In sharp contrast to the straight leg and weight distributing saddle which has always attended the use of the European horse, is the universal practice associated in all ages with the Bay horse of Africa, and the Dun horse of Asia. My bits and scraps of reading present a general picture of the Oriental horseman as highly perched, with a bent leg and a long reach, preferring light scale or chain mail to heavy armour, prone to a swift onset, a brisk melée, and speedy disengagement since the days of the Parthian cavalry down to the Moslem conquests, and on to the chivalry of India, the cossacks of Russia, and the hapless Dervishes of the Soudan. From Mongolia to Morocco across the whole breadth of the Oriental World this high perch, bent leg and long reach seem to be universal in all ages.
In arid countries the ass and the camel were ridden long before the pony, and it seems quite possible that their pad saddles were transferred to the horse without much alteration. My first impression of this was during a donkey race in Portugal. Our mounts stood well over fifteen hands, magnificent animals. The saddle was a broad flat pad like that of women athletes in a circus, and, gripping its sides with one's calves, the seat was fairly secure. Anyway a galloping ass is a deal better ride than a bullock. I was winning the race when my moke, being of the Moslem faith, knelt down to say his prayers, and I went on alone.
Eastern stock
From watching Moors, Cossacks, Jockeys and other bent-leg horsemen I have an impression that a similar halt of the steed for a moments' prayer would have the same effect; but that the Spanish Picador, meanest of the straight-leg riders, would manage to stay in the saddle.
In the days of armour the gentleman-at-arms wore doublet and trunk hose, riding light horses for hunting, hawking, or even travel. Ladies rode also, and there was cantering where the ground permitted. But I cannot recall any mention of jumping in England until the time of the Civil War. Prince Rupert escaped a pursuit of heavy cavalry by jumping. A fugitive cavalier pursued by Roundheads, leapt from Wenlock Edge.
By this time a few Barbs, and Eastern horses alleged to be Arabian, had added a new strain to the English stock. Oliver Cromwell, for instance, a notable breeder before he went into politics, had an imported sire. The thoroughbred, who is 7/8 Arabian by blood, made jumping possible.
In the days of Queen Elizabeth England was still a sheep range, producing wool as the staple industry, and supporting five million people. Sufficient grain was raised for feeding the small population; and to keep the sheep off their crops the people had invented a fence peculiar to Britain. This fence consisted of an earthwork of ridge and ditch called a hedgerow. The ridge carries, and the ditch waters, a row of bushes, trimmed yearly to make it strong and dense, and known as a hedge. Unlike rigid fences the hedge may be safely jumped by horses who have the courage.
As the population increased the swamps were drained and forests cleared for farming and, outside the sheep down, the whole country was meshed with an intricate small skein of hedges.
At a period when guns were very short of range, and poison was still dear, the foxes became abundant and destructive, so that a special hound had to be bred able to run them down. This was a matter of business until foxes made it a sport, and from about 1740 survived as sportsmen rather than be extinct as merely vermin. There was no detriment to the land from hunting on winter fallows; and, but for the fox, our people would have been driven to invent some other way of breaking their necks to let off surplus energy.