Whereas, by the old arrangement, if out of four straps any one burst at a leap, its girth instantly dangled, leaving the safety, and possibly the life of the rider, to depend on only two straps, by the rupture of either one of which he would suddenly, without his knowledge, be riding, possibly at a large fence, without any girths at all.
But, although hunting men have gained a step or stride by this new fashioned girth, they have lately, as if to balance the account, retrograded to the wisdom of their ancestors by discarding the modern stuffed saddle-flap in favour of that ancient hard one which for many years has been used only by postilions.
For ordinary riding, and especially for ordinary riders, a quantity of stuffing in the form of a sausage, in front of their shins, no doubt retains them in their seat.
In hunting, however, this retention has for many years been producing strains of the large muscles of the thigh, which, although of common occurrence, none of the sufferers could very clearly account for. On reflection, the cause is obvious.
In riding over a large fence, or in any sudden blunder the horse may commit, the rider, without losing his seat, is liable to be thrown, body and bones, forward two or three inches, and accordingly on the plain flat hard flap he glides onwards without inconvenience or injury to the exact extent required.
But when, instead of being able to do so, his knees and shins are suddenly arrested by the stuffing immediately in front of them, the momentum of his body causes it to bend forwards on the pivot formed by his knees, on the same principle as a cart-load of earth propelled along a new railway embankment is chucked over its extremity on being suddenly stopped by a log of timber placed there transversely for that very object; and accordingly, the great muscles of the thigh which have to sustain this conflict between the moveable and immoveable parts of one frame are often so severely strained, that they require, for many months, to be bandaged by a leathern strap.
The plain flap is considerably lighter than the stuffed one. It is a sovereign cheaper; in case it gets into a brook it dries easier; and after all, it is infinitely more agreeable to ride on. For all these good reasons, in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and Lincolnshire, which may be termed the region in England of large fences, it has been generally adopted. However, as Peter in his 'Letters to his Kinsfolk' truly observed that although the mail ran from London to Edinburgh in forty-eight hours, it required always six months for fashions in dress to travel from the former metropolis to the latter, so throughout almost all the other counties hunting men continue to sit behind that costly, ugly, thigh-straining sausage stuffing which the riders to the Pytchley, Quorn, and Cottesmore hounds have so properly discarded.
Bridles.
Arrian states that the Persians, in battle, had no bridles, but governed and guided their horses by nose bands, covering sharp pieces of iron, brass, or ivory.