# Leg Position, Stirrup Length and Trail Riding



## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

This is a long story but I want to talk about riding posture/position in the saddle, and stirrup/feet placement and a little bit of trail riding.... I have questions but it’s also something I’m a little bit fascinated with at the moment. I had my first experience going up and down part of a trail yesterday and it was eye-opening.

I started riding lessons last week. The first session was mainly getting to know each other, for the owners (a husband and wife pair) to get a view of my skill level, and I rode a mustang named Hoss in their round pen. Yesterday I had a longer session in the round pen with the wife giving me some of my first real instruction… mainly a lot about keeping my feet forward and heels down and signals to give the horse to move; in circles, figure 8’s, backing up, etc.

Now, the feet forward part was what I didn’t understand. The way she was describing it to me, and where she would physically place my foot to show me how to hold my legs felt physically wrong. (Note that I am a complete novice and nothing feels “right” yet anyway.) I am learning in a western style saddle; the stirrups face sideways instead of forward and I felt like I was fighting the fenders to keep my feet forward, especially as far forward as the owner was instructing me to. I was confused because the bulk of what I have read online talks about keeping alignment with your shoulder, hip and heel and I felt like what I was being asked to do was extending my feet way forward of this aligned position. (Although to be fair, it may also really just have FELT that way. I know that when you are teaching your body something new it can often feel much more awkward than it looks and I’m not able to get a side view of my own body, so my feet may not really have been as far forward as they felt.)

I am still trying to understand how long my stirrups should be. At a relaxed position the stirrups felt right, but once I was attempting to keep my leg in the position the owner asked me to and pushing my legs forward, it almost felt like I was trying to lift myself off the saddle. However, when Hoss would stop and resist moving forward and I would bend my legs back in to touch him and urge him forward, my foot would repetitively slip out of the stirrup after having to ask him multiple times to move. Perhaps I was not putting enough pressure on the ball of my foot to keep it in the stirrup? Could it also be that the saddle seat itself is too small for me? (When trying to keep my legs forward it also felt a little like I was sliding my butt up the back of the saddle.) The owners have said we will try the different saddles they own and try my own saddle as well so I can get a feel for what is most comfortable for me, but I don’t feel like I will be able to tell much about which kind of saddle is my favorite until I learn to sit correctly.

Toward the end of our session, she asked if I would be comfortable if she just led me up part of the trail behind their home and back down and I agreed. During my first meeting with them, the owners asked me what my goals were etc. and the ultimate goal is to be able to trail ride confidently with my own mare. So she wanted to show me what that would be like and said it would also be a good way to help me understand how to use my legs and feet. Her husband actually came out to lead me while the wife ended up riding her horse with one of their kids on a little kiddie seat attached to the back of her saddle (which was pretty adorable.)

The path was nice but fairly steep and going up was the easy part. Coming back down I could really feel what they were trying to say about keeping my feet forward to keep my balance and made me really feel like the stirrups were too short because I was having problems pushing my feet forward to keep from rocking forward in the saddle. I know it’s not good to hold onto the saddle horn, but I had my left hand braced against the horn almost all the way down not so much “clinging” but actively pushing my upper body back to keep gravity from pulling me forward and leaning over the saddle.

Anyway, this brought to my attention that perhaps the riding positions for different activities may be slightly different. And how do I figure out what length on the stirrups is best for the length of my legs? Does this sensation of a position feeling physically impossible sound familiar to anyone else from their early days of learning?

I also remember at some point seeing a member on the forum talking about how to turn a set of western stirrups and now I think I understand why. I’ve also noticed as I browse saddles that often times trail saddles, especially if they are not specifically Western style, seem to have more forward facing stirrups. Not that I am ready to go saddle hunting yet, it would just be interesting to hear some thoughts on specifically designed trail saddles vs. traditional western saddles. I will have to practice more to be sure but I think on my own saddle I don’t fight with the fenders quite as much because they are some kind of synthetic material and not full leather, so they may not be as heavy and still to turn.

I am also considering starting to do leg and core exercises just to strengthen muscles in my leg and abdomen that clearly need some work. Has anyone ever tried this and does it help with riding? Either way I suppose it couldn’t hurt for me to try to be a little more physically fit.

Like I said at the beginning this is a looong post. But I would be interested to hear the general thoughts of others on the leg and seat position thing and what they do to improve their position and balance and adjust their tack correctly.


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## mmshiro (May 3, 2017)

I like to think of stirrups as ABS: It's nice if they are there if you lose lateral balance, but there's also a chance you can lose them on a ride at whatever pace, and you should not feel as though you can't stay on the horse without them. 

I ride in an English saddle, mostly on trails, including up and down ravines. Downhill, I don't lean back so much as continue to stay vertical over the horse's center of gravity. As the horse is tilted downwards, yes, relative to the horse's back I'm tilted backwards, but not with respect to gravity. I keep myself from sliding over the horse's neck by pressing the inside of my thighs against the saddle pads, but I keep my pressure on the stirrups light. Stirrups give you zero support to stay in the saddle if the horse starts sliding or speeds up a little towards the bottom of the hill. 

As for stirrup length: A bit shorter is easier for posting the trot, a bit longer is easier for cantering. I had an endurance rider tell me that they actually adjust stirrups on the fly (while moving) depending on what they expect to be doing for a while next: One hole longer for a flat canter stretch, one hole shorter for trotting or jumping. You should definitely play around with different options to get a feel for what makes you feel the most confident.

I don't know if you can do that in a Western saddle equipped with a liver puncturing device (a.k.a. horn), but when my horse goes up a hill, I get off his back into two-point, so he can find it easier to step under himself. It's also an excellent strengthening exercise if you do that for several minutes. I do this for all gaits. 

If, as you say, you just started lessons, some of the issues you face are not a matter of being shown what to do, but being able to do it by virtue of your core and leg strength. That's something that'll develop more slowly than your understanding of how to do it correctly.

In any case, riding is a biomechanical and physics exercise. Don't listen to what it is supposed to "look like" if it contradicts basic physical principles. In particular, you want to find a body position that requires minimal sustained muscular effort to maintain - that's where you are in balance, and that's where you can relax the most muscle groups to actively stay with the horse as it moves. Your contact with the horse should be as close to your own center of gravity as possible: it's easier to keep a broom steady if you support it at the balance point rather than the end of the handle. So you want to support your body in the saddle with your butt and thighs, not your feet or hands. 

Anyway, I'm just shooting from the hip with this...maybe it'll give you something to contemplate.


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## Cordillera Cowboy (Jun 6, 2014)

Stirrup length is largely a personal preference, though it can somewhat be influenced by the discipline you ride. (Think forward (hunt) seat versus dressage seat.). Though I tend to prefer western tack when I ride, the seat I've developed over the years is sort of a modified dressage seat. Long stirrups, shoulder - hip - heel alignment. 


The way I was taught, way back when, to measure my stirrup length has stood the test of time. Extend your arm fully with your fingertips touching the saddle where the leathers attach to the tree. Being the stirrup up to your armpit. Adjust it until the bottom of the stirrup touches your armpit. That's your baseline. Ride around to get the feel for it, then adjust up or down to suit you. 


Hard to say about the feet forward thing. The instructor could be trying to teach you what is called a chair seat, sitting with your heels forward of your hips as though sitting in a chair. I'm not sure of the value of it, other than many people seem to prefer it for comfort reasons. Feet forward is also a defensive position some (often self taught) western riders use when riding hot, unpredictable horses. Wouldn't hurt to ask why she wants your feet forward. 


Finding your own secure seat will involve experimentation and time. 


Hope that helps some.


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## horselovinguy (Oct 1, 2013)

I wrote near a book..._sorry._
This is going to read crazy as I answered a little here, a little there...
I'll help answer some things, others will have far better, simpler a explanation than I ...


Saddle sizing varies from manufacturer to manufacturer in "twist" of the tree...that is how wide, how deep the tree can position your body.
Like the old story about porridge...well, saddles are much the same...it takes trying out several to find "just right" a fit for your anatomy. 

Adding the fit of the saddle to the horse and the horses balanced movement with yours is a huge other topic for another day.
Some saddles the stirrups are positioned in different locations, in effect changing how you sit, feel and fit in that saddle. You have to find what is comfortable for you and puts you in a balanced position that is comfortable for you and for your horse.
The length of your leg is going to be dictated some by the "twist" of that saddle...narrower allows your leg to hang further down because your pelvis and hips are not strained trying to reach around a unyielding saddle tree...
Some people are more flexible than others and that can also effect leg position and length achieved.
I've been told all my life "heels down" but honestly, heels level and steady is more realistic for most riders to achieve without pain to our anatomy.
Fighting a saddle that doesn't have turned stirrups is painful to ride after a while...yes indeed, a broom handle used for turning while wetting the leather helps reduce intense knee pain and struggle.
I was told that 4 fingers in front of your pelvic area is often a good fit in a western saddle, that needs tweaking to rider preference of tight or looser a fit and how the seat is actually designed for you to sit in it.
You should not be braced against the saddle cantle but able to gently slide your hand between you and the cantle almost to the bottom of your buttocks puts you in the deepest part of the saddle "pocket".
When you sit on any hard surface you should be sitting on your seat bones...find the bony bones toward the bottom of you cushioned tush...that is what you communicate with when using your seat.
You don't sit on the fat of your butt, but on the bottom of that fat pad of our anatomy...the seat bones.
When you place your leg on the saddle, any excess thigh fat/flab/muscle is pulled back by your hand so the flat of your inner thing is what lies against the saddle...is the only way I can describe that...that is true for English or western riders...this helps to actually not ride from the back of your leg but from the inner thigh and calf muscle helping you to maintain close contact and feel with the horse. You kind of roll/slide your leg into the proper placement leaving the "excess" more behind and using the flat of the inside of your thigh/femur...
Toes.._.no ones toes point forwards unless you are forcing them, period._
Look at how you stand and walk naturally...
Walk in soft sand and look at how your footprints are seen, this is how your hips, knees and ankles are aligned and support your body...it should follow suit when you ride or you can be in bad pain insisting on unnatural alignment.
Only people that walk with a perfect straight foot either went through years of walking lessons or had surgery to straighten their anatomy. The body _must _have some slight angle outward or it can not support your balance points either. 
_Do not_ over-arch your spine as many do when new and learning to ride...ride with your shoulders squared, back softly erect and straight, hips squared/aligned to the shoulders...now remember each body is unique and this is where we find out which leg is longer, which shoulder is slightly dropped, whose spine is slightly curved...it all works together in harmony though when you use not abuse the body to find balance astride, natural balance not something forced.
Your lower back and hips will roll and rock with horses movement...it is your shock absorber...don't force it or riding is not Cadillac comfy but Army tank jarring...
The sensations you have is your body starting to learn muscle memory...being repeatedly placed in a certain position teaches...no different than holding a pen or typing on a keyboard, muscle memory.
Yes, you tensing and not bending your knee is going to set you off the saddle...in time you will learn to start posting...more muscle memory but then where you now felt pushed you will be looking from the push up to control the downward motion.
You loosing your stirrup when you moved your leg back is because you closed the angle of your hip...you pulled your legs up and inward protecting your groin from the stretching of ligaments there you will suddenly find you have and never knew about before...your description though makes me think the saddle is to wide between your legs and uncomfortable for your particular anatomy.
Keeping in balance with the horse as it goes up a slope or descends...you lean forward at the hip or you lean back at the hip. Your legs will also follow some of that motion to keep your body in batter align...going up your feet naturally go back some, coming down your feet will naturally go in front of you...you're actually naturally bracing yourself some both directions...
It is overwhelming how much there is to learn when starting out...
Not pushing so much so fast is a help so understanding can start when you do as told and can feel what you are being told to do suddenly starts happening together....muscle memory.
You asked about core and leg exercises...yes, it would help as would building up stamina cause riding is hard work.
Those that ride work...those that are a passenger don't work anywhere near as hard to be a partner with their horse...fact.

