Tight-fitting near the ankles makes them less likely to get tangled up in anything else, and/or fit nicely into a pair of boots.
The wide thigh thing is (mostly) a fashion thing. Yes, a little extra room in the thigh can make moving easier, but you don’t need a lot. The barn-door sized jodhpurs are for looks, not practicality. Back when I was riding I stuck to blue jeans but a couple of the instructors wore jodhpurs. They opted for less flamboyant, more practical versions of the trousers.
The really great things that might have been mistaken for fashion but where entirely practical were the little velvet hats - the velvet hide that they were actually hard hats/helmets - and the knee-high boots 'cause when you’re mucking out horse stalls or walking through paddocks you really want something that comes high up on your leg as opposed to ankle or lower that could accumulate - >ahem< - used horse food or other unpleasant substances in their interiors.
Spot on. Even in a Western saddle, riding at a dude ranch many years ago in jeans, my first day out I got some annoying sore rashes. A fellow guest recommended I wear pantyhose under the jeans, and bingo! Worked fine. Chaps also work well to protect one’s legs, in fact, I’ve seen people wear chaps over shorts while riding.
Jodhpur boots are fine for doing ground work around horses and you can ride ride in them on English tack in jeans if you put half-chaps on your lower legs to protect against the narrow stirrup leathers from pinching and chafing.
Years ago, before eBay, people would box up everything from their recently deceased and drop it at the Salvation Army or Goodwill or Vinne DePaul. While junking one time I found some old army surplus whipcord cavalry breeches. To prevent the inseam chafing that Ulfreida cites, they had a reinforced gusset shaped like a giant banana peel that went from the inner knees to the crotch and up around the butt.
In their era, militarists thought they looked pretty tough, while today they look silly. But future assessors will also look similarly on all the cammo-tactical costumery of today
My standard riding gear is what they call ‘riding tights’ now, which mostly differ from modern breeches in that they are pull on rather than zip, with paddock boots and half chaps, which if they match, from a distance resemble the tall english riding boots which are so hard to get on, get off, and cost $300 and up. My get-up is also a lot easier to bushwhack through down timber and rocks in, while my horse picks her way along behind me, when a trail is blocked, a not uncommon occurrence in my area.
Modern fabrics probably stretch in ways that older materials didn’t.
Tighter pants and traditional fabrics probably were more likely to tear when stretched like when moving on a horse. Having additional fabric likely prevented that. And, of course, a fashion element as well.
At last! I subject I can answer with expertise, as my father founded a clothing company specialising in ridingwear.
Firstly, there’s a different between jodphurs and breeches. Jodphurs go down to the ankle, with a small roll up and are designed to be worn with short jodphur boots. Breeches have tight straps which hug the calf and are designed to fit neatly inside knee length riding boots. Baggy thighs are a fashion thing, and the vast majority of jods and breeches these days are tight fitting.
On reading the responses, it seems likely to me that mnemosyne has the likeliest reason, succinctly stated.
As i say, I’ve read about the need for extra material in the days of pre-stretch, pre-spandex, but the extra amount of material in most of those jodhpurs is excessive . They didn’t need to be that exaggerated. Or to have those deliberate angles instead of a simple taper. Design and Style seems the only explanation.
Tut tut…I must have my Red woolen riding jacket with tails to go with my white Jodhpurs or I can’t be seen at the Foxhunt. It’s just not done otherwise, I say.
“Smithers, make sure my Stallion is saddled, promptly.”
Oh, God. It recalls that time I stumbled upon a fox hunt in early winter, with everyone in full regalia. I don’t recall if they had jodhpurs on, though.
Red coats (or pinques, as they’re sometimes called) don’t have tails, and tails aren’t worn in the hunt field.
Though clearly a vibrant red, the coats of hunt masters, officials, and staff members are called pinques or hunt liveries. They seem to have been inspired by the British military, as most equestrian attire has. These red coats signify distinguished, experienced riders and indicate that they have the right-of-way on a hunt. Riders should only wear red when they’ve been granted the right to do so by an official, and even then only with discretion.
Baggier cloth would certainly have made sense before the advent of stretch materials and in particular stretch thread*, but those exaggerated baggy thighs were entirely unnecessary so clearly a fashion statement which has now turned into a heritage thing for some forces. My Dad only made that style to special (and bulk) order from certain militaries. He also made some weird flared/bootcut cowboy style for sale through a US wholesaler. Popular in certain US states, apparently.
(*my father was once called from the UK to a US factory to advise them on why their jods kept splitting. They had the right cloth, but they weren’t using the right stretch thread).
I think it all started with fashion. They were copied from traditional Indian riding garb, which was probably based on other Indian clothing styles that had no utilitarian need to change. We have ample documentary evidence that cowboys wore close fitting blue jeans on horseback and the other type of Indians wore deerskin pants or no pants at all while riding. It was a fashion choice for all of them.
