Learn French: Sans la selle, le cheval est plus agile que le mien. - Without the saddle, the horse is more agile than mine.

In French, the preposition sans (without) is usually followed directly by a noun without an article when talking generally, such as sans selle (without a saddle). Adding the definite article la makes it specific: it means without the particular saddle that was just mentioned or is currently being looked at.

Since la selle is feminine, why does the sentence end with the masculine pronoun le mien?

Possessive pronouns like le mien (mine) must agree in gender and number with the noun they replace, not the person who owns it or other nouns in the sentence. Here, le mien replaces mon cheval (my horse), which is masculine. The feminine noun la selle (the saddle) isn't the item being compared.

Why do we use que instead of de for 'than' in this comparison?

When comparing qualities using adjectives or adverbs, French always uses que for 'than', as in plus agile que (more agile than). You only use de for 'than' when it is followed by a number or a quantity, such as plus de deux chevaux (more than two horses).

Could this sentence use the stylistic exclamative inversion from this lesson?