I think I touched a little on a lot of things you asked about...
Learning to ride is a wonderful activity...
Learning to work as a partner with your mount is a lifelong dream of many of us...one you are just beginning to travel toward... 

Enjoy the journey.
:runninghorse2:...


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

Quick question - do you mean trail riding, as in going out on trails, in the woods or a grassland, and riding over hills and dale, through forest and creek and down into ravines and washes, and such, or do you mean arena type trail riding show class?

(Disclaimer: I trail ride. As in go camping with my horses and friends and their horses, and we stay gone in the woods three and four hours a day, twice a day, for three and four days at a whack.)

When I started riding in my adult life, I wanted the stirrups almost horse jockey short, on a western saddle. I was putting all my weight into my feet (Which is why I got a LOT of foot, leg, and butt cramps at unfortunate times - like at a trot). When I stood up in the stirrups, you could see 6 or 7" of sunlight between my straddle and the seat. It took repeatedly almost bouncing out of the saddle at a mere trot to figure out A. I sucked, B. It would help if I had a deeper seat, C. I had to stop putting my full weight on the balls of my feet 100% of the time I was in the saddle. It was exhausting to ride like that.

It may be the wrong way, but the way I figured out my stirrup length was to stand up in them. If I was standing so tall I felt like I'd pitch forward, I lengthened them. (I still have horrible balance, but it was so bad when I started I couldn't lean down and put my right foot in the stirrup by grabbing the fender and moving it without almost falling off on that side).

Over the last few years, I've lost the need to feel like I have to put all my weight into my feet. It's in my seat, stirrups are there if I need them. If I lose one on the trail - and it happens, horses sometimes get too close to some brush or a tree trunk to avoid bad footing, and your foot gets knocked out of the stirrup - I don't feel like I'm going to panic or fall off if I can't immediately get Trigger shut down and get my foot back in. I just ride without it for a little while. 



Now my leathers are almost out to the last hole, they're out so long. When I stand up, I have about an inch of clearance, maybe a little less.

I saw where it was asked about doing the two point position on a climb when trail riding in a western saddle - I think it's possible. I ride in a barrel saddle, but it has a lower horn, not even as tall as the palm of my hand is wide, and I have small hands. The swells on it would be perfect for a two point. I think you'd just want a shorter horn. I know when Trigger climbs, I lean up, take off as much weight as I can but I still have to trust him and trust my saddle - the back will catch your butt like a bucket if the angle of the climb is so steep you feel yourself slide back. I have had to lean so far forward to help him out, I've been down on his neck, almost in his mane. I used to worry I'd slide off backwards but again - I had to learn to trust my horse and trust my saddle.

Leg position: I was terrible about this, now I preach it.

Your heels should be down, though not exaggeratedly so (When you point your toes down, you lose your seat and your balance and that's when people fall off). Edited to reflect HLG's post above - level is okay too, or just a slight drop in the heels. You don't have to have your foot at a 45 degree angle, just level or slightly lower in the heels) Stirrup bed should be just behind the ball of your feet, but not jammed into the arch. Balls of the feet on the stirrup bed are also fine. Your heels, your hips, your shoulders, and your ears, should all be in alignment, though you should be relaxed, not rigid, in the saddle. Butt must stay in the center of the saddle, and the saddle must stay in the center of the horse's back.

(Imagine if you ride ATVs much - you know how you lean forward or even sometimes stand up and lean forward, climbing out of a creek bed? How you have to keep the weight centered, or you pull it over on yourself when you turn or climb, and how you have to lean back going down a slope so it doesn't come over on top of you - it's a bit like that. Help your horse as much as you can so you don't pull him over)

I watched a kid that rides with us figure out the off billet had snapped on a saddle, while he was riding my husband's mare Gina. 

It had been like that for 5 minutes before we were able to get out of a boggy area, pull a nightlatch off my saddle (Just a thick, long, leather dog collar, really) and make a makeshift off billet. He rode just fine with no front girth - it was dangling and dragging in the mud, for 5 minutes, in a bog area that had our horses in mud over their knees, almost to the bellies, because he stays centered in the seat, because he naturally kept the saddle from rolling because he stayed centered.

I saw a barrel racer fall off and get stomped this weekend because her off billet broke on her first run out, before she hit her first turn, and it was because she wasn't centered up (This may be because she was anticipating that first turn and was already leaning into it though, so I won't criticize too much - I was just glad she was able to get up, walk it off and make her next run with no injuries).

If you're going DOWN a steep slope (Sometimes you'll think you're the Man from Snowy River and it. is. awesome), you lean back, use the stirrups, but have them pushed out in front - how far in front depends on how steep the downward slope. Imagine yourself walking down that same slope... you'd want to remain upright and perpendicular to the ground. Same thing in a saddle. Lean backward or forward accordingly to help out your horse. 

Uhm. The fender position - are you meaning you're having trouble with the fenders not turning? As in, you feel like you're fighting this thick, problematic, sheet of leather attached to the actual stirrup leather? If so - I did the same thing at first. Some of it was the saddle I rode hadn't been used enough to be really broke in. The stirrups hadn't 'turned' yet. When you put it on a stand, they didn't turn toward the front, they hung at a side view. You can slip a broom stick in the stirrups when it's not in use, and it will slowly, over time, turn the stirrups to be more forward facing. Good leather, broken in right, will also turn and be much more flexible. Sometimes you'll find you don't even have to lean down, turn the stirrup, to get your right foot in. The stirrup is already right were it needs to be.

As a beginner though, the whole stirrup thing exhausted me. Between putting my whole weight into my feet, and feeling like I was fighting the fender, it just wore me out.

All that will change as time goes by and your body adapts to the different positions from English to Western.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

I vary between 3 stirrup lengths, although I mostly use the Momma Bear or Poppa Bear settings. Shorter is nice for getting off the horse's back, but longer keeps my legs wrapped around more horse - useful if things get exciting. At the Poppa Bear setting, keeping the stirrups on my feet can be a challenge. Therefor:

Where to put my feet in the stirrups? I've settled on this test: When I climb a ladder, where do I put my feet on the rungs of the ladder? That is my best balance/grip point, and where I want my stirrup. It is deeper into the stirrup than most say, but not all the way in to the heel. "Ball of foot" makes it too easy for my foot to slide out. The "home" position, solidly against the heel of the boot, robs me of the flexibility of my ankle. But when I climb a ladder, no one needs to tell me where to put my foot. I just know. That then works well for me in a saddle.

Body position:








E & F are balanced positions for many activities, assuming a well mannered horse. If your horse may shy away or is nervous or might buck, then G is an excellent defensive position. It is good for many bolts or on a resisting horse. H is a fantastic way to fall. So which do I use? All three, normally, over the course of a trail ride!

1880 and a traditional Texas cowboy approach:








From a thread nearly 3,000 days old...



xxBarry Godden said:


> Years ago I was taught to ride 'Western' by an old, bent bow legged Canadian cowboy who had been involved with horses since he was a kid. In the 1930s he had been a winning rodeo rider. By the time I met him he had formed a Western riding club in Surrey, where anyone who rode horses used the English hunting seat. Kennie's first job with new members was to teach them how to ride Western on his Western schooled horses.
> 
> The first lesson was to adjust the stirrups so that the leg was carried almost straight. Enough bend was left in the knee to just lift the butt off the seat of the saddle even at the trot.
> 
> ...


I've used the "Old West" or "Harley" position many times. Putting my feet forward brings my center of gravity forward. Not only does it NOT put weight on the rear of the saddle, it actually shifts weight more on to my thighs - *assuming my stirrups are adjusted the way Barry Godden said!* If the stirrups are just a little shorter than what Barry Godden wrote, doing this will suck big time. It works for the Poppa Bear setting. It is adequate at the Momma Bear setting and a total failure at my Baby Bear setting.

BTW - I can still "stand in the stirrups" at the Poppa Bear setting. Doing so has all my weight in my stirrups and in my thighs, but my rump is barely above the saddle. Also - I want my weight to flow uninterrupted past my knees and into the stirrup. Gripping with the knee is a good way to find one using position H...

The "Harley" position is a surprisingly stable position. I like it when my horse is nervous or when we are covering rough ground and I want to pay attention to something else - like the riders behind me or which way to go next. If I am too busy to try to match my horse's balance, then it at least allows me to be stable while he crosses small gullies as I look elsewhere. I find it too tiring to use for more than 5 minutes at a time.

When someone who has never ridden before goes on a trail ride with us, I tell them to use that position as they start out. "Within a few minutes," I tell them, "you will want to relax. Do so. But if something feels like it is getting too intense, revert back to it, hold the horn with one hand and give the horse a lot of slack." My horses are not bolters - not the ones I own now - and it works well for a new rider when our BLM mustang pony decides to trot across a section of ground we lead the other horses across...

PS: I agree with the US Cavalry about going down a steep slope. I like to use a forward seat (F) and try to have my center of gravity going directly behind his front leg. Lots of folks disagree, but it works for me. But I'm way too old to want to go down any slopes as steep as they used:








Another picture here: http://www.triplecreekfarmpa.com/images/SpanishCavSlideSmall.JPG


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## Whinnie (Aug 9, 2015)

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Any chance you can post pictures of you in the saddle with your legs where the instructor is wanting them?


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## charrorider (Sep 23, 2012)

I'm going to step on a lot of toes, here. The heels down position is probably the biggest myth in the horseback riding world. To me, it's all about balance and the heels down position does nothing for balance as far as I have been able to determine. I'll add that I've always been an athletic individual, who has played many different sports. I like my stirrups just a little shorter than my legs, so that there is a slight bend to my knees. Also, I find that a saddle with a flat seat, something like a charro saddle, or a McClellan saddle, will teach a lot about balance.


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

It does depend on saddle type, balance, rider preference, whether you're riding down a hill... etc. But generally you should be in a position that your feet are directly under your centre of gravity, or a little in front but not by much. 

Aussie stock saddles & Western saddles do tend to put people in more of a 'chair seat', and I do also remember when I was young & working at a trail riding co, the mantra was telling people 'feet forward, heels down' & when I questioned my boss on this, he said that we emphasise & exaggerate that, because beginners naturally tend to do the opposite, and being too forward or down at the heel was safer than the opposite.

You should be able to sit & ride comfortably, relaxed, without a lot of 'putting pressure' on various bits, regarding balance, feet in stirrups, leg position. While it may take a bit to 'get the hang', if your feet are continually slipping from the stirrups, you're finding it physically hard or uncomfortable to keep in place, then something's not right. Regarding the stirrups facing out, the easiest way I reckon of fixing this is to give the strap of the fender a half twist before you do up the buckles - makes the stirrups point forward, so your leg isn't being tweaked.

And some like riding with shorter legs, some longer. I personally used to like a bit shorter, but then I hurt my knee, and found that a dressage saddle with long leathers - basically my legs are as they would be without stirrups, but toes slightly raised, is the most comfortable and well balanced position for me these days - I put virtually no pressure on the stirrups, they're just, as BSMS put it, an 'ABS' system.


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

Ugh, I had most of this typed out yesterday during break but then break got cut short and I didn’t have time to post again. Thank you for all the great responses! I’m going to try to address specific bits and questions by tagging some members:
@Cordillera Cowboy I will have to try the arm/stirrup measuring thing! So far my stirrups have been adjusted for me; I think this weekend I really need to get back in my own saddle on Dreama and try to keep a better position and work on adjusting the stirrups and trying how the feel.

To quote a bit out of what bsms mentioned from an old thread:

“The rider sat upright and straight using the feet to compensate and resist the forces of gravity and movement by pressing down on the stirrups - which were almost being used as 'pedals'.”

