Men have ridden horses for thousands of years. Yet, as you can probably remember from the first time you tried to ride a horse, there’s quite an art to riding.

There’s more to riding a horse than avoiding sores and aches and pains. The chief marks of good riding are ease and grace, combined with straightness of posture. When people are trained from earliest childhood, these things come naturally. The cowboys of the West usually get this kind of training, and they can ride without lifting from leather, which means they never bounce on the saddle.