Sidesaddle riding appears in the 14th century in Italy, to be precise at the court of Mantua, in circumstances that have not yet been confirmed with precision. It should have happened in conjunction with a noble wedding but experts are divided, some believe that it was the first wedding of Ludovico I, (Luigi Gonzaga), with Caterina Malatesta or during his second wedding with Francesca Malaspina.
In any case, on one of these two solemn occasions, the bride opened the procession riding a parade horse, a palfrey, very preciously harnessed and led by a page.
The Sambue saddle: characteristics
At that time it is useful to know that the “sambue” saddle was “in fashion” which in old French means “great luxury, sumptuous”. It is an adaptation of the pack saddle on which a straw-padded but very well decorated seat is screwed, parallel to the horse’s spine.
It is in fact usually covered with velvet and precious fabrics and is even equipped with a step on which the lady can rest her feet while sitting not as we are used to seeing people on horseback, with legs open, but sitting sideways. It is clear that it is a saddle that allows for gaits such as the hand walk and not others, it is in fact uncomfortable and above all also unsafe for the “rider”, imagine her during a hunting trip! In these circumstances, riding side-saddle was unthinkable and one rides “califourchon” , astride.
Side Saddle Riding: History
As the years go by, we witness an evolution of the side-saddle riding that began at the Court of France, in the 16th century, at the time of Catherine de’ Medici. This woman, not particularly beautiful, had decided to oust her husband’s lover who even dared to ride astride in a completely inelegant way. She therefore asked to modify the sambue that we have illustrated before.
At the time it was already equipped with a high knob on the right for support and a hump in the center of the seat to assume a more vertical and safer position. Catherine, in order to be able to follow her husband in his adventures without losing sight of him, had a further modification made with the addition of an additional support, a fourche or horn, to prevent slipping to the left. This in place of the step with a slipper-stirrup “étrier-pantoufle”.
In the following years this modification was always adopted and little by little the position of the side-saddle riding straightened: the right leg of the “rider” turns along the axis of the neck, the shoulders are perpendicular to the horse’s spine. In this way the woman was able to assume greater independence even on horseback, as also happened in the Renaissance with regard to spaces, social and political roles until then reserved for men.
Side Saddle Riding: Evolution
The saddle and the side-saddle continue to change over time and evolve according to needs. For example, it was thought to insert a second horn to the right of the first, “sella en berceau” to improve balance thanks to an intervention by François de Garsault, captain of the Haras of France. With this new conformation, the right leg could be kept between the two fourches and the left leg could rest on a traditional stirrup that had now taken the place of that slipper.
Then there is another horn that was added later, in 1830, a “jumping horn”, thanks to Jules Charles Pellier, which was also made official in the descriptions of side-saddle riding, in a sort of manual printed in Paris in 1897 “ La Selle et le costume de l’amazone ”. At first this horn was fixed but then it was transformed into a mobile horn screwed to the saddle tree so that it was then possible to adapt its inclination to the left leg of the “rider”. This was an important step in making the side-saddle riding position, as we know it today, increasingly stable. Today it can in fact be used with all gaits, even in jumping, thanks to this horn that allowed the left leg to be definitively supported.