I ponder at times the English in the riding of caste which permeated into the American east coast, and then was beaten into them by European riding instructors again in the most satanic awful way of trying to find a way to be ridden off a horse.
In a land where a horse was a savage wild creature, as in the American west, the idea simply was to produce such instruments which would keep the human from being killed and in control of the beast, which was prone to kick, paw, bite, buck, roll over and trample the said human to death at any time.
I do not know the genius of the side saddle by invention, but it must harken back to the virtue of a lady's nether regions remaining crossed and not spread wide, as it might arouse great interest from those whose minds fixate on such things.
While the little Spanish barbs and other razor back entities might not have produced a spread leg upon a lady in a not so lady like appearance, there were those draft horses of that era bred in Europe from the diminutive Fjordie of Norway to the giants of the Clydsedale of England, where until the time that the three great Arabian studs were procured during war from the Ottoman Empire, would have had both male and female splayed legged if one rode a day upon one.
That must be the thought of the invention of the side saddle in short legged women astride wide backs, and between those short legs too much spreading for the virtuous to contemplate.
The thing is about side saddles is they were and are very hard on a horse's back as the weight at times shifts to the side in riding. Granted an Indian brave was quite at home in ducking off the back to the side to try and kill an enemy to shield them from bullets or arrows, but this was not the constant position for their riding.
Ghastly saddles appeared from the Army McClellan which gave sores to men and horses, the rawhide tree saddle which the Indian somehow did not smash their testicles and pelvis bone in riding, and those Mexican inventions which scalded backs from the heat.
The side saddle was in company then when the English in the mid 1800's all went off for society rides, as everyone rode, and everyone seemed intent on putting things on horses to torture them or to fall off and kill themselves.
From this era, one heard of the cruel bits, spurs and whatever which the equine race were subjected to, and you know this had to be cruel, for animals were viewed as objects to be worked to death.
It is what the Americans stated in an American would ride a horse until it dropped, a Mexican would whip it to it's feet to ride it for another week until it dropped, and then an Indian would beat the horse to it's feet and ride it until it dropped dead.
It was in this era that the "eastern priss" arose, who always deemed themselves superior at everything, from thinking to riding. Their ideas of horsemanship were riding in ways which would wear out the leg joints and exhaust the rider to not be able to punch cattle nor fight in a battle.
It is where the Westerner honed the modern horse method out of necessity in the Texas style of riding, with Mexican straight leg saddles, and saddles named Hereford and the Miles City, which became the design of the working saddle.
I include in this, a letter to Ethel Roosevelt, from her father, President Theodore Roosevelt on a west coast trip, at the point of Del Monte, California on May 10th, 1903.
In it, the President is of course doing what Teddy did, and that was off exploring America and doing it from the back of a horse.
He makes pains though to include in the letter, a definite "line in the sand" point about girls riding horses. Theodore Roosevelt was taught riding on the east coast. He though learned to ride in reality on the high plains of Dakota Territory on the Little Missouri River.
He was a dude, but a cowboy in the making.
In reading his works, I always take great delight in his hunting adventures whenever the term, "Good old Manitou" is in print. Manitou was a rare horse, that the President never explains how he obtained him.
I suspect Manitou was a herd purchase, whereby a rancher bought a dozen head of animals, whereby one might be good, two serviceable and seven would try to kill you every day in never being broken.
The Indians in their brutal methods, would have pack horses, hunting horses and war horses. The war horse was the favorite. It is a reality that Manitou was either a trained Indian hunting pony or a war pony, as the animal was a natural in Teddy would take the saddle and bridle off, and Manitou would just go off and graze, as Teddy would crawl into his bedroll. Always, Manitou would show up for some biscuit and a pet during the early night.
In hunting, Teddy would alight from the horse, take his shot, and Manitou would just start grazing, sometimes looking at what Teddy was up to with interest.
The horse never ran off, and that is why he was called good old Manitou.
In the American West, horsemanship was a necessity, and that meant for women too. Libby Custer rode side saddle and how that lady followed her husband, General Custer up those Badlands on side saddle is a miracle of her horsemanship.
When it came though to Wild West Shows, Annie Oakley, rode side saddle a well as any man in full saddle, but in the real west, where a woman was expected to ride as it was not like side saddles grew on trees, by the 1900's the American Woman of the West had emancipated herself from that ghastly monstrousity of the European side saddle and was flying over the lands on western saddles.
In the letter to Ethel, President Roosevelt makes certain that Ethel points this out to her mother, who was eastern bred and establishment.
In reading between the lines, I am certain that Teddy who taught all his children to ride, was plopping the little girls like the little boys into saddle, and teaching them the western way to ride. I am equally certain in this that the Mother was aghast at this, and no small conversation had taken place, concerning what was lady like and what was not.
Theodore Roosevelt was a common sense man. He was a Westerner in experience and necessity. He would chose the best method and be damned the conventional method if it did not suit him. It was that thinking that got America the Panama Canal built.
Teddy knew if he asked Congress to fund the canal, they would do nothing but argue about it for his entire term. Teddy instead ordered it built, and as he said with satisfaction, "Doing it this way, I got the canal built and Congress still was able to argue about it".
It is the mindset of the Westerner which is American, in always finding a more constructive way of accomplishing anything. The side saddle left collecting barn spider webs in the American West was the best use of that contraption for horse and woman.
Of course, none of this is noted anywhere else, because no one can comprehend that it was not some suffrage shrew ranting about voting rights, by which America went to hell over as Judge Roy Bean stated, but it was the American Western Woman who emancipated women by taking actions out of common sense, like using a Western saddle, not eastern and leaving side saddles to those patrician females, who seemed so drawn to them like their dusty Bibles, to give the impression of modesty, when those females had too much between their legs while off horses.
By the way, tell mother that everywhere out here,
from the Mississippi to the Pacific,
I have seen most of the girls riding astride, and most of the grown-up
women. I must say I think it very much better for the horses' backs. I
think by the time that you are an old lady the side-saddle will almost
have vanished--I am sure I hope so. I have forgotten whether you like
the side-saddle or not.
If only other things would vanish from these modern women who seem to keep putting on the chains in all this modern immorality, which has turned them into free prostitutes, slave laborers and chained to a bedpost servicing the regime.
Then again, Teddy seems more intent on getting the wife into a regular saddle, as he does not remember what the daughter prefers. Apparently the Mrs., was more concerned about peer pressure in riding in how her legs were spread, than in common sense as her husband was promoting.
nuff said
agtG
