The rider’s right leg goes around the upright, or fixed pommel, which supports the right thigh of the rider when it is lying across the top center of the saddle. In this design, still in use today, one pommel is nearly vertical, mounted approximately 10 degrees left of top dead center and curved gently to the right and up. In the 1830s, Jules Pellier invented a sidesaddle design with a second, lower pommel to the sidesaddle.
Off-side view of a two pommel sidesaddle with double rigging and an overgirth strap Catherine the Great of Russia went so far as to commission a portrait showing her riding astride wearing a male officer's uniform.
Women such as Diane de Poitiers (mistress to Henry II of France) and Marie Antoinette were known to ride astride. However, not all women adopted the sidesaddle at all times. This saddle allowed the rider both to stay on and to control her own horse, at least at slower speeds. The footrest was replaced with a "slipper stirrup", a leather-covered stirrup iron into which the rider's left foot was placed. In her design, the rider sat facing forward, hooking her right leg around the pommel of the saddle with a horn added to the near side of the saddle to secure the rider's right knee. The insecure design of the early sidesaddle also contributed to the popularity of the Palfrey, a smaller horse with smooth ambling gaits, as a suitable mount for women.Ī more practical design, developed in the 16th century, has been attributed to Catherine de' Medici. The design made it difficult for a woman to both stay on and use the reins to control the horse, so the animal was usually led by another rider, sitting astride. The type of sidesaddle she used was a chair-like affair where the woman sat sideways on the horse with her feet on a small footrest.
However, women did ride horses and needed to be able to control their own horses, so there was a need for a saddle designed to allow control of the horse and modesty for the rider.Īnne of Bohemia is known to have made the sidesaddle more popular to ladies of the Middle Ages. Further, long skirts were the usual fashion and riding astride in such attire was often impractical, awkward, and could be viewed as immodest. This was initially conceived as a way to protect the hymen of aristocratic girls, and thus the appearance of their being virgins. In Europe, the sidesaddle developed in part because of cultural norms which considered it unbecoming for a woman to straddle a horse while riding. Equestrian portrait of Catherine the Great, as a young woman, riding sidesaddle.
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