I think this is part of how she was telling me to use my feet although she didn’t say it exactly like this. To me, the position she was asking for looked a lot like position G in the illustration bsms showed. The husband of the pair is the horse trainer and I think he is the one who has taught the wife to ride over the years. I don’t have full history on him yet but from what he has talked about I think that he had done some fairly extreme sporting when he was a bit younger and it may be part of how he adapted over rough terrain, breaking his own horses to ride, etc. He pointed out a few times that my leg position was to brace me for the movement of a horse in cases of sudden movement. (Not that I am too worried about that with the lesson horse, Hoss. It would be a true accident/emergency if he turned suddenly or bolted. He seems very steady.) I think, even though I don’t understand everything yet, that in their own way they are trying to prep me both for riding on uneven terrain and also for the fact that my own mare isn’t as “slow and steady” as Hoss.
@horselovinguy I appreciate books don’t apologize! :lol: I think hearing different rider’s explanations of things until something clicks is really helpful. Your description of why I keep loosing my stirrup makes sense I think… I’m not sure about the width of the saddle; I’ve only tried three saddles so far and this has been a consistent problem in each so it may just be the way I’m moving.
@AtokaGhosthorse I do mean trail riding as in going out on trails in the woods, etc. I don’t have any plans to do any arena type showing currently. Eventually as I improve if my Aunt is still participating in them, I would like to be able to do some of the small local “fun shows” with her, but these are pretty casual with different small classes for a variety of styles and skill levels. That’s not what I’m focused on though, my end goal is to be going out on trails. I would love to get to the point that I could go out camping with other horse riders on trails!

Yes, even though the saddle I was in was one that has been used a lot by the owners, I still felt as if I was fighting that sheet of leather attached to the stirrup and the stirrup not turning. But at this point all that could be either A. because I had the stirrups adjusted too short or B. just because my legs are weak and getting used to a new activity.
@bsms That is a very helpful body position description and explanation from that old post that I think helps me understand where my new riding instructors are coming from. And those are amazing pics of the US Cavalry horsemen. I think I’ve seen the first one before but forgotten about it.
@Whinnie It feels and looks to me currently like the instructors are asking for something like position g from the illustration bsms shared above, except maybe a little less exaggerated on the forwardness of the feet. But maybe it just feels that way to me because everything is still new and awkward and my feet really are not that far forward? I will try to see if mom can help me get a photo on my own mare this weekend.
@loosie I do know from photos I’ve seen of myself when I first started working on my mare that I definitely have the tendency to lean forward in a really bad position for riding (more like position h. from the illustration bsms shared) and I know that is a really easy way to fall but it seems like a natural instinct. So some of the instructor’s emphasis on feet forward may be exactly that, an over exaggeration to try to keep me from inadvertently hurting myself.


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

@*CopperLove* - It could well be both on the stirrups. You're not used to all that leather, and then if they're too short, you'd have that additional problem. I'd say let them out until you have just a crack of daylight between your seat and straddle, 3/4 of an inch or so, long enough your knees are only slightly bent, but you still have full contact with the bed of the stirrup if you press your weight down.

Then see how it goes.


Also, this:


Cowboy Wisdom - If your butt hurts at the end of a ride, your stirrups are too long. If your knees hurt at the end of a ride, your stirrups are too short. If everything hurts? They're just right.


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

@AtokaGhosthorse I'll have to keep that in mind. I feel like if I had stood in my saddle there'd have been quite a bit more clearance than that, especially since it felt like I was pushing myself up the cantle when I tried to extend my legs forward.

Ha, that seems pretty accurate. Mainly, my thighs are sore. But on my right leg, the side of my leg leading up from my ankle is also sore but not on the left side... that unevenness tells me something isn't quite right too.


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

You MAY be leaning to the right as you ride and don't realize it. Are you right handed? I know I used to lean heavily to my dominant side starting out, and I watched my son and daughter, early on, as a ride went on, start to lean heavily to the right - they're both right handed and so am I. Son still does it - I have to tell him to square up or he's going to fall off every now and then, which is weird because he still can ride like he grew there. Just makes me so aggravated he doesn't take more interest in it.


Anyway, I kinda feel as if as you get tired, your weight will start to 'sag' if you will to your stronger side, then you're pushing into the stirrup to support your weight, then your ankles, knees, then up through the hip start to hurt.


I can also verify the sore knees thing in that cowboy saying. My knees used to SCREAM after only riding a couple of miles. It felt so horrible, only riding that far, and aching that bad in my knees and I'd feel my toes curl from cramps, or a charley horse would start in my hamstring or butt cheek... hard to control a horse when you're hurting like that.


Then I started letting out my stirrups, a hole here, a hole there... it got better. I have them out real far now, but I think one more hole would be too much. Rode a saddle not mine late last summer, a high back ranch saddle I'd brought camping as a spare, bought it to flip it, thought I'd ride it to see how well made it was.


The stirrups LOOKED like they were way out, but they weren't. Gina was kind enough to let me let them out while I stayed in the saddle, and they felt okay... two hours later, my knees were on fire, felt like I had ground glass in them. I'm thinking I needed two more holes let out on the stirrups, but by then I'd decided I hated that saddle and was glad to see it go when it sold.


I think you'll find as time goes by, and your body gets conditioned to the changes in stirrup position and seat, you'll find you're not fighting the stirrups as much. I don't know what kind of saddle you're riding, but a lot of folks try trailriding in roping saddles. I was one of them, didn't know any better. THOSE have very wide, very thick stirrup leathers, thick fenders. The entire saddle is over-engineered from a trail riding POV because it has to withstand the torque of an upset steer, calf, cow, heifer, or bull being tied off to the horn and the rope snapping tight. The roping saddles are what killed my knees in the beginning. Then our dozer operator brought over his daughter's SRS barrel saddle. It was ugly - the seat was kelly green suede, but the difference in the seat position, the feel of the horse under it, how the stirrups swung much more freely, made a convert out of me.


I ride trails in a barrel saddle now. I have a used Saddlesmith made Connie Combs I paid 200.00 for, intended to flip it for a profit... and it's never left my house. It's only saddle I've had so far I refuse to sell for any amount of money.



My husband rides in an SRS ranch cutter - for the same reason. Easier on the knees, stirrups swing freely, he likes the seat position, feels more horse through the saddle and it's comfy for long rides.


I hope this helps you - I've had to learn mostly on my own, though I can thank a lot of young people for the early days and helping me get started... but some of them were very wrong about what they taught me, and it's because they were taught wrong. Trail riding has been one of the most amazing things I could do with my horses, and I am a huge advocate of camping with horses and trail riding - even if you run barrels, rope, anything organized in an arena - it's good for your horses to give them that change of scenery. It makes them think differently, it gives them a workout they would never get in a level arena. It can make you and your horse learn to rely on one another and trust one another on a much deeper level. Wildlife doesn't spook from horses like they do from people on foot or motorized vehicles, btw. I've seen deer, pretty garter snakes laying in the sun on a log, birds of all sorts, foxes, turkey, geese, ducks, raccons, hogs (Nasty sons of bucks... Not a fan of wild hogs), all sorts of critters that I'd never normal see if I'd been on foot.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

I am using my Abetta saddle now. It has the white fleece in the picture, versus the Circle Y. The Circle Y has a bigger footprint, which is good for distributing weight. The Abetta's small footprint though means my legs don't need to spread as far apart. I also have narrow horses - ridden mostly Arabians or half-Arabians - and Bandit is the narrowest horse I've ever met. I don't need to spread my legs wide on him and it is nice to use a saddle (Abetta or Aussie) that doesn't require me to. If I ever bought a big QH, I might have to learn a different approach to riding. Oh...and tilting is a problem a lot of us have. Mine is rooted in a back injury 10 years ago. My horses ignore it but my knees sometimes can't! :frown_color:


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## redbadger (Nov 20, 2017)

My stirrups have gotten suspiciously longer as my experience increases ... <_< Some of that, though, is because my knees are shot and sometimes my leg hurts like an absolute devil, and having a stirrup keep it "in position" just makes it worse as it gets tighter and tighter. Some of it is simply getting better and better at balancing - I try to ride without stirrups for at least a little while every time I ride, even on the trail. (again, sometimes because it's more comfortable for me). I joke that my preferred length at this point is "as close to stirrupless as I can get while still having stirrups". But going without stirrups has also helped me figure out where my legs should be without being artificially positioned, so it becomes muscle-memory as to what's comfortable and functional, and I can feel where the stirrups should be and adjust them accordingly.


It's normal to tend to lean forward - it's absolutely an unconscious anxiety position, we tend to curl up and tense to protect ourselves from what the lizard brain perceives as a hazardous situation. It has helped me to think of a couple of things: one, imagining a plumb line (that is, a string with a weight at the end) going from my head to my feet. The line is weighted and straight, and my shoulders, back, hips, and legs align with it. But it is still flexible. 

Second, the horse's horizontal axis (front to back) and my vertical axis (head to feet) intersect at the saddle, and the intersection remains a fixed point regardless of whether the horse is moving on a flat surface, uphill, or downhill - the horse's axis tilts, so does my axis in correlation. (see attached image)



Third, take leaves or receipts or dollar bills or whatever is windblown and flat, and hold them in position against the saddle with your knees - just enough to hold them, but not enough to give too much squeeze to your horse. Again, this might help your muscle memory.


Fourth: go without stirrups for a bit. Yes, it's scary at first, but you may find you enjoy it, and as my trainer reminds me, the stirrups (and the reins) aren't what's keeping you in the saddle.


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

I am just going to address three issues. Most of the stuff you asked has been addressed I guess some of this has 2.

1. Leathers wanting to be stiff and twist your feet all wrong? You need stirrup turners.

2. You lean way forward over the front of the saddle? Anxiety.  One caution about following the link as to an anxiety cure. You may find that you pee your pants at the trot......

3. Stirrup length?
It sounds like they are too long. Extra long stirrups make my back hurt.


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## charrorider (Sep 23, 2012)

Celeste. I heard it said: "If your back hurts, your stirrups are too long. If your knees hurt, your stirrups are too short. If both, your knees and your back hurt, your stirrups are just right." Happy trails.


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

charrorider said:


> I'm going to step on a lot of toes, here. The heels down position is probably the biggest myth in the horseback riding world. ... Also, I find that a saddle with a flat seat, something like a charro saddle, or a McClellan saddle, will teach a lot about balance.


I think it's a safety thing for beginners, as if their heels are down, then their toes can't be slipping down, wedging in the stirrups. At least, that's why my boss told me to emphasise the point when I was working at a trail riding co many moons ago. Same as 'legs forward' - stops them from drifting back to clamp onto the horse's sides...

As for flat saddles being good for balance yes! You don't learn an independent seat when you're 'clamped in' to a deep seat. And it's harder to shift position to sit differently in different situations. And if you're talking long rides, being in a rather fixed position is more tiring, for horse and rider.


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

@AtokaGhosthorse I am indeed right handed. Interestingly enough, that is also the side I was having the most problems with my foot coming out of the stirrup on.

On my mare, I’ve been riding in a Big Horn brand saddle that isn’t all leather, some of it is a synthetic material so it’s really light to lift. I’m not sure what style it is from that brand, I wouldn’t think it would be a roping saddle, seems like it would be a bit flimsy for that. I really need to get better photos of everything but something always comes up that I don’t.

I didn’t get to ride this weekend because it rained on my one free day but I did go out and saddle Dreama, because I need practice and we are still working on her standing still while being saddled (which she did much better with yesterday.) While handling my own saddle I noticed that the fenders are a lot more light and flexible, and swing a little more freely vs. the one I rode in at the last lesson. So that could potentially be a little part of why it felt like I was fighting the fenders on the riding lesson saddle.
@bsms We think that my mare is an Arabian mix! Not that we have any proof except for the way she looks and moves… Mom used to ride Arabians and is quite partial to their look and personality. The horse I’ve started riding lessons on is a Mustang, so neither are big and wide like quarter horses. 
@Celeste Stirrup turners, that is fantastic! If I ride in my own saddle and still feel uncomfortable after I get more used to the leg position, I may have to look into a pair of those. I know I have seen trail saddles that had stirrups that face forward like that but I didn’t know that there was a way to make my own stirrups do that. I also got a good chuckle out of the Anxiety link, I had seen a thread not too long ago about easing Anxiety and I thought you were linking to that. Imagine my surprise :lol:


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## charrorider (Sep 23, 2012)

loosie. Even though I didn't own a horse until I was 30, I never took a horseback riding lesson. So I can't say anything about the reason why riding instructors teach that. But I had heard of the heels down position and the first time I tried it, I thought to myself, "What? I don't think so." I had the same out of balance sensation I have with short stirrups.


