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Show HOW TO RIDE A HORSE. A Riding Master Gives Some Suggestions. THE CORRECT SEAT 1HD SADDLE. Why People Have so Much Trouble With the Btirrupa. ! I A saddle Is constructed right if i! I gives the rider the greatest possible com j fort and the most secure seat, with al most total absence of exertion of muscles mus-cles of his legs in order to maintain his 1 balance. Almost every riJng master j prefers a certain make of saddle, and 1 teached a certain style of seat as the bent, ' aad his pupils, taking perhaps httle or no trouble to study others and to investigate in-vestigate further, have to accept his. i But, irrespective of the science of riding, rid-ing, there is one shape of saddle which is the most comfortable, vix., the saddle which is so constructed that, in accordance accord-ance with the laws of gravity, the rider's body will and must sit in balance without with-out trying to do bo. Much has beeu said and written about how you should sit on the horse." Perhaps Per-haps yon have been told to gruwp the saddle or the horse firmly with thighs or knees, to have your toes higher than your heels, to keep the heels away from the horse, to bend your back to be springy or to straighten yourself to sit firmly, etc Perhaps your teacher has made great efforts and exhausted all resources re-sources of his knowledge to impress upon yon how you should sit, and yet at a trot you lose the Btirrupa, you lose your balance, and unless trotting very slowly, and unless yonr horse has an easy trot, you have to bring him to a walk to regain the stirrups. If you are not experienced, and your horse trots roughly, yon are in discomfort discom-fort and iu danger of losing your seat. If your horse is nervous and not well broken to the touch of the heel the flapping flap-ping of the stirrups against his flanks renders hiin uneasy ' Examine yonr saddle; it seems nice, soft and comfortable; the stirrups as heavy as Bhould be even their tread covered cov-ered with leather or rubber to prevent slipping from your foot; but slip they will. Why? Look at the shape of your saddle, at the positions which the saddler has assigned for your seat, thighs, knees and feet, and see where he haa attached the bars for the stirrup leathers on the saddle tree. Your saddle is perhaps too long aud, as most English style saddles, oat; its lowest point, instead as near as possible to the center, is back toward the end; you are almost sitting on the cantle. in order to bring yonr knees to the knee puffs, which are too far front, you have to stretch your legs forward. This obliges you to carry your stirrips forward for-ward with your feet away from and in front of tho place where they would hang by thoir own weight, and in order to keep thom at your feet you have to shorten the stirrup leothers and bear heuvily on tho stirrups, otherwise they will slip back. What is the result? As soon as your foot loses the stirrup the latter, according accord-ing to the law of gravity, returns to the lowest position which the length of stirrup stir-rup leather n I lows far behind your foot; then your foot, too, having lost its support, sup-port, and with nothing to bear against, together with your leg, according to the law of gravity, tries to slip back in order to hang an near as possible to the center of gravity; and then your legs will hang far back tho knee puffs, perhaps on the I bar a horaa almost behind tho Bnddle skirls. To avoid this by muscular exertion you try to force your legs up and front into a position very tiresome to maintain. main-tain. But if you, according to the law of gravity, have the lowest point of the saddle iu its center; if you have this center as close as possible to the horse's back by reducing the thickness of the saddle to a minimum; if you drop yourself your-self into this lowest point of the saddle to aViy there; if you drop your legs to where they will stay by their own weight instead of holding them forward and raising them by muscular exertion; if you have the stirrup leather bars ' attached far enough back to be in a line with that place where your feet meet the 1 stirrups, with stirrup leathers so long as to raise your toes high enough to give you an elastic tread on the stirrup without with-out enwnjung the muscles of your thighs and knees, then your body, legs, feet and stirrups- will maintain their positions posi-tions by their awn weights according to the law of gravity; after each displacement displace-ment resulting from the movement of the horse your body will fall back into the lowest part of the saddle; you thighs, knees and feet will not become tired because you are not using muscular muscu-lar exertion to hold them in their places. By the law of gravity they always fall bock into them. Your stirrups and feet, even if disengaged from each other, will, as it were, meet unintentionally at theii places. If turning your toes slightly toward to-ward the horse the stirrup will by its own weight try to find its place and slip on your foot The displacements from their positions of your body, thighs, knees, feet aad stirrups will bft followed by their involuntary movements according accord-ing to the law of gravity to fall back into the places which their weights assign as-sign to them. Have your saddle built bo that no muscular exertion be required to keep you in its lowest (centre) part; that your legs, thighs, knees, feet and stirrups retain re-tain their positions by their own weight, and you will enjoy that comfort which yon can never find in a flat saddle with the lowest point back at the cantle, with the knee pofEs too far front, with the saddle pad raising you several inches above the horse and with leather and straining, etc, built up high between be-tween your legs. Hats the tree open longitudinally in the center from the front to the middle, allowing circulation of air between yon and the horse and you will have more ease to yourself and leas aore backs for your horses. C orosernann In Philadelphia Time. |