postillion

pos·til·ion

also pos·til·lion P0471000 (pō-stĭl′yən, pŏ-)n. One who rides the near horse of the leaders to guide the horses drawing a coach.

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[French postillon, from Italian postiglione, from posta, mail, from Old Italian, mail station; see post³.]

Postillion

One who rides the near horse of a team in order to guide the team. Such riders were found on teams hauling artillery and were sometimes used by the wealthy to guide their coach teams, but were not used in conjunction with farm implements. Sometimes a small boy would ride one horse of a team when doing something like harrowing, but in general, the implements themselves required attention while being pulled so the operator did the double duty of operating the equipment and guiding the team. Also, while a harnessed horse would generally tolerate a rider, workhorses were not necessarily broken for riding, and trying to ride an unharnessed plow horse could be disastrous.

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

postillion - someone who rides the near horse of a pair in order to guide the horses pulling a carriage (especially a carriage without a coachman)postilionequestrian, horseback rider, horseman - a man skilled in equitation