Adirondack Saddle Tours (315-357-4499; www.andhorse.com) and Flat Rock Mountain Tours (315-369-2657), offer year-round horidesck rides for adults and children ($30 a person, call in advance).
The women on the tennis tour are not saddled with the responsibility of charming business contacts while swatting backhands.
Martin Randall Travel (020 8742 3355; www.martinrandall.com) specialises in cultural tours, In the Saddle (01299 272 997; www.inthesaddle.co.uk) offers riding holidays, while Explore (as before) runs general sightseeing trips.
He will also set up neat side tours out of the saddle.
Celia Fiennes, hardy traveller that she was, described all her lengthy side-saddle tours of England in the 1680s and 90s with barely a reference to the weather, though she must have been blown about on hilltops day after day.
Steven Tyler recalls: In 1984, Aerosmith embarked on a reunion tour called the Back in the Saddle Tour, which led to the live album Classics Live II.
Saddle Skedaddle's eight-day tour takes you across the whole island, with more or less everything included.
"In the tour the pros get back in the saddle the next day and do it all again".
If he was to go on to win the Tour, he'd have to be on the saddle again the next morning for another 186km stage - across five more mountains and concluding with a rapid descent to Morzine.
When Armstrong tested positive for cortisone during the 1999 Tour, Armstrong produced a backdated prescription for it, for saddle sores.
