If a saddle does not come down upon the withers and back-bone of a horse, the closer it approaches them the firmer it fits; and as, in the matrimonial alliance which122 exists between the quadruped and the biped, whatever is agreeable to the one is usually so to the other, a roomy saddle, on which the rider can sit with ease and comfort, is also beneficial to the horse, because it spreads the weight he has to carry over a large surface, and the pressure per square inch being thereby diminished, a sore back is less likely to be created, and per contra, for the very same reason, the human skin is less likely to be rubbed.  
Less than a century ago it was deemed necessary by hunting men to tie their saddle to their horse's tail by a crupper, which, at every jump, must have compressed the vertebræ of the poor animal, like the joints of a telescope when slightly closed by a jerk. The object of this barbarous apparatus was to prevent the saddle slipping forwards, whereas, by the opposite apparatus of the present day, a breast-plate has been substituted, to prevent the saddle from slipping backwards. The difference between these two conflicting precautions has been caused by the difference in the breeding, and consequently in the size of the horse's belly, which, in the time of our ancestors, was lusty, instead of being—as in the present day, when many hunters are racers, and all in high condition—fine and slim.
 
When a horse is exceedingly light in the carcase, or as it is technically termed "tucked up," it is usual among123 grooms and riders to girth the poor creature as tightly as they can, in order, as much as is possible, to relieve the breast-plate; but instead of assisting it, the grievous mistake first paralyses its action, and then, if it be weak, breaks it, for the following simple reasons.
 
If a horse, with a belly tapering like a cone, be tightly girthed, his saddle, whenever it slips backwards (which it must do in ascending a steep hill or bank), remains hard and fast on the part of the back to which it has retired, straining against the breast-plate, whose straps have not power to make it re-ascend the cone: whereas if, on the contrary, the saddle of a light-carcased horse be unusually loosely girthed, although in ascending an acclivity the saddle slips backwards until it is retained by the breast-plate, yet, the instant the horse either descends a hill, or gallops upon level ground, his own action, combined with the power of the breast-plate straps affixed to the saddle and girths, put an end to all strain upon the latter, by drawing the loosely-girthed saddle forwards into its proper position. And it is for this reason that horses of all shapes ought to be girthed less tightly when they carry breast-plates than when they are without them, and always two holes looser when they are light-carcased than when they are lusty.
 
Formerly it was the usual custom in the hunting-field,124 as it still is on the road, to secure the saddle by two narrow girths, each buckled on either side to one strap. This arrangement has lately been superseded by what are called Fitzwilliam girths, composed of one of double breadth with two buckles at each end, and of a narrow one encircling and secured to the broad one by two loops, through which it passes.
 
By this admirable alteration perfect safety is obtai............