I am a city boy and have almost no experience riding horses. Tonight I saw yet another scene where someone is being dragged by a galloping horse (Neidemier in Animal House)
Is there a part of the saddle that can wrap itself around your legs and drag you like that? In my small experience with saddles, it sure does not look like there is.
It’s called a stirrup. Riding boots have high heels to keep your foot from easily going all the way through the stirrup. If it does and you fall over your foot can get stuck and if your horse is moving and doesn’t stop you’ll get dragged along that way.
Being dragged like that is the reason you’re taught right off the bat that when you dismount you kick your right foot free of the stirrup, throw your leg over the horse, then kick your left foot free before sliding down to the ground on both feet. Horses like to saunter off even when they’re pretty calm and centered but dismount is a signal the discipline portion of the time is done and they get antsy. If they get spooked while you’re dismounting it’s easy enough to get your foot caught and it’s not fun to be dragged. This is also why mounting tends to be brisk and no nonsense.
i considered the stirrup, but the scenes usually depict a longish strap and the rider mostly on the ground almost behind the horse. The scene I am talking about shows a long strap attached about where a stirrup would be, but if the was a stirrup at the end if it it would be almost dragging on the ground. Skip ahead to about 2.43 in this video:
dragging scene
This type of drag is repeated in countless cowboy movies with, I guess, an elongated stirrup.
That is the special drag strap attached to all saddles in case a stuntman has to suddenly use your horse in a movie scene.
Yeah.
You see, if you get your foot caught in a real stirrup there is a very real chance of smashing your skull open and distributing your brains about the landscape. In movies, they alter the stirrup to give the stunt man a reasonable chance of surviving the stunt. It alters the angle at which the body meets the ground sufficiently that it’s more the shoulders hitting the ground than the skull.
Also long enough that the stunt person doesn’t end up right underneath the galloping horse’s back feet. Horses don’t much like stomping on squashy live stuff but they’ll do it if it’s there–although the experience is likely to make them lose their cool a bit since they’re trained for stunts but not for stomping on humans.
When I was riding there was a thought was that if you fell off and wound up under the horse rather than to the side you might do better just staying put where you hit, because given any choice at all the horse will not step on you (unless you have really pissed off the horse, but that’s rare) but if you’re moving around the horse is more likely to lose track of where you are. If you’re attached to the horse by a leather strap, though, the horse will just be dragging you along, making avoiding the squishy human much more difficult
But, of course, avoiding that situation entirely is much preferable.
Happened to me years ago. Riding an unfamiliar horse, dog freaked when I mounted and horse bolted. Tried to dismount mid gallop, and my boot got stuck in a stirrup. Got bounced along the ground for a few hundred metres, kept my head UP, and thankfully Fred, the horse, didn’t stomp on it. Ended up with a smashed ankle though.
I learned to ride from a school mate who lived on a local, small farm. I used to just pull both feet out of the stirrups at once, lift my right leg high so that it was well above the level of the horse’s head, spin 90 degrees sideways, and just drop to ground, landing on both feet. The horse seemed neither impressed nor annoyed by my methodology. LOL
I wouldn’t try that with anything but an absolutely bombproof horse though! Stylish, I’ll give you that. 
Actually, my friend wisely did provide me with a calm, mature horse because she realized I was a “rookie” at horse riding. She, on the other hand, had a young and energy filled mare.
When I rode, the stirrups were hooked over a metal bar on the saddle with a latch at the end of the bar, we were always taught to never raise the latch because if you did fall off in motion and your foot got caught, the stirrup would pull off the saddle with you. It was an English saddle so they are a little differnt to an American saddle.
That and heals always down and proper boots were the other ranked in safety lessons.