Again so as not to hijack the crooked stirrup thread, I offer for consideration:

The heated conversation evoled around the question of what is propor, weight in the stirrups or sitting in the saddle.
One of the first thing novices are taught in riding classes is to ride with your heels down.With the stirrup leathers adjusted to the correct height, a rider with his heels down can exert just the right amount of pressure from his/her weight into the stirrups to do a balanced ride. Too little and the rider is teetering on top of the saddle and must use more thigh muscles to stay aboard the rider. If you watch a rider with his/her toes down,they have very little contraol of thier balance.

Differnt disciplines require more or less weight in the stirrups. Racing jockeys, except the ride from the paddock to the starting gate, have all thier weight in the stirrup. English riders when in a trot,post and also take most of thier weight off the seat to let thier knees act more like shock abosrbers.

People using western saddles have developed considerable differnces of the concept depending on the discipline, and usually, as pointed out in the other thread, arena events and riding outside usually have little correlation.

Rough country riding requires more weight in the stirrups when going down hill so one can get the center of gravity back further on the horse and the feet need to go forward.Going up hill the opposite is true,and to help the horse, you get further forward.

When dragging differnt things, a lot more weight needs to put on the near stirrup assuming you are dragging from the off side.If not, your saddle will move considerable off center.Sam ethingwhenheading cattle. When the header ropes and turns the cow, he/she needs to have that near side foot exerting a lot more pressure.

The upper body ,to me is used to convey messages to the horse,along with the legs.Sitting nore forward,you ask the horse to move more.Sitting down in the saddle is a que for the horse to slow or stop. That unperceptible movement of thebody and looking where you want to go as in a turn,ques the horse to turn left or right. Legs are used to additionally que the horse to move faster, turn ,etc

To me ,just the right amount of weight in the stirrups yields a more balancd ride,both for the horse and rider, and enables the rider to respond to unforessen movements of the horse.

Ralphie ,IMO said it best,you use your whole body and brain to ride.

Just my take on it.Right or wrong.



If God wanted you to walk and carry things on your back, He would not have invented stirrups and pack saddles