Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece / or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding

aping horn.-Surcingle.-Stirrup-leather.-Stirrup-iron.-

useless to the seat, and impedes the working of the right hand on the rein

to raise the seat from the saddle. This is not the case with the clasp obtained in a side-saddle; and, for a tour de force, I find I am much stronger in a side-saddle than in my own. There is no danger in this third pummel, since there is not the danger of being thrown on it; more than this, it renders it next to impossible that the rider should be thrown against or upon the other pummels. In the case of the horse bucking, without the leaping-horn, there is nothing to prevent the lady from being thrown up; the right knee is thus disengaged from the pummel, and all hold lost. The leaping-horn prevents the left knee from being thrown up, and from that fulcrum great force may be employed to keep the righ

ommend a single thin strap, as broad as a man's stirrup-leather, instead of the present double, narrow, thick one. Of three sorts of single stirrup-leathers the smoothest is with a loop to go over the spring-bar, and with an adjusting buckle just above the stirrup-iron: or the strap may take off and on the iron by a slip loop, and passing over the spring-bar as usual, be fastened, and its length adjusted, by a loose buckle, which, though it is only attached to the strap by the tongue, is perfectly secure. For hunting I always use a single strap, sewn to the iron, with a D above the knee, and with a double strap and buckle between the D and the spring-bar. The lady's stirrup-leather, which passes under the horse's body, and is fixed to the off side of the side-saddle, is supposed to prevent the saddle from turning round. This is a mechanical error. But the great objection to this sort of stirrup-lea

n the saddle. The girths of a man's saddle should never be tight. The inner girth only should loosely hold the saddle; the outer girth is merely a safety girth,

nt their separating. The double-stirrup leather and the riding exactly on the buckles of the girths, are great abominations. I go farther in this way myself, and cut off the inside girth flap immediately below the tree of the saddle. It is wholly unnecessary when the buckles of the girths are removed from under the weight of the rider. The absence of this inner girth-flap gives a much firmer, and to me a much pleasanter, seat; while to the horse the saddle is