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

CopperLove said:


> Stirrup turners, that is fantastic!


Yeah but until you get them... or instead of forking out for another piece of kit, twisting the strap before doing it up, as I described, on fender leathers does pretty much the same job.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Pre-turned stirrups are nice:










Something I like about my Abetta is that the fenders bend easily...just cloth and a nylon strap.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

this is one reason I do not like cordura fenders; becuase they NEVER hold a turn. You cannot get them to 'turn' and stay there., they always hand 'limp'. 

Some would say, "oh, good! there's no resistance" . but, you want the fender to WANT to stay in the position that helps your knee. A turned leather fender will do this. A cordura fender will always want to hang in the easiest, most direct manner possible, and this is just the opposite of what you want for your knee comfort.


Admittedly, since it is made of a light fabric, it offers less resistance than a leather fender that is NOT turned. But, it can NEVER BE turned. It will never off total relief. It will always want to go back to it's free hanging position, especially if you post the trot.


AND, if you are in a position with a bucking horse, you will find that the lightweight fenders and stirrups are dangerous because they will not drop away from your foot, but rather hand up on your pants or your gripping foot, and be more likely to end up with your stuck on them, as your body flies off the horse, and you end up being dragged. A heavy stirrup is a safer stirrup.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

I"m sorry. I can't type worth beans!


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

@loosie I will have to play with that too... I've never done up my own stirrups. Is that what bsms has shown in his next photo?
@tinyliny I can see that being true also. My fenders aren't cordura... I think nylon maybe? They are kind of thick and a little squishy if that makes sense, like there is a very light padding inside the stitched material. I can imagine they would never hold a turn. Twisting the strap as loosie described or stirrup turners might be an eventual thing I do. I am still learning about saddles and other tack in general since mine was a gift/hand-me-down. Dad bought it at an auction for my aunt to clean up and re-sell. He took a loss on that one though :lol: I am making a mental note of all the pros and cons I learn about as I go for when I eventually do invest in another saddle. The place I'm taking riding lessons also has a few different saddles that they said they will alternate through so I get to see how different ones feel.


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

The stirrup turners that I sent you a link to are $10 a pair. I guess you have to add shipping to that. Skip eating out once and you have the money.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

yeah, I know the kind of material you are talking about, the sort of 'quilted' look. you won't be able to get a permanent twist to them. you can, however, find a nice pair of leather fenders and replace the nylon ones with leather. As long as the strap that goes over the stirrup bar (on the tree) is the same size as what is on their now (not too large to fit)


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

@Celeste I noticed that, I appreciated the price, very reasonable compared to some other horsey stuff  I think eventually stirrup turners would be perfect. For now I'll be doing a lot of my learning in someone else's saddles and probably won't mess much with their stirrups except for the length. I hope soon to have my first trail ride on my own horse, just an easy one around the back of mom and dad's property. After that I may decide I immediately need stirrup turners :lol:


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

tinyliny said:


> but rather hand up on your pants


I had to wonder about that... abstract Freudian slip... until you explained!! :rofl::rofl:


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Thanks for the pic to explain what I mean bsms. I had a synthetic saddle, it was suede look, and was thick, good quality material - I don't know how cordura/abetta compares, but twisting the straps worked fine for that one.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

BTW - a safety tip you've probably heard already. Make sure the size and shape of your stirrup/boot combination won't allow the boot to go through. I've watched sheepherders ride in sneakers or even lug-soled work boots. None of them have ever been injured doing it, but it freaks me out. Oh...and the drop next to the horse is about 75 feet onto rocks next to a river. But those horses really know their jobs! Me? I was on foot taking the picture.


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

@bsms Horse knowing their job or not I couldn't do it. It's already an accomplishment for me to be up on a moving animal with my fear of heights. I would pee myself.

Believe it or not, I know that safety tip now but I did NOT until I started stalking horseforum and saw people talking about shoes. I mean, I knew their were riding boots and cowboy boots but I thought it was mostly a stylistic thing. When I first started, I would come to the barn in my Timberland work boots so that Dreama didn't break my toes if she grazed me with her foot. Then when I got ready to ride I'd just hop on, still wearing the work boots. I've switched now to a pair of tall boots that I owned that are leather but not really made for riding. They have a bit more tread than I'd like now that I know a bit more, but they have a defined heel and are a size that wouldn't easily allow my foot to slip through.

I've been debating on what kind of shoe I will buy eventually. For a while I really wanted something with steel toes for ground work since she had already stepped on me several times but I'd like to have something multi-functional, and steel toed western boots usually pretty clunky and have a deep tread on the bottom which I wouldn't want to ride in. She's also been doing a lot better lately about not stepping all over me after I have learned to lead and direct a little better.


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

Rookie mistake. LOL I did the same thing - started out in a pair of Ariat Fat Babies... then got told by my boss, who used to do cutting competitively, I might want to get a slick soled boot. I already knew about a heeled boot is better than a sneaker so you don't slide through, it never occurred to me lug soled boots could get hung up too. I just thought it was a style choice, like square toes or round toes on cowboy boots.

My husband rides in a pair of thicker soled work boots, though not lugged soled. That bugs me. But. He had me switch his smaller cutting saddle stirrups to a pair of 4.5" wide buckaroo type stirrups over the weekend, just so "I can get my fat foot out of the stirrup in a hurry if I need too so I don't get hung up" (His words, not mine).  NOT those stirrups, good Lord at the cost, but a knock off.


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

Slick soled boots with heels are the best. I like a roper styled boot best.

I have ridden in hiking boots, but it was with caged stirrups. I still think that the slick boots are safer. I couldn't get dragged far with the hiking boots due to the stirrup cages, but the slick boots allow me to make a faster dismount, which can come in handy if your horse is psycho. Not that anyone ever rode a psycho horse.....


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

Of course not. What sort of fools would we be to ride a psycho horse?


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Yeah smooth soles & not soft rubber, are a safety thing. Even then it's possible to get caught but more likely your boot will slip out of the stirrup if you fall. Seen my sister dragged once... was not nice, tho lucky she wasn't badly hurt. Seen a jockey I worked with hung up & he was in proper riding boots(our boss used to tell us 'toes _down_' was how racehorses should be ridden!) And he had his neck broken.

I ride barefoot as often as not. And I ride bareback by choice a lot too, but if I happen to have regular boots or such on, can't go barefoot, I will either remove the stirrups or entire saddle.


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

AtokaGhosthorse said:


> Of course not. What sort of fools would we be to ride a psycho horse?


After a thousand miles or so, they get less psycho.....


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

loosie said:


> I ride barefoot as often as not. And I ride bareback by choice a lot too, but if I happen to have regular boots or such on, can't go barefoot, I will either remove the stirrups or entire saddle.


I used to ride bareback some. I'm not sure I wouldn't fall off now. I didn't care as much if I fell off when I was a kid.

I had bare toes stepped on before. It hurt.


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

^Don't find I need to worry too much about being stepped on when I'm riding...


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

CopperLove said:


> @*bsms* Horse knowing their job or not I couldn't do it. It's already an accomplishment for me to be up on a moving animal with my fear of heights. I would pee myself.
> 
> Believe it or not, I know that safety tip now but I did NOT until I started stalking horseforum and saw people talking about shoes. I mean, I knew their were riding boots and cowboy boots but I thought it was mostly a stylistic thing. When I first started, I would come to the barn in my Timberland work boots so that Dreama didn't break my toes if she grazed me with her foot. Then when I got ready to ride I'd just hop on, still wearing the work boots. I've switched now to a pair of tall boots that I owned that are leather but not really made for riding. They have a bit more tread than I'd like now that I know a bit more, but they have a defined heel and are a size that wouldn't easily allow my foot to slip through.
> 
> I've been debating on what kind of shoe I will buy eventually. *For a while I really wanted something with steel toes for ground work since she had already stepped on me several times but I'd like to have something multi-functional, and steel toed western boots usually pretty clunky* and have a deep tread on the bottom which I wouldn't want to ride in. She's also been doing a lot better lately about not stepping all over me after I have learned to lead and direct a little better.





First of all, if your horse is stepping on you during ground work, you two are too close to each other. You might want to start working on getting your hrose to move off, away from you, and to go right / left/back up, etc, without coming closer than 3 or 4 feet, at most.


Secondly, regarding steel toed shoes . . . . I've heard some horsepeople say NO to them, because if the hrose steps on you, it 'pinches' the steel down on your toe, and then you get hurt bad, and can't get your foot out.


I have no idea if this is true. I wear NON-steal toe boots, to ride and do any kind of barn/groundwork. But, I'd be interested to hear the opinion on steel toed boots for working/riding horses.


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

tinyliny said:


> First of all, if your horse is stepping on you during ground work, you two are too close to each other. You might want to start working on getting your hrose to move off, away from you, and to go right / left/back up, etc, without coming closer than 3 or 4 feet, at most.
> 
> 
> Secondly, regarding steel toed shoes . . . . I've heard some horsepeople say NO to them, because if the hrose steps on you, it 'pinches' the steel down on your toe, and then you get hurt bad, and can't get your foot out.
> ...


This is what I was told and it's especially true with cattle since they weigh about 1900 lbs and up.


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

tinyliny said:


> First of all, if your horse is stepping on you during ground work, you two are too close to each other. You might want to start working on getting your hrose to move off, away from you, and to go right / left/back up, etc, without coming closer than 3 or 4 feet, at most.


That's why she hasn't stepped on me so much lately. She came to us after living with goats for a year and never being asked to do anything, so there was a lot of work to be done about "manners" on the ground. I have finally gotten to the point where I understand a bit more about how to tell her... "No, you're not allowed to crowd me and walk on me. Get off me and walk over here instead." Or, "You're way too close to me and not paying attention so now I want you to back up." After being corrected several times consistently she caught on really fast. She's known all this at some point, I just didn't know how to ask for it starting out. We are to the point now that when we are inside the fence with tack on, she'll walk at my shoulder about an arm's distance away without a lead. Usually. We still have our slip ups but are doing much better lol.

I think with steel toes and horses the same principles apply as any other reason to wear steel toes. For example in most factories you must wear steel toe protection. However, if something heavy enough falls or rolls on your foot you still risk having the toe bent in. 9 times out of 10 it will protect you, but there is always a situation that it could make worse. Although with horses, I don't know if the action or angle behind the force coming down on your foot might make the steel toe more likely to bend in. I've also read about shoes with protection across the top of the foot but I've never seen any in stores. I'd prettymuch decided against steel toed boots anyway since I don't want to spend the money on two more pair of shoes and I haven't been stepped on so much lately :lol:

I know this started off as a thread about leg position and stirrup length on the trail, but since we've meandered into the topic of shoes:

While looking up what a roping style boot was, I stumbled across these: https://www.ariat.com/SCOUT_ZIP_W_FOO.html?dwvar_SCOUT__ZIP__W__FOO_color=BLACK

They're not the western style boot I envisioned myself eventually purchasing but I like the look of them and could see myself wearing the heck out of them as an everyday shoe besides riding. I had a pair of Ariat boots once and remember how comfortable they were. Would there be a safety or other reason to now choose a boot like this? (Or any brands to avoid based on them wearing out quicklyl?)


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

I have been told that steel toed boots are much safer than they were years ago. They take much more force before crushing. I don't actually wear them; I'm just relaying information that I was told by someone in industrial management.


