Summer is in full force in Texas, which means riding has to be done early in the morning. Unfortunately, I’ve started working out in the morning with Nurse Bestie, and I haven’t been very successful in making both the gym and the riding happen in the same morning.

Today I thought well, if I can get over there at 10am, maybe it won’t be too hot to get in a ride – it’s not like I ride for that long, anyway! Of course Work had other ideas and I got there at 11, when the temp outside was a balmy 91 degrees with 4,000% humidity. My poor little Griffin was out in the pasture sweating to death just eating hay! His face & neck were covered in sweat. I knew that I would not be able to put a saddle on him and ask him to work – it was just too hot and one or both of us would pass out. But of course since I was there, I figured I’d braid his mane to help his neck stay cool, brush him, maybe hose him down to help him cool off, and of course love on him & smooch his nose. But as I was braiding his mane, I looked at him and thought….what if I DIDN’T put a saddle on him???

See, at my lesson last night I was telling Instructor about him and my struggles with anxiety and she said a few things that stuck with me. The first was, “Do you think he’s too much horse for you?” And that’s a possibility I 100% refuse to consider – I need to move up to his level if that’s true (and I honestly don’t believe it is, he is a very sweet, calm boy 99.999% of the time.) The second was, as I discussed how new situations make me very afraid, “Well the answer is you need to constantly put yourself in new situations.” And that was annoying because I knew she was right, and I have definitely not been doing that with him.

The last thing was, when I mentioned wanting to ride bareback, she said “You probably could now.” Obviously riding bareback requires a much better sense of balance and a lot of core strength. It hadn’t really ever occurred to me to try it except for the occasional fantasy of galloping bareback and helmetless through the fields (something I would never do but it’s fun to imagine!) but here was someone – a qualified professional, no less – saying she thought it was possible. And sometimes, you just need a little push!

So there I was, looking at my horse, and thinking “What if I just….tried it?” I psyched myself up, went & got his bridle, and led him out into the ring….

….where I promptly lost my nerve. Of course neighbor was mowing his yard with the biggest tractor I’d ever seen – not that the size of the tractor meant that he was done quickly, of course, just that it was phenomenally loud. I decided to walk Griffy around the arena a couple of times to see what kind of mood he was in. This greatly confused him, because normally we just hop right in the saddle and go – but I gave him a couple of cookies and he was on board. The tractor did not phase him in the slightest, he did not even have an ear flick to give it. So I talked myself back into it, led him to the mounting block, and climbed the stairs, only to discover that he had magically grown from 15.1hh to 27hh and I was definitely going to die if I got on him. So I thought to myself, “Before I jump on, let me just see what he does if I put some weight on his back with no saddle.” I leaned across him, and he turned and looked at me with an expression that said very clearly “What the FUCK are you doing?” I knew at this point I was going to have to make a decision to either do it or not, because he wasn’t going to put up with much more of this nonsense. We walked one more lap around the ring (with some apology cookies), then finally went back to the mounting block.

I climbed up the stairs…and said “Here goes nothing” …. and slid on! AND IT WAS AWESOME! He stood there patiently waiting for me to fix my seat and tell him what we were going to do. His whole attitude was “Why is this even a big deal?” The ride lasted a whopping 3 minutes (not even kidding, I timed it on my watch) and included a stop for a selfie, but he was the most perfectly behaved boy ever – he walked normally, ears tilted back to listen to me, while I grinned like an idiot. When I hopped off he got showered with cookies and smooches, I’m sure he was very confused as to why I was telling him he was such an amazing boy for a 3 minute walk around the arena, but I was super proud of both of us!!

After our super short adventure, I gave him a bath & let him graze for a bit to dry off & cool down. I’m really looking forward to trying bareback again!