Sidesaddle Stuff

Photo by Ty Holland

When we started the riding school this year we enrolled our first female student. The fort doesn't allow the woman to ride as troopers due to the requirement to maintain authenticity to the 1880s era so the woman have to learn sidesaddle and ride as ladies. They wear these Victorian era dresses and they look awesome. However, they have to go through pretty much the same training as the men except they have to learn sidesaddle instead of weapons employment. I realized last week that I didn't have any sidesaddle information in the student guide so I asked one of the riding ladies, Martina, to help me create some. Together we created an appendix to the student guide that has pertinent information about sidesaddle riding. Martina was so impressed with the final product that she offered to make me an honorary lady. Unfortunately, my wife recently banned me from honorary membership in the Ladies Auxiliary because I had spilled salsa all over her table cloth in the mess tent during the Picacho Peak deployment. I checked again tonight and I'm still banned. So it goes.