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

The boots look ok to me. I have never used Ariats, so I have no personal experience. The pair I am riding in now were made by Justin. I think that Justin makes some boots that are extremely good and some that are lower end.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Steel toe boots ARE safer: https://memicsafety.typepad.com/mem...teel-toe-footwear-are-they-really-safer-.html

I don't worry. My horses are barefoot, good-natured and not likely to step with much force on my foot. I wear boots with good leather. My favorites are Red Wing. $200 a pair, but I still have and sometimes use the pair I bought in 1990. I'm pretty sure I'll die before I wear out my second pair (brown, not black). I also use them for yard work and sometimes hiking...a rattlesnake would have a tough time biting thru them. But I know what I like in a boot.


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

@Celeste @bsms Thanks for the input. The description of the shoe I linked says it's for riding but... you know how that goes. Sometimes company claims just don't hold up in the real world. And sometimes a shoe that's really comfy on the inside just doesn't hold up to the wear and tear over time. I'll probably read a lot of reviews and do a lot of looking around before I settle on a pair. The ones I'm using now are safe enough I think, so I'm not in a huge rush but I'd like a different pair eventually.

I do like the look of the Red Wing as well, and a shoe that holds up over time and is multi-functional is really important to me. The most expensive pair of boots I own is in a similar price range. They are handmade and have an interesting cord and button closure up the side. Bought them at a Ren Fair (shows what kind of geek I really am.) I polish them up and wear them as a stylistic choice but I also frequently wear them in the Kentucky winter to shed the water and mud and they've held up nicely. Sadly, they don't have a heel and again have more tread than I'd like for riding.


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

@bsms Who sells those? Can you give me an online link?


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

Celeste said:


> I have been told that steel toed boots are much safer than they were years ago. They take much more force before crushing. I don't actually wear them; I'm just relaying information that I was told by someone in industrial management.



In light of this angle of the conversation, I asked my daughter, who is in her last two semesters of her safety degree and in her early stages of getting her OSHA certs, what the OSHA standard/opnion was - will modern steel toes withstand the force of a horse hoof or even a cow hoof without pinching your toes off or trapping them in the toe box.

Answer: Yes. They are made to withstand the force of bulldozer treads, steel pipe loads, tractors and other assorted heavy equipment. 


However, went on to say this:


After so much use and abuse yes eventually they would collapse.


So sounds like you'd want to keep your steel toed boots in good condition and replace often enough you don't get smashed.


Interesting.


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

AtokaGhosthorse said:


> So sounds like you'd want to keep your steel toed boots in good condition and replace often enough you don't get smashed.
> 
> Interesting.


That is interesting, but makes sense. Similarly to how you are supposed to replace a riding helmet every so many years, or any time you've taken a fall that results in impact to the helmet. (Different kind of construction and a different function, but still a safety device.) The factory my mom retired from, and a different factory my boyfriend works at now, both have programs where they either give the employees a certain amount of money or refund them a certain amount on the purchase of new steel-toe boots. I always thought it was just an "extra bonus", but it could be part of a safety program to encourage employees to replace their old equipment.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Celeste said:


> @bsms Who sells those? Can you give me an online link?


I think they mostly limit sales to their dealers. I just looked and I guess they don't make cowboy boots for women:

Men's 1155 NailSeat 11-inch Pull-On Boot | Red Wing Work Boots

Looking at Tony Lama...looks like women don't get as much selection in hard core work boots. Ariat seems to have some decent designs for women. I would have thought there would be a good market for good, practical and durable work boots for both sexes, but...:frown_color:


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

UPDATE: It WAS the stirrup length!

At my lesson yesterday, we used the same saddle but I asked if we could let the stirrups down one notch. I didn't feel like I was fighting the fenders at all (This saddle is very well worn, the husband had said it's the one he uses to break horses in so I know it's been used a lot and thought it was strange that the leather would be stiff enough to 'fight' with) and my foot never slipped out of the stirrup once. After I took a couple of slow laps around the pen, I asked if my feet looked any better and the husband said it was a world of difference from last time. I told them that I had thought about it a lot in the week between lessons, knew something didn't feel right but didn't know quite what, and that with the stirrups a little longer the foot and leg position felt better and made so much more sense.

So thank you SO MUCH to everyone who commented and helped me think through that this week. I was also thinking about not closing off my hips when asking the horse to move, and it was a lot easier with the stirrups a bit longer. I can also definitely see now that the "lean back, feet forward" thing was just a way of overcompensation to try to keep me from leaning forward. I think they'd have liked my feet a little more forward from the position in the picture below but not too much.

Here I am on Hoss. I still look ridiculous :rofl: BUT I can at least recognize that I look ridiculous now and see some of what I need to change. Actually making the change will come with time but I can already see so much difference here compared to the first photos I have riding Dreama. At least now I'm actually working on not leaning forward with my feet behind me. Here I'm trying so hard to lean back and relax and keep my shoulders in line with my hips, but my chest and belly are poked out because I'm still fighting the urge to lean forward and I've got some nice double-chin action happening because I'm trying to keep my head up and in line with everything else, but I'm doing some weird thing where I'm trying to look at the horse in front of me instead of where I'm going. I also think the seat on this saddle may be a tad small for me... It feels and sort of looks like in this picture like if I sit back my bum is going to spill over the edge. My own saddle has a bit of a deeper seat.










Also, as we were talking about shoe safety yesterday:

I wore different boots yesterday. I rode in the boots I had worn to work. I thought... hey, these look kind of similar to the paddock boots I liked. And they have less tread on the bottom than my tall boots. They seem like they'd be OK to ride in too. The big difference was that they had a curve leading up to the heal along the arch of the foot instead of a completely squared off close to 90 degree angle like a riding boot and the taller boots I'd been wearing. I am still unwieldy while mounting and dismounting; as I dismounted, the curve of that shoe got hung in the stirrup. If not for a very patient horse I'd have been on my butt. I caught my balance holding onto his neck and he thankfully didn't move away, just looked at me like the dumb human I was being. I also may have had my foot in a little far on that side; my instructors noticed that my right foot tends to be in a more correct position with the ball of my foot on the stirrup while my left foot tends to creep forward more. I think this may be another result of me being more comfortable on my right side and trying to give myself a very false sense of security putting more of my left foot in the stirrup without even thinking about it.


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

The saddle does look small for you (Do you know what size the seat is?) and yes, you do seem to be leaning forward some... something about your back, at the angle the photo shows, makes it appear swayed, as though maybe you aren't pulling yourself in and up through your core. Hard to say with that angle of viewing.


Foot position seems okay, but again, hard to tell for the angle of the photo.


You do seem tense... and I note how your legs are poking out like this: /\ rather than hanging in a more relaxed fashion. I think the more relaxed leg will come in time, but curious if you're putting too much weight into the stirrups at this stage.


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

AtokaGhosthorse said:


> The saddle does look small for you (Do you know what size the seat is?) and yes, you do seem to be leaning forward some... something about your back, at the angle the photo shows, makes it appear swayed, as though maybe you aren't pulling yourself in and up through your core. Hard to say with that angle of viewing.
> 
> 
> Foot position seems okay, but again, hard to tell for the angle of the photo.
> ...


I'm not sure of the seat size, I probably should ask next time. I just know it's significantly smaller than my saddle, which might not be a perfect fit either. I'll have to measure mine at some point.

This photo was just one the wife took to send me so I could compare to my first rides and look back on my progress in the future, so it's not the best for critique, but I can assure you that my back was swayed forward, I was definitely leaning forward some, and so tense lol. It's like I was pulling my shoulders back to try to lean back and keep my posture in line but wasn't using my core so I was still failing. I'm beginning to consciously make an effort to correct the way I'm sitting. And trying to relax. As the lesson went on I got more relaxed... then we pushed it up to a trot... then I was tense again... then it was easier to relax at a walk. Teeny tiny baby steps. We took a short ride at a walk outside of the pen to change up the routine afterward.

I think the legs will improve with time as well, but the curious thing is I still think the wife rides like this : /\ . She seems relaxed in every other way. Or perhaps I am reading her body wrong. I do think I'm putting a lot of weight into the stirrups at this stage. I think the way they describe using the stirrups may be a little confusing, possibly another over-exaggeration like telling me to lean back and put my feet forward to correct my riding posture. Hopefully it will click soon.

I also have a suspicious bruise on the inside of my left thigh.... my legs seem to bruise more easily than the rest of my body anyway, but this one is an odd color. Usually they start out as kind of blue/purple and this one is a pinkish-color. I've no idea what it would be from unless it's from the way I bounced in the saddle trying to learn to trot. I don't remember being in any physical pain during the ride, and overall my legs feel much better, just that one mysterious ugly bruise.


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

The mysterious bruise is probably from hitting down a bit too hard at the trot. I have had those before. 

You will get this. Good for you for keeping on keeping on. 

By the way, I have been riding for many years, and I always seem to have some kind of scrape or bruise somewhere. My arms are sort of dinged up right now. I assume that I hit them in the tack room or barn. Who knows? 

You are making progress and that is great.


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

@Celeste Thank you  I am still tense and anxious in the saddle but one thing I know about my learning style from past experiences with other things is that if I let myself stop once because I'm afraid, it will severely damage my growth. Because the thing will always be scary and there will always be the option to back out of it again. (Big part of the reason I never learned to swim as an adult.) At some point practicing the trot I realized my mouth was completely dry, so much that I almost couldn't talk. I drank a whole bottle of water on the way home lol. But I listened to what the instructor was saying and forced myself to follow through the motions. It wasn't pretty but after getting through that first barrier, it will get better the next time, and the next and the next.


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

I mean... IDK seems like you're not relaxed enough through the knees and thighs... which I finally figured out was me, not being relaxed in the seat and hips enough. My legs stuck out as if almost rigid. They still kinda do but I'm learning with more time int he saddle, more flexibility through the hips and inner thigh, that's decreasing.


Did you maybe smack your inner thigh on the saddle horn mounting up? Have done that too and felt like a giant dork for it.


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

@AtokaGhosthorse I agree. I don't think I'm relaxed enough anywhere yet but it's starting to even out a bit; I'm not as sore through my legs as I was last time :lol:

I don't think that I smacked the saddle horn, it's almost like two different points of bruising side by side, but who knows?


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

CopperLove said:


> @*AtokaGhosthorse* I agree. I don't think I'm relaxed enough anywhere yet but it's starting to even out a bit; I'm not as sore through my legs as I was last time :lol:
> 
> I don't think that I smacked the saddle horn, it's almost like two different points of bruising side by side, but who knows?



But hey! The stirrups will make all the difference now. NOW, hopefully, it will all start to come together.


And don't worry... you'll have a lot of mystery bruises, probably some that aren't mysteries. You'll get all kinds of weird aches and pains and injuries, dirty nails, rough hands. 



I was starting to feel self-conscious - my nails are always short now, if I'm not at work they have dirt caked under them. My left index finger is a mallet finger now... and all these women that work at the same bank my husband works at have these pretty hands, get their nails done, get pedicures... And I'm over here and my hands are tattling on me... they do a lot of hard work, but it's work I love to do. I noticed the hands of the women I ride with all look like mine.


So... If you ever start to feel self-conscious about it: Wear the story of your journey, your life as it's written on your body, with pride.


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## loosie (Jun 19, 2008)

Re steel toes, yes, I've been advised by other farriers that they are potentially more dangerous, if they bend & crush into your foot, but I think while perhaps old types were at risk of this, it's been pretty much proven a fallacy - or at least, highly unlikely. My husband at work has had a steel girder fall on his foot and the steel cap protected him from that...

But the reason I wouldn't bother with steel caps, aside from the fact that I've been a farrier for 20 years & regular boots - at the toe at least - have protected me well enough on the few occasions I've been stomped(I say at the toe, because the leather is thinner, more pliable further up and I've had my foot smashed once when a horse dropped their back toe hard onto the bridge of my foot - which steel caps wouldn't protect you from anyway)... is that they're heavy, would potentially slow down my reactions of moving my feet speedily, and with all the flexing my feet in different positions, squatting etc, that could get very uncomfortable - my husband says he refrains from squatting or kneeling with toes down when he's in steel cap workboots.


