Why do many stirrup bars have an “up” setting? In Pony Club (late 70s for me), we were told never to put them up, so I never have. Is that correct? I never questioned it but sometimes wondered why the option exists. Anyone know?
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Once upon a time, the idea was to put the bar up so your stirrup leather wouldn’t come off. Most everyone is less “do or die” and more “avoid death and suffering” these days and the bar should definitely be kept down. My newer saddles don’t even have jointed stirrup bars.
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Having them up is also a relic from past foxhunting days when grooms would pony several mounts over to the host’s estate. The practice ensured that no leathers and irons were dropped on the way.
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I generally put mine up because I’ve had a one come off before on a super steep incline when my leg slid back (yes I know it shouldn’t have slid back lol) but I also have caged stirrups on all of my saddles. If I’m riding in traditional english stirrups, I keep them open
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I’ve always put mine up, I had no idea we weren’t supposed to anymore 
Thanks, hunter trainers from a million years ago, I guess I should try to keep up-to-date with industry more.
A lot of saddles don’t even have these anymore. My current dressage saddle has these joints, two previous ones didn’t. My jump saddle does not, the end of the straight bar just curves up a smidge.
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Totally agree with Bonnie@, stirrup bars should be down in all cases. Recently watched a terrifying video where rider came off on an indoor arena jump course, but her foot got hung up and leather did not come loose!! That horse kept going forward, dragging rider OVER or thru the jumps for a while. Could not watch until the end, too scarey!! So not sure if rider got foot loose or horse quit or they quit filming at the end.
Have to presume stirrup bars were up, to not let that much weight pulling backwards, not get the leather off an OPEN stirrup bar.
If you do lose a stirrup at times, well that is a lesson in itself to keep lower legs FORWARD going uphill, over jumps or just warming up. Making you stop, get off, pick-up stirrup and leather to put them back on should make an impression on you in delay time and effort. Cause (doing things incorrectly) and effect (friends laughing at stirrup off, time delay). Then dismounting to get stirrup and put it back on certainly made me try MUCH harder to keep legs in their proper position!!
Always down!! Son came up thru Pony Club, who seconded having the stirrup bars down ALL the time as the safest way to ride. Not just Mom saying “Do this.”
Very FEW people ever oil the lever on stirrup bars to make it easy open. Most times you can’t open the bar without pliers on your new, used saddles you just bought or someone else’s saddle. It sure is not going to open when the stirrup and leather are pulled backwards by a fallen rider.
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Never put them up.
I had a horse nip at a fly once while I was riding. He somehow got the o-ring of his martingale hooked up to his canine. He panicked and went straight up, to the point he almost fell over. When he went vertical, my stirrups popped right off - I slid right down his rump 
. I was left standing with my feet in the stirrups still, on the ground. I’m positive if I’d stayed on my combined weight would have pulled him right over.
He was fine once I undid the girth and got the o-ring off of his tooth. But talk about scary.
I’ve seen many riders get dislodged and the only thing that prevents them from being dragged is that the stirrup slides off. Once your foot is stuck in the stirrup and you start being dragged, it’s difficult to get out.
My other line of thinking is, I don’t want anything hard-tied or fixed to my most expensive piece of tack (the saddle), or the item that is wrapped around their body. Since I tend to work more with young horses, I want something that will give if it gets stuck on a jump, a tree branch, a fence post, or whatever else a young horse puts their tack through.
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Since I do Pony Club, I now keep mine down.
In theory, the hinged version, the back should flip down in an emergency dragging situation. But like all things, they do not always work that way.
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They should be down. That being said I’ve seen a few people lose the whole stirrup/leather going up big hills.
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Interesting!
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Thanks all!
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OMG that is terrifying!
For 50+ years, mine have always been down. That said, if they needed to come off, they might on my older saddle (PDN) but doubt they would on the newer one (also PDN)! I can barely work them in from the side when I take things apart to clean. I have to run them in from underneath.
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A few years ago a kid got dragged for quite a while after falling off her pony; the steward made sure to check if the stirrup bars were up or down (they were down), as part of the incident report. Stirrup bars up could have placed liability on the coach for the incident. We were surprised that the leathers didn’t slide out, but apparently some stitched leathers are so thick they apparently jam in there regardless. After seeing this incident I was sure to make sure all my clients checked their stirrup bars were down, and all my lesson saddles got safety stirrups.
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I used to have mine up but my trainer saw and scolded me and they stay down now. She came up via Pony Club and I did not.
I have such a hard time getting my stirrup leathers off and on at all even when the bar is down, I have a hard time seeing that the little joint is going to further prevent them from coming off in an emergency. Which I guess also means they aren’t likely to fall off easily so also no reason to bother putting it up and the absolutely most safe is down.
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I’ve also gotten to be a live demo example of why to keep them down.
Cross country schooling - my first time on my (previous) horse who also had never been. We just went to have fun and try something new but just didn’t know what we didn’t know. Pro who we went with sent us to a small fence with a drop on the landing side (not visible from takeoff). Horse jumped like a deer and then landed on all 4 legs at the same time, which pogo-sticked me right out of the saddle.
My stirrup and leather slid off and LAUNCHED across the ground when I came off the side, because I keep my stirrup bars down. If I hadn’t, I likely would have been slung upside down and whacked my head on the ground or been struck with hooves. My horse didn’t run off, but if I hadn’t come off I don’t know if she would have been scared by an upside-down person hanging off her.
I was fine, horse was fine, we found my stirrup and put it back on.
Pro had the other riders check their stirrup bars and they were all up - he insisted they all put them down. I think he just assumed everyone knew to leave them down for safety.
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This is how I’ve gone through life, never questioned it.
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Thanks everyone for sharing info and stories! I have a couple older saddles that even with the bars down, likely wouldn’t allow the leathers to slip out unless under great pressure at just the right angle. And that would make for a very scary situation! In fact, I haven’t ridden a saddle where the bars/leathers were such that I was ever worried about accidental slippage, thus the question about why the bars have the hinge at all.
My more to the point reason for asking, that I hesitated to post in my OP, is because DH, who didn’t start riding until after we married, flips (or rather, flipped, I hope I can confidently say now) the bars up. Twice, years ago, I was doing something with his saddle and found the bars up. I told him what I’d been taught in Pony Club and the reasoning behind it. Once is educational, the second time was aggravating. This week, some years on, I again found the bars up. I was furious, which is a feeling I really dislike as regards DH. We don’t fight, rarely argue. But I really confronted him over it and think I may have gotten the point across this time🫤, hopefully for good. (Thanks for letting me have this little vent here 
).
But I wondered throughout this mini-ordeal why they were even there, and realized I didn’t know and had never thought to ask. When the Pony Club aunties told eight-year-old me to never flip the bars up or I’d be dragged along the ground in a most horrifying manner, I internalized the directive and thought no more of it. And never have, until DH came along and challenged what I’d learned during those years of Pony Club indoctrination. So this discussion has been helpful!
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I’m almost a dinosaur and one of the very first things I learned was to always leave the bars down. Not a peep was said about a helmet way back then though.
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I’m following this thread with peak interest, and had assumed this was a new rule, but it appears this has been the expectation for decades?
If people have been saying to leave them down for this long, why do they even exist??? Why don’t they all just look like the ones on my jump saddle?
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