I can’t be the only one who acts on silly, hair-brained impulses. After all, some ancient human had the silly, hair-brained impulse to hop on a horse in the first place. It’s in our collective DNA.

One day, standing in the pasture, lead rope in hand, I looked at my Thoroughbred mare Mocha and mused: “What would happen if I jumped on her right now? No saddle. No bridle.”

And I did it. Not only did my sweet mare refrain from killing me, that impulse also turned into one of the best things I’ve ever done for our traditional schooling.

At the time, Mocha and I had worked together for two years. Although a trusting partner, she would sometimes get downhill and quick (like many of her former track peers). We had made good progress by that point but kept getting stalled by the runaway freight train that inhabited my horse’s body from time to time.

How exactly do you communicate with a horse when you have lost back contact and are whipping around the arena at Mach 3? The incorrect answer is bit contact, and that was the answer I gave over and over again. I didn’t even consider myself a “handsy” rider but each time I lost contact with her back, I grabbed rein and dropped leg. Riding a diving eel will do that to you.

So given the “diving eel” and “runaway freight train” tendencies on an off-the-track Thoroughbred, my whim to ride naked has a bit more context. It might seem like I made a foolhardy decision and got lucky. Trust me: I did it with this horse and not another horse for a reason. The other horse would likely not have been so cool with my impulse.

The first ride was not technically impressive or even very long. I hopped on, with a looped lead rope around her neck, and rode her in one circle at a walk both directions and halted. Over the course of weeks, I grew braver and more confident to Mocha’s responses to my seat and leg aids. I began asking for a few steps of trot before quickly transitioning down to walk. Soon, I was trotting circles and changing directions at trot. And one day — on another whim — I asked for canter. When that didn’t kill me, I started walking and trotting over poles.

Before too long, we were jumping a mini-2’3″ course bridleless (though not bareback).

What jumped out to me the most during my bridleless riding was my previously unrecognized lack of leg and reliance on the bit to back up my weak seat and leg.

For example, to prevent motorcycling around turns, I used to apply some inside leg but mostly I would raise my inside rein [*ducks rotten tomato*]. Without a bridle, however, I am forced to use only my inside leg to support her.

My weak leg apparently extended from the dressage arena into stadium. We experience much less rushing to the fences because I can only use my legs and I can’t rely on stiff hands to get us there.

When schooling with the bridle, if Mocha drops her back, I can hit the reset button and reboot the system by throwing away the reins and going for the neck strap. You’re not supposed to throw away your reins on a downhill horse, but if she’s already dropped her back, reins aren’t going to make it any better. This works for us.

Of course, the things I learned viscerally through my bridleless experiment are not anything that I haven’t heard an instructor scream at me for 25 years…”More leg, less hand!” But it took removing the bridle to bring the lesson home. Has it been a panacea? Of course not. But it has been fun, and I feel like I grew as a rider and I believe that’s something we all strive to do.

 

First published in Tracking Up.

 


About the Author

An award-winning, 16-year veteran of the newspaper world, L.C. Street has lived her life by the two R’s: Riding and wRiting. Her life with pen and reins in hand began when she was five years old with her first journal and her first horse. She lives at the barn and the newsroom in Charleston, S.C. The Wilding, her debut novel, was released in April 2015.