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## phantomhorse13 (Feb 18, 2011)

CopperLove said:


>



My first thought on seeing this picture was that you are slightly pinching with your knees, which is rocking your pelvis forward - not a surprise if you are still feeling a bit anxious. Next time you mount, pause for a moment once you are seated and use your hands to reach under your thigh from the inside, lift your leg slightly from the hip, and manually rotate your thigh up and out. See if that helps to settle you back on your butt a bit more, which will naturally help your weight drop down towards your heels.

Congrats on taking lessons and wanting to improve! Practice will help not only your muscle memory but also your comfort level. Make sure you keep breathing (silly as that sounds), as holding your breath makes everything tense up - I know I often hold my breath when I am concentrating (or anxious).


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

I learned to ride by reading VS Littauer and trying to do what he said while riding Mia. Think of this for position:










Littauer called the forward seat "stirrup-centric" versus "seat-centric". It is and that is good at times. But over the years I've concluded it isn't appropriate for some things, like riding a spooky mare or even an independent mustang through the desert. But...having learned a "stirrup-centric" approach, I find it easy to brace against them - which is NOT what St Littauer taught! And having learned on a mare who spooked and bolted more times than I could begin to count...well, think of it as my own version of Equine PTSD.

So, what has helped?

A few days ago, I was riding Bandit into the desert while my wife walked Trooper from the ground. It was our first real trip back into the desert after a winter lay-off. I found myself tense and bracing. I also find telling myself, "Don't brace. Don't be tense!" is useless. What works is to tell myself to slouch. Larry Trocha argues a person can stay balanced on a cutting horse better if you slouch a little. It is impossible to brace against the stirrups and slouch. Whenever I achieved "slouchness", Bandit assumed I was "relaxed". Then he relaxed a little, and after 20 minutes I was slouching quite well and Bandit was relaxing nicely.

On the whole, I still like Piero Santini's comment in Riding Reflections (1933):

_The verb 'to sit' should be eliminated from our vocabulary where riding is concerned, for the idea it conveys is intrinsically misleading. Were it not for its indecorous connotation the word 'perch' would more aptly suggest the position that the rider should assume in what is commonly described as the 'forward' seat._ 

I still like to perch, particularly at a fast trot and even at a canter (half-seat). But when I am nervous, or when I feel like I cannot relax on a horse, I try to achieve "slouchness"! It is the only thing I've tried that helps me get the tension out.

I've always liked this video. I've never tried cutting, but I spent so much time on a spinning Arabian mare that I appreciate this...and Bandit has moved like this in response to a threatening trash can:


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## trailhorserider (Oct 13, 2009)

*bsms*, your post about "slouching" made me do some thinking. For years I would ride by bracing against my stirrups. And I can still find myself doing that if I am nervous. However what seemed to have happened naturally (it only took about 20 years I guess!) is that when I relax I find myself balancing on my pelvis and have only enough weight in my stirrups to keep my feet in them. As a matter of fact, sometimes my feet work themselves out of the stirrups if I'm not paying attention.  But I actually think I have found a really good balanced riding position that I seem to do naturally now. :Angel: I don't think it looks like a slouch, but it sort of feels like a slouch, sort of like I've melted into the saddle and I'm balancing on my pelvis. My legs just sort of drape nicely. So I wonder if that is close to the slouching analogy. 

This is more for the original poster: It helps to have a saddle that is comfortable for the rider. Not all saddles are created equal and that probably goes especially for western saddles. They come in so many different shapes. So if someone says they aren't comfortable in a western saddle I immediately think maybe it is the saddle......either the seat isn't right or the stirrup leathers are too stiff and not turned. I personally really love a ranch saddle, like a wade or slick seat type of saddle. Ropers are okay. And I detest equitation seats. But that's just me, someone surely must be comfortable in those equitation saddles. :wink: Anyway, before a person assumes it's their riding or body that makes it uncomfortable to ride western, I would suggest trying a totally different saddle just to be sure it's not the saddle causing the problem.


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## Cordillera Cowboy (Jun 6, 2014)

trailhorserider said:


> *bsms*, your post about "slouching" made me do some thinking. For years I would ride by bracing against my stirrups. And I can still find myself doing that if I am nervous. However what seemed to have happened naturally (it only took about 20 years I guess!) is that *when I relax I find myself balancing on my pelvis and have only enough weight in my stirrups to keep my feet in them. As a matter of fact, sometimes my feet work themselves out of the stirrups if I'm not paying attention. But I actually think I have found a really good balanced riding position that I seem to do naturally now. :Angel: I don't think it looks like a slouch, but it sort of feels like a slouch, sort of like I've melted into the saddle and I'm balancing on my pelvis. My legs just sort of drape nicely.* So I wonder if that is close to the slouching analogy.
> 
> This is more for the original poster: It helps to have a saddle that is comfortable for the rider. Not all saddles are created equal and that probably goes especially for western saddles. They come in so many different shapes. So if someone says they aren't comfortable in a western saddle I immediately think maybe it is the saddle......either the seat isn't right or the stirrup leathers are too stiff and not turned. I personally really love a ranch saddle, like a wade or slick seat type of saddle. Ropers are okay. And I detest equitation seats. But that's just me, someone surely must be comfortable in those equitation saddles. :wink: Anyway, before a person assumes it's their riding or body that makes it uncomfortable to ride western, I would suggest trying a totally different saddle just to be sure it's not the saddle causing the problem.


The bolded part reminds me of the wonderful descriptions of balanced riding given here from time to time by forum member @TXhorseman. 


Sir, would you be so kind as to repeat it here?


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

I'm posting this picture again because I've seen dressage riders oversell position E, while Littauer and others oversold position F. Position G is a good defensive seat although she is too tense. Some slouch would help.

For walking a horse in the arena or twisting between cactus, E works well - but there is a good reason why jockeys don't use it! When I'm tense, I really try to slouch. Not because it is "good", but because trying to slouch helps me to get tension out of me so I can ride more like E - which is sometimes a good way to ride. 

I can't speak to English riding, but for western, the best description of E that I've ever seen is @trailhorserider 's - "_I find myself balancing on my pelvis and have only enough weight in my stirrups to keep my feet in them...sort of like I've melted into the saddle and I'm balancing on my pelvis. My legs just sort of drape nicely._"

When Larry Trocha was asked why he didn't teach "E" for cutting and reining, he replied it was because he didn't want his students to fall off! I think most experienced riders instinctively transition to something like G when coaxing a horse past something or when working a young horse who doesn't know what to do.

And yet...when I trot, I revert to Piero Santini's "perch", trying to get off the back entirely. A sitting trot increases peak pressures on the horse's back 25% over two-point (standing in the stirrups). Posting, as best I can find, does the same thing half of the time, but the other half of the time has peak pressures identical to sitting. Cantering in the arena or over a rough trail, I sit the canter. But along a better stretch of trail, cantering in a half-seat encourages Bandit to stretch out. Maybe too much. He used to compete in races on the Navajo Nation and will really haul butt with some encouragement.



> Throughout this book you will often read that the forward seat unites the rider with the horse moving ahead in a forward balance. If you read Chapter III, you will know that the above phrase is much more intricate than it sounds for the horse's balance is fluid, and correspondingly fluid must perforce be the rider's seat. The illustrations depicting the mechanics of the forward seat should be accepted with the understanding that they all represent really a moment an ideal moment but not a movement.
> 
> In actuality neither the horse nor the rider are static; a slow-motion picture camera shows the split seconds during which both rider and horse are caught in such a position as would not seem true to the naked eye. All the above is said here to caution you not to be a wooden soldier and freeze in position as a rider in your favorite picture. After all, a good seat is primarily important as one of the means of riding well.
> 
> ...


Position is a key that unlocks the door to balance. Balance is the goal, but it must be experienced. The more dynamic the situation, the more our balance needs to be fluid. "_Are you in fluid balance and rhythm with your horse or not?_" After 10 years, I'm still challenged! Every ride....


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## TXhorseman (May 29, 2014)

If you’ve ever carried someone on your shoulders – or even your back – you soon realized that the better they sat the easier they were to carry. This same principal applies to horses; the better we sit, the easier it is for a horse to carry us.

If my center of gravity is centered over my horse’s center of gravity, my horse can move almost as if I am not even on his back. I have witnessed horses moving better under 300 pound men who are well balanced than under girls who weigh less than 100 pounds but are unbalanced.

How can we sit more balanced? About five hundred years before the birth of Christ, a Greek general by the name of Xenophon wrote that a rider should sit as though standing rather than sitting. This describes the traditional head over shoulders over hips over heels position. Is this the only balanced position? I can lean forward and still stay in balance. But I must make changes to the rest of my body. I must bend my knees and project my rear to the rear in order to keep my center of gravity over my feet.

If the design of a saddle allows, it is easiest to sit as though standing. But even in this position, a number of things may influence our horse’s ability to move. 

If I sit with stiff muscles, my horse tends to stiffen his muscles. When my horse tenses his muscles, he cannot move as well as when he is not tense. 

Instead, I can release the tension in my muscles. If I do so, the muscles in my upper body expand. Then, the bones of my spine can easily stack one above another with their natural shock-absorbing curves. My bones, then, support my weight and my muscles are free to move subtly and easily to keep my upper body in balance.

At the same time, releasing unnecessary tension in my muscles allows gravity to help me ride better. My seat settles deeply into the saddle. My legs wrap around the rounded sides of my horse without me having to tense my muscles to achieve the same effect. Gravity also pulls my legs downward. Gravity holds my feet to the stirrups just as it holds my feet to the ground when I am standing. I don’t have to push my feet down. Since there are no stirrups under my heels, gravity can pull them lower than my toes if my muscles are relaxed. I don’t need to “push” my heels lower which would cause my muscles to tense unnecessarily. 

If I sit relaxed (read: without unnecessary tension) and balanced and allow my body to move easily with my horse’s body. My horse can move more freely without unnecessary tension in his body. When my horse is relaxed, he is able to feel subtle movements in my body and respond easily to them. I no longer need to “make” my horse do things.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

I can stand in the bed of a pickup. Easily. Until the pickup moves. Even then, I'm OK as long as the pickup moves predictably. But horses are more like a pickup driven by a drunk. Or a sadist. Or maybe a driver with a pathological fear of the cattle ahead:








To make things worse, a horse's back moves while the horse is moving.








At a trot, the horse's back is staying relatively level, but goes up and down. We create two moments of pressure. When the horse's back goes up under us, lifting us up in the air. And when we come back down. Unfortunately, those coincide. Our body is still moving down when the horse's back needs to rise. We need to use our legs as shock absorbers to spread the pressure out over a longer time, reducing peak pressures.

But to some degree, depending on skill, rising out of the saddle makes it harder to balance. A stool with 3 legs balances itself. One with 2 cannot.

Now add the shape of the horse's back.








The horse's circumference is smallest where the cinch goes. If we don't put the cinch where the horse is smallest, it will move there - and thus we need to tighten the cinch again! The more inflexible we are, the more our legs will drift like the cinch, seeking the smallest circumference - which isn't under our hips!

Thus the mechanics of riding a horse are far more complex than Xenophon considered. Bandit in a turn at a canter. My feet aren't even at the same spot on both of his sides because my outside foot is helping me handle the turn:








Now...all the OP (or any of us) needs to do is constantly find the perfect compromise between all the conflicting factors. Who said riding was easy...:cheers:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

mmshiro said:


> I like to think of stirrups as ABS: It's nice if they are there if you lose lateral balance, but there's also a chance you can lose them on a ride at whatever pace, and you should not feel as though you can't stay on the horse without them.
> 
> I ride in an English saddle, mostly on trails, including up and down ravines. Downhill, I don't lean back so much as continue to stay vertical over the horse's center of gravity. As the horse is tilted downwards, yes, relative to the horse's back I'm tilted backwards, but not with respect to gravity. I keep myself from sliding over the horse's neck by pressing the inside of my thighs against the saddle pads, but I keep my pressure on the stirrups light. Stirrups give you zero support to stay in the saddle if the horse starts sliding or speeds up a little towards the bottom of the hill.
> 
> ...


