Interested in Roman Riding?

[John Conyard]

The side boards do have to be shaped to the horse. I love the shape of the sideboards on old 19th century military saddles because they were designed to fit a variety horses, although smaller than some large horses today. However their shape is generally a good starting point. Hence some time ago I suggested using old McClellan trees as a basis for four horned and steppe style saddles.

Simple wooden trees could be covered in rawhide since the rawhide will shrink and pull joints together. Thuis was done on the McClellan saddle. After a while during the Indian wars the rawhide was covered in leather to improve waterproofing and stop the rawhide soaking up moisture. Indeed at Chillingham Castle, the site of our first event, Sir Humphrey Wakefield has a fine collection of saddles and tack including this simple steppe-style wooden tree partially held together using rawhide thongs. These thongs would pull the joint togther.

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What a simple delightful design.

But general issue military saddles are left without integral padding. My British Universal Pattern (UP) is a relatively recent buy from Horse Guards and has a thick wad of felt glued on to the sideboards, but in the past they were left bare like the McClellan.

Most reconstructions of Roman saddles have the leather cover stiched underneath the wooden frame holding in lots of padding to make the saddle more comfortable for the horse. However there is now a very good case for the saddle cover to be pulled over the wooden frame and left hanging down the sides of the horse as with the Carslisle finds. This would leaves the sideboards as just bare wood, as with the steppe saddle and most military saddles. Padding would be provided by furs and the saddle cloth. These are folded in various ways to make the wooden frame fit whatever shape of horse. 19th century troopers were taught to fold their saddle blankets in different ways to make their saddle fit their horse as it lost condition through a campaign, and I believe Roman troopers would do something similar.