Land in the Saddle

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    A popular exit for the swashbuckling or Western hero: leap down off the roof, wall or balcony you're on—or out of a window—and land in the saddle of your waiting Cool Horse.

    Can be spoofed by including one or more of the things that could go wrong: the horse is spooked, the horse is injured by the impact with the rider, the rider is injured by the impact with the horse (ouch), the rider misses the horse entirely, ...

    An adventurer in a modern setting might attempt the same trick with a car. If he's really planning ahead, it will be a car without a roof.

    A subtrope of No Escape but Down. Not to be confused with Falling Into the Cockpit.

    Examples of Land in the Saddle include:

    Comic Books

    • Lucky Luke does this so often that his horse, Jolly Jumper, has been known to express surprise if Luke exits a building through the door. Jolly is sometimes seen complaining about how Luke gets to make merry in the saloon, and his horse must wait outside under the window. There are also occasional subversions to keep things interesting. In one instance, Luke throws himself out the wrong window, leading to his escaping while Jolly Jumper laughs at him. In another, he realizes the horse he's landed on is not Jolly Jumper, who explains that as he didn't know which window Luke would jump from, he put a horse under each window to be sure.


    Film - Animated

    • Tangled takes it up to eleven, with Flynn catapulted over a high wall and landing the saddle of the horse waiting on the other side. Thanks to Rule of Cool, nobody gets hurt.


    Film - Live-Action


    Live-Action TV

    • In the Doctor Who serial The Masque of Mandragora, the Doctor jumps from the execution platform onto one of the guards' horses, shoves that guard out of the saddle, and takes off galloping
    • Knight Rider: Car version, of course. Michael calls to KITT, KITT comes, and often he leaps straight into or onto KITT. At least once, KITT elevated the driver's seat so Michael would have something to aim for and fall onto.


    Video Games


    Web Comics

    • Schlock Mercenary had Sorlie doing this on the fly, at almost 300 km/h. Less reckless than it sounds, between the rider having helmet and flight belt and "mount" being remotely piloted by AI designed for combat at relativistic velocities.


    Western Animation

    • One Tex Avery cartoon has a cowboy try to jump into his horse repeatedly, only to miss every time. Eventually he moves the horse to the place where he keeps landing and tries again, only to land where the horse originally was.
    • Spoofed on The Scarlet Pumpernickel, where Daffy Duck misses the horse, causing him to muse that "this never happens to Errol Flynn".
    • Once an Episode (minimum) in Thundarr the Barbarian. In one early episode, he does it from the top floor of a ruined skyscraper without injury.
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