Bareback dressage.

Back in March, I started riding with a real dressage trainer—instead of just squeezing in some flatwork while taking sporadic lessons with an event instructor—and I finally stopped losing confidence and started maintaining faith in my ability to make progress. In short, I feel a hell of a lot better about riding, and I actually feel like riding, and because of that, I ride more consistently, which of course is the only way to improve.

I think the real proof, though, is the fact that I got on bareback the other night, and schooled at all three gaits. I haven’t ridden bareback since I was a teenager; I used to gallop on the logging trails in the woods around my house. So we trucked to the indoor the other night, and I was going to try my friend’s saddle (she has the same make but different model, I wanted to see if hers would make a difference in my position), except I forgot my friend doesn’t keep her saddle in her saddle tote, she leaves it on the saddle rack until she packs it. Anyways, I didn’t pack the saddle, so I rode bareback.

It was fine at the walk, but the first few steps of the trot were amusing; I thought I had zero balance and just went fetal. Ok, so we go back to walk, and maybe start with a little slow trot, and then I realized if I kept trying to stay on via the death grip method I was in for a short trip. So I relaxed and stretched out my various body parts and managed to have a pretty good ride—and I didn’t balance myself on Clover’s mouth, either. Woo!