The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1907-02-14

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question is being asked by many lady
riders in all parts of the country.
In Grand Forks there are number
of women who are expert riders and
the adoption of riding cross saddle
promises to be more in use here as
soon as the weather permits than ever
before.
There has been much said for and
against the cross saddle riding.
The following written by Lillian
Bland in The Detroit News-Tribune is
of interest to lady horseback riders as
we'll as to all women who have been
discussing the subject.
Miss Bland is one of the best
known and most daring lady riders in
England. She has ridden two years
for training stables, which means rid
ing exercises, trial gallops, schooling
and breaking in hunters and qualify
ing thoroughbreds for point to point
races.)
In considering the vexed question
whether or not ladies should ride
astride, it must be at once admitted
that they have much firmer seat in a
side saddle. They ride with longer
reins, which, combined with steady
seat, gives them much better hands
than the average man, and horses will
always go better for good hands, I'M
less they have been "skull-dragged'
i. e., their mouths have been used to
keep the rider in or near the saddle,
until they have become insensitive to
''hands."
Many men, indeed, will not buy
horse with a sensitive mouth; they
like something that will "take bit of
a hold" and have to steady them by
a grip of the reins. A lady, always
supposing that she is good rider, has
great leverage power with the POM
mels, and with a horse laundering
badly, when man would often shoot
over its head, the lady can generally
sit tight and pull the horse up, or by
the very act of sitting still help the
horse to recover himself and save a
fall.
Some horses certainly go better for
a woman than they will for a man
These are generally horses that with
rough hands have been pulling from
pan and temper, and lady with light
hands and gentler methods will make
them go kindly for her. An inveter-
ate puller is best left to a man, who
is physically better able to hold his
own.
There are, however, three serious
disadvantages to sidesaddle. The
worst, as far as danger goes, is ones
total inability to get out of the sad
die at critical moments. For instance
when horse rears, or falls over back
wards at fence, the angle at which
he goes up makes it impossible to
move. There is only one moment
when you are both going over back
wards that one can drop out, but it is
merely matter of luck whether the
horse falls on the top of one or wheth-
er one can manage to drop to one side.
A man in a similar position can gener-
ally slip his feet out of the stirrups
and get clear.
AS SSSoho ooJVSI2Ou " oAuS ScuO4OS
is that they are heavy and the weight
is one-sided on the horse, and unless
the balance is good in the saddle, with
no weight dragging in the stirrups,
sore backs and withers are the results.
Sitting straight in side saddle, from
the spectators point Of view, means
that ones shoulders are square to the
horses ears. The whole position is
unnatural and a strain on the muscles.
On the other hand, If one sits
straight to oneself, the right shoulder
will be more forward, and one would
be facing the horses left ear, which,
although more comfortable, looks
cramped, and one never get straight
pull at the horse.
Then. again, 1t takes time to get
hardened to the crutches. The under
side of the knee joint where it goes
over the crutch is usually rubbed raw,
though soft bandage wound around