 it is not the safest method, because, if the horse fails wath 



* Sir F. Head says, in " The Horse and his Rider," p. 33 : " The 

 generality of riders are but too apt to sit on their horses in the bent 

 attitude of the last paroxysm or exertion which helped them into the 

 saddle, called by Sir Bellingham Graham a Tvash-ball seat.''^ 



