CHAPTER IV.
THE SIDE SADDLE.
It is of first-class importance that a lady's saddle should be made by a respectable and thoroughly competent saddler. Seeing the number of years a well-built and properly kept side-saddle will last, it is but penny wise to grudge the necessary outlay in the first instance. Those constructed on the cheap machine-made system never give satisfaction to the rider, are constantly in need of repair (grooms, if permitted, are everlastingly in and out of the saddler's shop), and are a prolific cause of sore backs.
THE OLD STYLE.
With all saddles the chief cause, the source and origin, of evil is badly constructed and badly fitting trees that take an undue bearing on different parts of the back. At a critical moment, when just a little extra exertion would perhaps keep the horse on his legs, a somewhat tender muscle or portion of "scalded" skin comes in painful contact with some part of an ill-fitting saddle, the agony causing him to wince, checks the impulse to extend the "spare leg," and he comes down. It does not matter how hard or heavy the rider may be, how tender the skin, a sore back can be prevented by a proper system of measurement and a good pannel. Mrs. Power O'Donoghue, in her very interesting letters upon "Ladies on Horseback," unsparingly condemns the elaborate embroidery which adorned (?) the near flap of every old-fashioned saddle, pointing out that as it is always concealed by the rider's right leg, the work is a needless expense. "There might be some sense," that brilliant and bold horsewoman says, "although very little, in decorating the off-side and imparting to it somewhat of an ornamental appearance; but in my opinion there cannot be too much simplicity about anything connected with riding appointments. Let your saddle, like your personal attire, be remarkable only for perfect freedom from ornament or display. Have it made to suit yourself—neither too weighty nor yet too small,—and if you want to ride with grace and comfort, desire that it be constructed without one particle of the objectionable dip."
THE SAFETY SADDLE.
The foregoing two sketches, "The Old Style" and "The Straight-Seated Safety," contrast the wide difference between the old and fast disappearing form of side-saddle and that designed and manufactured by Messrs. Champion and Wilton. The disadvantages of the old style are so painfully obvious that it is marvellous they should not have been remedied years ago. On, or rather in, one of these, the lady sat in a dip or kind of basin, and unless her limbs were of unusual length—thereby pushing her right knee towards the off-side—she necessarily faced half-left, i.e., not her horse's ears, but his near shoulder; or, in order to attain any squareness of front, she was called upon to twist her body from the hips, and to maintain a most fatiguing, forced position during her whole ride (even through a long day's hunting), or else sit altogether on the near side of her saddle. This twist was the cause of the pains in the spine so frequently complained of. More than this, the height upon which her pommels were raised caused her to sit, as it were, uphill, or at best (in the attempt on the part of the saddler to rectify this, by stuffing up the seat of her saddle) to find herself perched far above her horse's back. The natural expedient of carrying the upper or middle pommel nearer the centre of the horse's withers, so as to bring the knee about in a line with his mane, was impracticable with the old-style of saddle tree, which gave the pommels a lofty, arched base above the apex of his shoulders. The result was, in all cases, (1) great inconvenience and often curvature of the spine to the rider, (2) constant liability to sore back on the part of the horse, through the cross friction produced by the lady's one-sided position. To meet and entirely remove the difficulty, Messrs. Champion and Wilton pruned away all the forepart of the saddle-tree, and, in place of the raised wood and metal base, upon which the lady's right leg formerly rested, substituted merely a stout leather flap or cushion.
