The Sporting Dictionary and Rural Repository, Volume 2 (of 2) / Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the Field

by William Taplin

SADDLE

—is the well-known mechanical construction formed for the mutual accommodation and safety of both the HORSE and the RIDER. Although historical records prove them to have been in use with the ancients, there is no demonstrative reason to believe they were established in England till the reign of Henry the Seventh, when they were adopted under a compulsory law, that the nobility should not ride without them. Saddles are of different sorts, according to the distinct services for which they are designed; and, in fact, are so universally known, not only in the aggregate, but in all their component parts, that any elucidation upon so common a subject; must be evidently superfluous and unnecessary.