Placed a saddle on a horse, or figuratively, burdened someone with a difficult responsibility or problem they don't want.
From Old English 'sadol' (saddle) and related Germanic words. The figurative meaning of 'burdening' arose from the image of putting a heavy saddle on a horse, making it carry weight.
The metaphor of 'saddling' someone with a burden is so old and universal—you find it in Sanskrit, Latin, and Germanic languages—because horses were humanity's first machines, so every heavy burden got described through horse imagery.
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