I have a few but today in my Facebook memories popped up on of my favorites. I had asked my instructor if we could ride bareback at some point and in this lesson I got to do it! I was also on my absolute favorite lesson horse named blackjack. This was 6 years ago but I still remember the fun. What is one of your favorite riding memories?
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I have so many! But the first one I thought of was when I was galloping my mare on a sand road and asking her for a higher gear. She dropped down and went into a racing gallop and it was unbelievably exhilarating. She’d been an allowance winner and I think she enjoyed it as much as I.
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Riding bareback, in the summer, at night, on the beach, galloping through the shallow water and the phosphorous plankton splashing and glowing all around.
Had that horse for 30 years. Rode him for 25 of them.
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Was riding with a BNT that had won several Olympic medals and World CH and was exercising one of those horses for him.
He had a field with a Nations Cup curse set up, huge jumps and had me jump it on that horse.
The horse was very much automatic, we always got along very well and took care of me.
That was a magic ride.
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I got to take my horse to a swim meet. It was of course for horses. There was a lake, and we just hopped off a smallish bank that put us in over my head and she immediately began to swim. She seemed to really enjoy it, so when we went back for round two she trotted right off the bank and we were off. It was the most fun thing we ever did. Of course there is nothing like galloping around a cross country course with a horse that knows where to go and what to jump.
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long story as my daughter had a goal to obtain our son’s goals that they both had as kids showing their Morgans… Mark always strived to win a World Championship but never did before his death, youngest daughter made his goals hers (they were very close growing up)
this first photo of her is very dear to me as it is when it was announced that her two year old horse was the World Champion, shown against nearly forty head in the division he was the youngest
then the follow up after Socrates had to be euthanized at age three due to a pasture accident was when she bought Socrates’s half brother that she entered in the same class (Sport Horse in Hand) Fig followed up winning the same championship as but as a weanling once again there were nearly forty aged horses in the division (he may be the youngest Morgan world champions ever)
and a follow up this last year she took Lexie into the same class where she won the Mare division make Lexie a national champ but missing the reserve world champion by 1/10th of a score point (But the division winner was the breeder who bred both Socrates and Fig)
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This is Dr. Pepper with my niece, shortly after I got her. Notice all the safety rules we are breaking! They were about the same age. I thought she looked a little like Zenyatta.
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I was maybe 12 years old and putting some miles on a pony that belonged to someone else. We were out cantering down a trail when he spooked at something and cantered sideways off the trail. I never lost my balance, just flowed with him as he went, continued to canter back onto the trail and cantered on.
And I thought, “Wow. I think maybe I actually do know how to ride.” I still remember it after all these years because it was such an affirming moment for me, and I don’t think I had a lot of those moments in my early riding years.
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Riding in Ireland… the friends I was with had established a relationship with the stable owner so when they said that we could not just ride, but ride, he believed them. I was on this rather spicy young fellow who he had never taken down to the beach before and just had the ride of a lifetime. It wasn’t the prettiest ride we went on but just the sheer exuberance of being able to let the horse go and then trying to convince him to go in and play in the waves… the whole thing was just incredible. I remember my face hurting from laughing and smiling so hard.
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This is more than 50 years ago.
Riding by moonlight.
A group of us went for a trail ride after dark, when there was a full moon. The moonbeams filtered through the trees were very dramatic, and we felt “at one” with our horses.
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I did that once too. It was wonderful. My best barn friend worked the evening shift so we rarely got to ride together. One evening she and I and maybe another went out under a full moon. It was a great time. I had forgotten till you mentioned the full moon. The sad part is that said friend had gotten married and moved way up north and since the barn was way south, that was her last ride there. I always thought of that place as our Black Beauty meadow. It was never the same with people moving in and out.
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After a life threatening riding injury, several reconstructive surgeries, and eleven years of physical therapy my spouse and I finally were able to fox hunt together for the first time. That whole hunt season was just a magical time.
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I miss being fearless.
So much of my teens was spent cantering through fields carefree.
It’s never as carefree anymore.
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Short story: I rode my horse up the steep dune called Mt Baldy, with Lake Michigan on the other side.
Longer story: A friend and I decided to go find some trouble. I had a towing rig, so off we went. We decided that the Indiana Dunes trail Lycokiwe was too boring, and we wanted to get in the water. I knew that Mt Baldy was generally pretty quiet because the trails were tough, so we pulled up. The sign said “leashed pets allowed”. Well, loosely interpreted… ok, unload. I made a neck strap out of a piece of rope for each of us, and we got on bareback. We walked around for a bit, looking for a way around the dune, but couldn’t find one. This dune is “live”. It moves 2-5’ away from the lake every year - the wind moves the sand so lake side it’s a nice gentle slope, but the parking lot side is almost straight up.
Straight up we went. The horses struggled and fought and made headway only to lose it. We were white knuckled on the neck ropes, no turning back with the steepness of the slope. We finally made it to the top, looked at each other, and just took off at a dead gallop down the shallow slope side to the water.
