Exhausted trooper in a seat like this? (9)
I believe the answer is:
astraddle
'this?' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot judge whether this works.
'exhausted trooper in a seat' is the wordplay.
'exhausted' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (the word is emptied out or exhausted).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'seat' becomes 'saddle' (saddle is a kind of seat).
'trooper' with its middle taken out is 'tr'.
'a'+'saddle'='asaddle'
'tr' inserted inside 'asaddle' is 'ASTRADDLE'.
'like' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for astraddle that I've seen before include "with legs wide apart" , "Across" , "With a leg on either side of (something)" , "How the jockey wants to be" .)