saddleskirt

plural saddleskirts

1. The portion of a saddle that covers the flank of a horse.

   As I am lying on the ground, writing on a saddleskirt, by the light of our campfire, I have not time to write in detail.

   1974, LeRoy Reuben Hafen, Colorado Gold Rush: Contemporary Letters and Reports, 1858-1859, page 163

   3 more examples

   With the instinct of self preservation and defence I struck out at this object with my whip, and there came, of all the sounds I ever heard the one least expected—that of a leather saddleskirt!

   1891, Willis Percival King, Stories of a Country Doctor, page 197

   He'd unloaded the rifle to save carrying it and it was tied along the saddleskirt of the captain's horse and he had reassembled the fireblackened revolver and loaded it and put it in his belt.

   1992, Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, →ISBN, page 286

   First, fetch me a pint of moonshine liquor as clear as crystal and as strong as hell; second, fetch me a big bowl of onion soup full of hog kidneys and 'mountain oysters'; third, fetch me a bowl of hominy swimmin' in hog grease; fourth, fetch me a hunk of beefsteak as tough as a saddleskirt; fifth, fetch me a burlap sack to spread over my hairy breast — and (pointing straight at the woman of easy morals opposite him) please inform me who the God damned chippy is that sits opposite me.

   2014, Josiah H. Combs, D.K. Wilgus, Folk-Songs of the Southern United States