There's a lot of excellent responses here (and I've not read everything yet), but I thought this one bore repeating - and I've added emphasis to a really really really important thing that not a lot of horse-riding books or instructors will tell you!

Your personal range of good positions on the horse will depend on your horse, your saddle, your style of riding, what you're doing that day, the way you're anatomically put together, your current level of fitness etc etc.

I personally have really long femurs and therefore prefer to ride "long and relaxed" on trails - almost in dressage position. This is also more or less what happens bareback, which is good practice for secure independent riding (maybe do stirrupless first ;-)). Like many tall people, I'm also something of a hunchback, plus I have mild scoliosis, so I do Pilates to help counter this stuff, and give me core strength for better riding and general everyday life.

This is a side view of my leg position on my riding horse Sunsmart, who'd built like a beer barrel:



It's fine for jumps and galloping too, as long as I don't try Olympic jumping. The best position for you is a very personal thing - and you know you've got it when it feels effortless and allows you to move in harmony with your horse, and you do well together, and neither of you is sore afterwards.

And then you can adapt it, and have spontaneous fun - as happened here:










I'll always remember this moment, on my friend's OTTB, in the Albany Harbour. We were doing a photo-shoot of her and her horse, and at the end of it she asked, "Do you want a go?" Her Rikki-Tikki was a wonderful, mad horse, and Sunsmart's riding buddy when we had him agisted, before we moved to our farm, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to frolic in the water with this lovely, huge, personality-plus horse. Only thing is, her stirrup leathers were too short for me even at full extension, so I had to ride him stirrupless, the first time I rode him! Haha, life is fun. I got soaked like a drowned rat from all the splashing of this horse running through the water on the sandbank beneath. Brett asked me to come up to him for a photo, which we did rather rapidly, and this resulted in a few bits getting cut off the photo and a wonky horizon, but it just so perfectly sums up the ride!

Happy riding, @CopperLove! :charge:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

bsms said:


> I can stand in the bed of a pickup. Easily. Until the pickup moves. Even then, I'm OK as long as the pickup moves predictably. But horses are more like a pickup driven by a drunk. Or a sadist. Or maybe a driver with a pathological fear of the cattle ahead:


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:




> Now...all the OP (or any of us) needs to do is constantly find the perfect compromise between all the conflicting factors. Who said riding was easy...:cheers:


Exactly... :rofl:

My poor diaphragm!  I suppose laughing is good for core strength, and therefore beneficial for riding. So, more comedy is my prescription for today. Like this:


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## mmshiro (May 3, 2017)

True story: It is really helpful to have someone look critically at how you ride in order to prevent bad habits from sneaking in.

When I canter, my legs are draped around Hamlets girth in order to maximize the amount of contact I have. I had gotten used to how that feels when I started riding Everest, my new lesson horse. However, he is a much slimmer boy, so the bottom of my calves don't touch his body. That was okay during walk and trot, but when it came to the canter, I subconsciously tried to recreate the sensation I had on Hamlet, but instead of draping my legs around him I started tilting them back - which I didn't notice until the instructor pointed it out. (Keep in mind that, through all this, I my torso did not tilt forward and my seat still followed the canter.) I'm just glad I didn't have to watch a video of this...since I know better.

The lesson after that, I made that mistake part of my mental check list and had no further problem with keeping my feet under my seat. I rationally accepted that there would be "no horse" to touch with my lower calves/feet, and that's what allowed me to keep my lower legs in an appropriate position. 

I guess the new horse induced some cognitive dissonance temporarily, but that's exactly why I look for opportunities to ride different horses. Experience comes from doing 1,000 things, not doing 1 thing 1,000 times.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

I tilt forward at a canter all the time. It is part of a forward seat. Looks like I'm hitting the saddle here, but my legs are taking a lot of the motion and my rump barely touches the sheepskin. In the arena, Bandit doesn't find cantering exciting and I try to be as light as I can on his back. On a trail, I'll be more upright and sit deeper. Get too light on a trail and he may shift into race mode. That scares me because the trails are uneven and rocky and I worry about him falling. I have a mental picture of myself sliding face first thru the cactus, and/or Bandit with a broken leg. 






Posting the video for honesty's sake. I'm not a competitor. Not an instructor. Not God's gift to horses. I just try different things and see how my horse responds. I'll add this: Watching people ride in slow motion reveals things a lot of us might not like to see. I think that is because real riding isn't at all like the pictures seen in books. This shows professional riders showing young horses up for sale. I vary between leaning forward and vertical. They vary between vertical and leaning back. You can also see their knees sliding into their knee blocks, something my saddles do not have. As @SueC puts it, "_Your personal range of good positions on the horse will depend on your horse, your saddle, your style of riding, what you're doing that day, the way you're anatomically put together, your current level of fitness etc etc._"

I ride a few hours a week. I will never ride like a pro. I can't. I'm not athletic enough. I took Motrin after getting out of bed this morning! How I compromise may be very different from what is best for someone else!


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## Countrylovingmamma (Feb 27, 2019)

CopperLove said:


> Now, the feet forward part was what I didn’t understand. The way she was describing it to me, and where she would physically place my foot to show me how to hold my legs felt physically wrong. (Note that I am a complete novice and nothing feels “right” yet anyway.) I am learning in a western style saddle; the stirrups face sideways instead of forward and I felt like I was fighting the fenders to keep my feet forward, especially as far forward as the owner was instructing me to. I was confused because the bulk of what I have read online talks about keeping alignment with your shoulder, hip and heel and I felt like what I was being asked to do was extending my feet way forward of this aligned position. (Although to be fair, it may also really just have FELT that way. I know that when you are teaching your body something new it can often feel much more awkward than it looks and I’m not able to get a side view of my own body, so my feet may not really have been as far forward as they felt.)


 As far as leg position it's hard to say where they are coming from with what they are asking for your leg position. Most western trail riding leg positions should look like the image below. 








Image of A western rider in correct position has a relaxed but upright position. ( it sounds like the people teaching you though are trying to have you ride in the Chair position image below











> I am still trying to understand how long my stirrups should be. At a relaxed position, the stirrups felt right, but once I was attempting to keep my leg in the position the owner asked me to and pushing my legs forward, it almost felt like I was trying to lift myself off the saddle.
> 
> 
> > Could it also be that the saddle seat itself is too small for me? (When trying to keep my legs forward it also felt a little like I was sliding my butt up the back of the saddle.)


One thing with the way the owners are trying to have you ride is this position forces you back in the saddle seat which moves your but up the back of the cantle.





> The path was nice but fairly steep and going up was the easy part. Coming back down I could really feel what they were trying to say about keeping my feet forward to keep my balance and made me really feel like the stirrups were too short because I was having problems pushing my feet forward to keep from rocking forward in the saddle. I know it’s not good to hold onto the saddle horn, but I had my left hand braced against the horn almost all the way down not so much “clinging” but actively pushing my upper body back to keep gravity from pulling me forward and leaning over the saddle.


 First off I think your ability to keep gravity from pulling you out of the saddle when riding downhill will improve the more you ride and are able to balance better and you learn to not have to brace so much to keep balance... I live and ride in the mountains so deal with riding in steep conditions all the time. The real key with riding in those conditions is yes some times you may need your feet farther forward to help maintain a good balance going down hills but overall you want to keep a level seat compared to the angle the horse is moving.



> Anyway, this brought to my attention that perhaps the riding positions for different activities may be slightly different. And how do I figure out what length on the stirrups is best for the length of my legs? Does this sensation of a position feeling physically impossible sound familiar to anyone else from their early days of learning?


For finding proper Stirrup Length this is very Helpful.
How To Determine Correct Stirrup Length
While there are some guidelines, stirrup length ends up being mainly a matter of personal preference. Some folks like to ride with shorter stirrups, some folks with longer ones.

The activity you're involved in can also impact stirrup length. Heading out for an all-day trail ride and you'll probably want the comfort of stirrups on the longer side. Saddling up to train a young horse and you'll probably want the security and feel of shorter stirrups.

There are several good techniques for estimating a starting point for your stirrup length. One method is done from the ground and two are done from the saddle. Many riders will find these techniques will give them the right length. Others will need to adjust the length further to fit their own personal preferences.

From the Ground
A good place to start is to have your stirrups the same length as your arm. With your hand touching where the stirrup leather attaches to the saddle tree (underneath the seat jockey), adjust the length so that the bottom of your stirrup reaches your armpit.
This technique allows you to mount the horse knowing that your stirrups are at the least "in the ballpark," which is a good safety practice.










From the Saddle
Hang your legs down out of the stirrups. Adjust your stirrup so that the bottom of the stirrup is level or slightly below your anklebone.
Stand in the saddle. Adjust your stirrup so that you have a clearance of approximately the width of your fist between your seat and the seat of the saddle.
If you're a beginner rider, you should err on the side of shorter stirrups. You'll have more control while you work on further developing your riding skills.













> I am also considering starting to do leg and core exercises just to strengthen muscles in my leg and abdomen that clearly need some work. Has anyone ever tried this and does it help with riding? Either way I suppose it couldn’t hurt for me to try to be a little more physically fit.


 Leg and core exercises can always be helpful with being able to balance in the saddle.

overall though you are still very new and learning. As you learn and gain balance your seat will change and you will learn and develop your own riding style. And as you go out on the trail you will adjust your balance and riding style depending on terrain and your horse. For now, just focus on comfort and learning the proper basics in ridding and adjust from there.

As far as your questions concerns with proper saddle seat size/fit this is some helpful reading.
Western Saddle Seat Size: What Size Am I?

Also here is the link to the reading above on Stirrup length How To Determine Correct Stirrup Length


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

bsms said:


> But I know what I like in a boot.


Sorry for rambling off topic, but imagine really pointy, black Western boots with multi-coloured thread embroidery and high narrow heels. And imagine people nailing pony shoes to the backs of their heels so they can go "click-clack" on the pavement when they are walking. That was a craze amongst certain teenage boys, of which my brother was one, in Germany in the late 70s/early 80s. The other part of the uniform included long, greasy, unwashed hair...


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

@SueC I couldn't find the unlike button for your post. Long, greasy hair. Noisy walking. Sounds horrible. Lol.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

Right up there in repulse factor with the fad of having the waist of your pants buckled BELOW your buttocks, so the crotch is down by your knees, and shuffling along with one hand holding the pants at just the right position to show your striped boxer briefs showing about the 'pants'. GAH!!!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

And that was my first introduction to Western boots, as a young child. It set up...associations. However, I feel better now because on HF I've come across so many normal people wearing Western boots for perfectly sensible reasons...

@tinyliny, I hated that too, it was so gross. I associate that particular stupidity with grunge, for some reason, which is a genre I don't enjoy either.

PS: My husband the music encyclopaedia just woke up and told me that the grunge uniform was ripped jeans and dirty T-shirts, and that those pant-wearing fads were more by "hip hop/rap afficionados, particularly the really stupid ones".... so I must have got that by association, by what was playing on the radio when I saw the most of that...


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

grunge started in my city: Seattle. proud parents!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

I won't hold it against you personally! ;-)

Nice things came out of Seattle too. And also beautiful art gets made there, by people like you.


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

Again, had this typed out Friday and then left work an forgot about it… when I spend weekends at my parent’s place they don’t have internet and I don’t get great connection on my phone out here either.
@bsms I’ll have to remember that the next time I am trying to tell myself to relax. My mare has thankfully not been very spooky so far. I’ve never had her out on a trail though so I know that could change, we haven’t experienced a lot together yet. But she has a tendency to go something like, “I know you told me to stop, but why should I stop?” Which makes me extremely nervous. I think a big part of that could be my anxiety in the saddle. My tension and leaning forward don’t give a very clear cue to stop even though I ease back on the reins.

