Interested in Roman Riding?

[Vindex]

First question - breeching straps.

These are depicted as being quite high up the horse's haunches on epigraphic evidence(examples) and reconstruction:


EDIT: Perhpas this link will work - http://s397.photobucket.com/albums/pp51 ... pigraphic/

The images from the Foederati cavalry link show them quite tight (and perhaps slipped once or twice?) and John has said his riders have them quite loose:

http://s397.photobucket.com/albums/pp51 ... Breeching/

And from Cesar's description above of his lovely mare doing a rodeo act (or bronc-ing) I imagine her breeching strap must have caught her under the tail and pinched her rather painfully, so one can't really blame the poor mare. If you look at the later of his photos you can see it is much higher up her haunches and reflects more closely what the epigraphic evidence portrays.

Which leads to the question: what do you think the breeching strap is for?

This is where I am coming from...more than happy to be put right, even happier for source references...

To me, the term breeching strap comes from driving parlance and is part of the traces to enable a horse to slow down a towed vehicle. I think these straps are better termed as balance straps and are part of the horse's equipment to hold the saddle in place when used in conjunction with a breast plate/girth/strap (I particularly like the attachments which go on to the saddle in two places...looking for a photo to illustrate...will perhaps come back to that one).

So I rather like the picture from the Foederati collection as there is enough tension there to hold the saddle in place (although there is no breast strap in the example above)

It leaves the issue of the epigraphic evidence of course, but I believe that if you look at the strap attaching the strap to the saddle in all of the examples and then follow the line down instead of up, it would secure the saddle round the horse's haunches and not under the tail. It would also be tight enough (perhaps, can't prove anything!) to hold the saddle in place. If it really was positioned as the evidence suggest, I think a lot of cavalrymen would have been bucked off in pretty short order!

And the point of the balance straps securing the saddle more than just the girth is to allow for lateral movement of the rider and also to prevent the saddle slipping going up and downhills.

I wait with bated breath... slopes off to hide behind sofa and find suitable head protection (I think I am a First Century AD person, but not quite sure yet so don't have the correct helmet to hand! :lol: )