Picard's prime directive Saddle

[Artabax]

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Saddle

Picard goes riding on the Holodeck, but he brings a real saddle. WTF???
According to Captain Jean-Luc Picard, a saddle was a personal thing to a rider, and most serious riders had one of their own. He kept his own saddle on-board the USS Enterprise and went to get it

I call bullshit. Saddles are designed to fit the horse. If the saddle don't fit, it rubs, it hurts the horse, infection enters the open and seeping wounds.

Human bum cheeks are full of soft absorbent fat; a human can sit on most any kind of seat. There are no layers of absorbent fat on an horse's back. Saddles must be designed to fit the horse. That's logical, Captain.

Picard COULD have said "Jacques was my favourite real-life horse and when he died, I kept the saddle and ride holo-Jacques." He could NOT say that. Prime Directive forbids mourning our Dead.

[MissKittyFantastico]

I'm not sure how seriously we should take Picard there. His sudden enthusiasm for horseriding, his delivery of the explanation for why he must use his own saddle, and especially Troi's reaction to it all, suggests he's overselling how keen a rider he is because he's just spotted an excuse to leave the reception right away and not have to listen to Hutch any more. It'd look rude if he ran away just to go do something else without at least mingling long enough to be polite, but 'needing' to go get his own saddle before the barion sweep starts gives him plausible deniability.

As for whether he believes it, who knows? If he's just an enthusiastic novice - with his own saddle, sure, but people in Trek are sentimental about their keepsakes plenty, maybe he only seriously rode when he was young, and since then he's just done it on the holodeck - he might've genuinely forgotten you can't just plonk any saddle on any real horse and have it be fine; the holodeck could design the horse to fit the saddle, so it's not an issue. Maybe Federation horse blankets have nanotech in them to custom-fit any saddle to any horse. Maybe Picard really does know better, but he saw an opportunity to run and took it, planning to 'remember' real horses weren't like the holodeck once he was at the stables, and use one of their saddles.

[Darth Wedgius]

When Picard brought up the saddle I think he was just finding a tackful way to exit the reception. As far as having outgrown the need for possessions...

[Robovski]

It could easily be attributed to current riding fashion in the future - for all we know there is a rising trend for sidesaddle. I considered it bit like having opera glasses or a foam number one finger for a game.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The hell is this?? You can't have a custom saddle.

[Artabax]

You must customize the saddle to fit the horse or the horse is damaged.

In theory one could arrange a saddle in two parts, the bottom part to fit the horse and the top bit to fit the human's special snowflake arse and then connect the two bits together when we know which person rides which horse.


Picard had a regular saddle AND made a big deal of it.

[Deledrius]

You may be right, but that only applies to real flesh horses, not fake holographic ones.

Picard has a custom saddle to suit him comfortably, and the holodeck makes a horse to fit it.

It wouldn't be the first time people on TNG speak authoritatively and universally about something which could only possibly apply in their bizarro future.