Season 5 Episode 6 featured a point-to-point race with Lady Mary riding sidesaddle (“I’m dying to ride astride”, she says). Most of the riding looked sort of odd and fakey, with a clear double riding for Michelle Dockery, until the last few strides. But I loved to see the horses and the riding costumes!!
I’m sad that Downton Abbey skipped quickly from the 1910s to the 1920s and we missed on much horse life in the show.
p.s. why does Lady Mary have a Ladies’ Maid, but not Lady Edith?
Lady Mary’s riding double: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152642063018192&set=gm.10152766505966698&type=1&theater
Filming the Point to Point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI-9RChmJ20
Lady Mary and Edith had always shared Anna, but if Edith has a separate Ladies’ Maid now, that character has not been shown
I think Mary got more of Anna because Mary was married.
Have you ever noticed that the married ladies get to eat breakfast in bed, but the others don’t?!
It looks like the FB link for the riding double is private, sadly.
[QUOTE=Night Flight;8009568]
It looks like the FB link for the riding double is private, sadly.[/QUOTE]
See if I found a work around:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ca/dd/28/cadd284de2e4c846fc91984f21eb9fe8.jpg
Pippa Booth and her horse Charlie. She said she wished she could keep the habit but it was going on display
I thought when she patted her horse after landing over a jump (we only saw the back side, so Pippa Booth riding), that it was very un-Mary-like to be so kind! :lol:
That’s neat – wonderful how he shares his enthusiasm for horses with the audience in the film clip. “I love the smell of horses” – of course!
Thanks, SmartAlex, that worked!
The maid and breakfast thing was explained in the series, and both have to do with being married. Mary got Anna as a ladies maid as she was the first of the sisters to get married. the others would be entitled to a ladies maid when they get married. Poor Edith never got married, so no ladies maid. Breakfast, married ladies get to have breakfast in bed, unmarried must eat in the dining room.
When I saw the snarky Miss Lane-Fox riding astride, I was quite shocked (though not appalled)! Does anyone know when it become socially acceptable for women of rank to ride astride?
I can only speak for America, not England. The first woman to ride astride at Madison Square Garden’s National Horse show (the most prestigious society show at the time) was Eleanora Sears in 1915.
Belle Beach was a preeminent riding instructor of the time, and she predicted that women riding astride would not catch on. I think it was she who stated that women’s thighs were too round to be able to grip a horse correctly astride.
By the time Eleanora Sears paved new ground at the Garden, the aside or astride wars were already being waged in magazine articles and books of the day. So appearing in a Point to Point astride in 1924 would have been cutting edge, but no longer scandalous.
As an aside: Lane-Fox was the name given to the style of park saddles with a cut back pommel. We still call saddle seat saddles “Lane Fox” today. I believe they were first made in England by the E Jeffries company. I do not know if they were designed by or for a man named Lane-Fox. A cut back pommel was seen on side saddles decades before the design became popular on park saddles. They did not reach popularity until America until the 1920s when Lonnie Hayden had one imported or made for the five gaited stallion Chief Of Longview.
[QUOTE=Desert Topaz;8010944]
The maid and breakfast thing was explained in the series, and both have to do with being married. Mary got Anna as a ladies maid as she was the first of the sisters to get married. the others would be entitled to a ladies maid when they get married. Poor Edith never got married, so no ladies maid. Breakfast, married ladies get to have breakfast in bed, unmarried must eat in the dining room.[/QUOTE]
I know, but I want to know why… I mean, I’m a married lady and I don’t get breakfast in bed or have a ladies’ maid!!! :lol:
Okay sidesaddle folks, can you/did they ride steeplechases at speed like that?
[QUOTE=HPFarmette;8014398]
Okay sidesaddle folks, can you/did they ride steeplechases at speed like that?[/QUOTE]
They still do!
http://youtu.be/y9a7eU88RC0
[QUOTE=HPFarmette;8014398]
Okay sidesaddle folks, can you/did they ride steeplechases at speed like that?[/QUOTE]
No different than fox hunting
[QUOTE=Desert Topaz;8010944]
Breakfast, married ladies get to have breakfast in bed, unmarried must eat in the dining room.[/QUOTE]
I’m no expert on English customs but I would imagine they finally reached the age and authority where they weren’t putting on that corset until they were darn good and ready.
[QUOTE=HPFarmette;8014398]
Okay sidesaddle folks, can you/did they ride steeplechases at speed like that?[/QUOTE]
Yes, side saddle riders still do so, both in England for the Dianas of the Chase race, which Night Flight posted a video link to… and in America’s first side saddle race since the 1930s, the Mrs. George C. Everhart Memorial Invitational Chase, held this spring at Oatlands in Leesburg, Va!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Esther-Everhart-Memorial-Invitational-Side-Saddle-Chase/774738852581652?ref=br_tf
http://ecovertside.net/fox-hunting-news/foxhunting-events-milestones/foxhunting-events/732-wine-tasting-at-salamander-resort-spa
Please join us in April if you can make it! 
The only thing I found disappointing about the steeplechase scene is it wasn’t long enough…I wanted MORE! 
So glad to see I am not the only person who thinks of saddle seat saddles every time I here miss Lane Fox mentioned on Downton Abbey.
I do know if that particular maker is still making saddles, but at one time a “Lane Fox” saddle was the brand to have.
Oh lord, when I saw that she was going to ride sidesaddle in the point-to-point, I was sure Mary was the next character to get killed off. I watched the whole thing on the edge of my seat and was amazed that she kept her seat. I know women rode sidesaddle as a matter of course for a long time, but I just don’t know how they manage it without just tipping over backwards.
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