The handful of times I have ridden her before the barn move, I think she did remarkably well for a horse that had only been ridden once in a year and a half, and had a new, unbalanced rider in the saddle. I think once I can relax a little and sit correctly she’ll be able to read my cues better. Basically, I know I am biased and quite enamored with her, but I think she has the potential to be great, I just need to get up to her level.

Watching a horse and rider cut cattle is amazing to me… It’s a bit like watching dressage to me. A completely different discipline, but to an untrained eye like mine I can’t even tell what cues the rider is giving the horse, and you can really see how different postures work for different situations and sports.
@trailhorserider One of my roommates from college who was an animal science major and lives closer to my parents now came to spend this past weekend with us. She took two semesters of riding classes at the university but I think they mostly if not always rode indoors in the arena (I’m guessing they were always indoor or at least in a pen outside, because I could image it would be a bad idea to turn multiple students of varying skill levels loose in the great outdoors on horses.)

She has told me multiple times how much more comfortable an English saddle is, etc. etc. and even made a comment about how it was nice to ride without something slamming into your crotch. I didn’t say anything because I would still classify her as a beginner, but she does have considerably more experience than I do. But I thought… if that’s how you feel about a western saddle I don’t think it was the correct saddle for you, or you weren’t riding correctly.

I believe the old instructor at the university highly favored an English style riding. Which is fine, I know that people trail ride in both kinds of tack and I have looked at English saddles that do look really lovely. In the end it’s all about personal preference. But she is also a tiny human… she is the slender kind of person who is so tiny she wasn’t able to donate blood in high school because she didn’t weigh enough, and had just barely passed the allowable weight when we were in college. I suspect that whatever western saddle she tried was simply too wide for her, and she probably didn’t have the opportunity to try many western saddles since it wasn’t what her instructor favored. My mother was a petite human when she was younger too and always rode in a western saddle or bareback, so I don’t think it was just the saddle.

Also as a side note:
We are also going to have to go back to the “no stepping on me” work. This weekend’s halter class adventure ended up being an absolute dangerous train wreck  We didn’t realize how buddy sour she was to my aunt’s gelding. She’d have absolutely killed me to get back to her horse pal without even thinking about it. The theme of this week’s visit to the ranch is going to be getting me a quote for what the actual cost would be to bring her out for a month or two and get a tune-up on her training that I am clearly in no position to give by myself, and train me how to specifically work with her.


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

Just a quick update for everyone who gave me such great advice:

Even though we skipped a lesson last week because of some work related travel and the holiday weekend, this week's lesson felt a lot better. Even though I've only been getting to ride once a week, I feel like having time to read and think about things does help with each time I get to be in the saddle. While it's still so far from perfect, they commented that for only having a lesson once a week my posture has improved a lot and that it no longer looks like I'm "leaning over the handlebars." Ha! I thought that was a good description of what was happening before.

The stirrup length and advice on balance and leg position has helped me tremendously, and while I still think I would prefer a larger saddle seat I do feel a lot more comfortable in the saddle I've been practicing in. I managed to trot in the round pen without feeling too much like I was flopping around like a fish, and they took me on a family ride down the little country road they live on and back. It was the longest I've been in the saddle yet and by the end I could feel the strain in my knees and ankles that we've discussed some people choose stirrup turners to help. I was stiff when I got off, but today the only part of me that's sore is my thighs, nothing else feels strained or bruised and that feels like an accomplishment. My legs are still weak but as my balance slowly improves I'm not straining one side so much more than the other.

Also, from the photos I've been shown and from watching her a bit more I do think the wife rides with a "chair seat". I don't necessarily think that's what they are specifically trying to get me to do. After a few more lessons and a small amount of improvement in my posture I can feel that the "lean back, feet forward, heels down" thing is really just reminding me to overcompensate for my tendency to tense up and lean forward. When I relax a little they stop repeating this and it doesn't feel like an acrobatics act trying to push my feet forward anymore.


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## SilverMaple (Jun 24, 2017)

One thing that can help you sit down and back is to think 'sit on your pockets'  I use that a lot teaching kids in 4H and it helps get their rears in the saddle. It's easy to 'perch' but a western saddle is meant to be ridden with most of your weight in your seat, and not much in your stirrups unless you're posting the trot. A lot of English riders ride with too-short stirrups and too much weight in the feet to be comfortable in a western saddle. Riding at a walk without stirrups can help you feel where your body naturally settles into the saddle, then adjust your stirrups accordingly so the bottom of the stirrup comes just to the base of your angle bone when your feet are out. You should be able to slide your hand between your crotch and the saddle seat when standing in the stirrups, but generally you don't want much more room than that. 


Some western saddles will put you in a chair seat, and some won't. People who spend a lot of time riding colts and rank horses with a tendency to buck will often develop a natural 'chair seat' as a defensive move. A quality saddle that fits you should put you in a balanced seat. It's important to match your saddle, your body, and your horse so that you're comfortable and secure. A lot of times, going up a seat size or two can make a big difference, as can choosing the correct type of saddle. A petite rider will usually be more comfortable in a saddle with a narrower twist, such as a barrel saddle. Cutting saddles have a flat seat that give you more room to move. Roping saddles tend to tilt you slightly forward making it easier to stand in the stirrups to rope. A trail saddle tends to have a flat, padded seat. Some saddles are very wide, others are not. There is a wide variety, so if one isn't comfortable, try something else.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

I believe the term "chair seat" becomes meaningless when the stirrups are long. When I sit in a chair, my thighs are parallel to the ground. The Greeks were well aware of a true "chair seat". From around the time of Xenophon:

500 BC:








Not everyone did. Assyrian archer on horseback, ca. 650 BC:








https://quatr.us/central-asia/people-start-ride-horses.htm

Coins from 350 BC show both:








https://www.coinworld.com/news/world-coins/2016/10/the-horsemen-of-taras-ancients-today.all.html

In their defense, they rode without saddles, stirrups or underwear! Sometimes completely naked. I don't want to think about what trotting would have felt like! With a saddle and stirrups, though, and with different clothing and hairstyle, I think I looked more like the Assyrian archer on this morning's ride.

I believe the dreaded chair seat is defined by the angle of one's thighs. When nearly parallel with the horse's back, the rider tends to bounce. When deep on the horse, the rider "straddles" more than they "sit". Regardless of where the heels end up, the straddle keeps one wrapped more around the horse rather than squatting on top of the horse. Thighs deep. Knees loose. Weight flowing without interruption toward the stirrups, which is very different from bracing against the stirrups.


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## updownrider (Mar 31, 2009)

^To be clear, you are saying the three riders above are not in chair seats. I think 🤔


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

To me, a chair seat is not defined solely by the angle of the UPPER leg, @bsms. Rather, it is the angle of the upper leg AND the lower leg. A jumper , when actually sitting in the saddle, will have his thigh bone at the same angle to the ground as someone who you might call 'chair seated'. But, since his lower leg goes backward, under him, with an acute angle behind the knee, it brings the lower leg and the stirrup (his base of support) back UNDER the rider's weight, instead of in front of it (a true chair seat).


I think in bareback riding othe rider's leg tends to find and fall into a 'groove' right behind the should, about where the girth will naturally slide into. His legs will just naturally fall into that 'slot'. but, since he is not pushing into any sort of stirrup, what matters most is how well his upper body is aligned up and over his seatbones. 



Bareback riding just ends up having a different functional seat from that which uses stirrups as an integral part of the seat , such as in huntseat riding.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

tinyliny said:


> ...A jumper , when actually sitting in the saddle, will have his thigh bone at the same angle to the ground as someone who you might call 'chair seated'. But, since his lower leg goes backward, under him, with an acute angle behind the knee, it brings the lower leg and the stirrup (his base of support) back UNDER the rider's weight, instead of in front of it (a true chair seat)...


A jumper does that, not because it gives him a good seat, but because that is a compromise he accepts in exchange for being able to get off the horse's back when jumping. Jockey:








The problems with a chair seat, for typical riding, is that your weight is concentrated above the back, so a horse who spins or scoots sideways can scoot out from under you. It also tends to shift your weight too far back since your knees normally need to be clear of the horse's shoulders - and if your thigh is parallel to the back, that will shove your rump a thigh's distance back. That is about 20 inches for me, and I've got a 16" seat in my saddle!

And in a chair seat, you are resting on your rump - like one does in a chair. So your legs cannot act as springs to to absorb shock. Those problems still exist with a horizontal thigh even if one brings the heel back under the hip. But a jockey (pictured) or a jumper is focused on a seat that will help him in his sport. It isn't meant to be an all-around seat. And it differs from a chair seat because the intent is not to stay on the horse's back at all, but to rise above it.


> ...In hacking, since the distances ridden are usually not great, and the time on the horse's back is short, the stirrups may be adjusted primarily to suit the rider's comfort. They should be fairly long. In breaking and training a young horse, there is a marked advantage in having the stirrups quite long, since the rider's legs are then well down around his mount, where they may be employed strongly as aids in teaching the lessons at hand, and also wrapped about him to provide security of seat in case the youngster bucks or violently plays up. No matter what the length of the stirrup is, the body is always inclined to the front; slightly with long stirrups, and progressively farther as the stirrups become shorter...
> 
> ...For the beginner, it is well to have the stirrups a little on the long side, rather than too short, as this permits, and almost forces the rider to work the thighs and knees well down around the horse, and thus overcome the usual instinctive tendency to raise the knees, *which makes the seat unstable and weakens the grip of the knee and calves. It is the ability to grip with the calves of the legs, and to a much lesser extent with the knees and thighs, that provides the strength of seat through which a good rider stays with his horse when difficulties, such as shying, plunging, stumbling, bucking or jumping arise.* No matter how much the stirrups are shortened, it must be understood that the stirrup-straps, when the seat is correct, always remain vertical, and that as a result of shorter stirrups, the knees, though raised, go very little farther to the front....as the stirrups are shortened, the seat and buttocks are necessarily pushed farther back on the cantle. This demands more forward inclination of the body from the hips...
> 
> Harry Chamberlin


What Harry Chamberlin considered ideal is about what I call the "Baby Bear" setting for my stirrups. The cantle of a western saddle doesn't allow one the freedom of an English saddle. At the Baby Bear setting, my rump can be smacked by the top of the cantle when trotting in two point.

The next hole lower is my Momma Bear setting. For most riding, in my saddle, it is probably the best. Secure enough, forward enough while giving the horse some freedom. But on a trail, I usually use the Poppa Bear setting - one hole lower still. It sucks my hips a little more forward (since I usually want my stirrup straps vertical) and keeps me well wrapped around my horse. I choose to ride Bandit in a way where an occasional balk, jump sideways, or small buck is part of the price of riding. If my legs were long enough to hook my toes together under his belly, I'd do that! :rofl: But the Momma Bear setting is best. I just get nervous sometimes.


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## CopperLove (Feb 14, 2019)

bsms said:


> If my legs were long enough to hook my toes together under his belly, I'd do that! :rofl: But the Momma Bear setting is best. I just get nervous sometimes.


The way the wife rides reminds me of the image CountryLovingMamma shared a few replies back, which is what I was comparing a chair seat to. Not exactly, but something similar. I'm sure her position changes time to time depending on the situation, I'm too busy paying attention to what I'm doing to be watching her too when she rides. The horse she rode last week stumbled though and almost went down on its knees and she stayed firmly put, so whatever she's doing seems to work for her :lol: They did remind me last week that the stirrups aren't for all my weight all the time, but that they can be a good way to catch if something goes wrong. Each lesson things make a little more sense.

On my mare I feel the same about hooking my toes under her if my legs were long enough. I am hoping to get help with her soon, maybe a training tune-up from my instructors and more riding lessons to keep getting better myself. I got on her weekend before last and she stood long enough for me to mount and even long enough for me to lean down and flip the right fender to get my foot in the stirrup easier. Then it was as if a switch flipped... "Ok we're going. Stop isn't the answer. No stop here, nope." Not at a frantic pace, just a trot, but for me a trot on a horse that isn't responding well to "stop" or "turn" is still a bad thing :rofl:


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