We messed around in the lake for an hour or so, then it was either head back or get caught. Going down that slope - my god. I had my knees wrenched up and jammed into the hollows behind the Old Man’s shoulders, I don’t think his back legs moved the whole way down, his front legs paddling trying to slow us down. We loaded the horses back up, and went home.
There’s no pictures, it was before the age of everyone having a phone glued to them and we were too adrenaline-filled to think of it.
That neck rope still hangs next to all my other horse stuff.
Like you, @Texarkana… I wish I was fearless again. NO WAY would I ever attempt that again.
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Oh goodness… the mare who is my screen name was the best damn trail horse anywhere ever. I don’t know how many rides I went on with her, all alone, just her and my dogs. We went camping many times together, one time my husband talked me into bringing her along on a ‘people camping’ trip. Him and his dad were scouting an area they wanted to hunt. So I loaded her up and brought her. Took off by myself to ride. In hindsight it’s a wonder I didn’t end up bear or cougar bait, or lost… but back then I didn’t think about those things.
Way before this horse was an Arab mare I had. That one, I got to do all the kid things with, even tho I was a late teen at the time. I took her swimming. I took her exploring. I raced my friends. I rode bareback bridleless (and almost got my ass bucked off, because we were in the pasture and she wanted to go to her friends). She was one spooky horse tho, I came off a LOT.
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I have been trying to remember the name of that place for almost 30yrs!
When DH & I boarded in MI City, we’d haul there to enjoy the varied terrain on the trails: sand dunes, Creek crossings on narrow wood bridges, marshes, forested paths…
On the way back we’d stop for BBQ at a trailer just off Rte 12(20?).
Maybe boring riding, but also the place I learned to never haul.in a breakaway halter 
My TB broke his as we were loading to go home, near dusk.
We loaded DH’s horse, took his halter off & I went to look for my horse.
No luck & the place has a LOT of acreage 
Long to short, called trainer for help, then after thinking I’d lost both him & DH who’d gone searching in the near dark, while I stayed with our trailer & DH’s increasingly antsy horse on it…
I went looking too…
Found TB grazing about 50’ from the trailer, got a lead around his neck & got back to DH & trainer thinking I’d got lost…
TB loaded, we all got home in 1 piece 
THAT was my Heartstopping memory
My favorite is a sunny Winter day, going out on trails riding blanketed horses, so bareback.
Me on my TB, different trainer/friend on one of his, DH - then a pretty novice rider - on trainer’s schoolie.
Cantering through knee-deep (to the horses) drifts, I looked over to see DH wearing The.Biggest.Grin. 
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My first blue ribbon, but not for the reasons you might think. The victory wasn’t the point, but the connection with the horse that day was incredible.
I was a ninth grader, had been taking lessons for about a year and a half at a H/J barn. The trainer had schooling shows now and then, of course, and all other trainers would come to hers, and she would go to theirs. They were quite well attended. Lots of people in each class. I was riding a “moving up to less than a beginner horse” horse, one of those wonderful schoolies who is still perfectly safe and isn’t going to do anything to hurt a kid but who also makes you work for it. He was an Arab named Renar, and she never put people on him until several months in, because he absolutely insisted that you give correct cues. Otherwise, he just ambled around on his own assignment and business, happily and safely ignoring his rider. Great lower mid-level school horse, making the students work some without being in any way dangerous.
The day before this Saturday schooling show, we were out of school for some teacher conference, and Mom took the opportunity to make me a doctor’s appointment to get a growth on the back of my left shoulder looked at. The doctor chose to excise this to send for pathology. Unfortunately, this small-looking lesion was actually teardrop-shaped (or iceberg-shaped, but more regular) and had far more beneath the surface than we realized until he was slicing away. He wound up doing a pretty significant excision there in the office, and I had several layers of stitches required to close it up.
On the next day, the day of the show, Mom wanted me to cancel. Like any horse-crazy kid, I wasn’t about to pass up a riding day, stitches or not. I couldn’t even lift that left arm away from my side. When we got there, Mom explained things to the instructor. She helped me tack up Renar, and I couldn’t get on, because mounting from the left, you have to pick up your left arm. Mom and my instructor all but lifted me into the saddle from the right side before my first class. Meanwhile, Renar stood like a rock for this wrong-sided mayhem.
And then he did whatever I wanted. I still remember that day. My cues were nearly nonexistent; I was just trying to keep a smile on my face, because it hurt like blazes to do anything left. But that one day, contrary to this horse’s entire reputation, my wish was his command. All I had to do was think something, and he gave it. I have never felt such a direct, total telepathic link with a horse as I did that day. He was perfect, and it wasn’t that I was riding him for it. He knew I was hurting, and he did that as a gift to me.
This also happened to be a very windy, spooky, burr-under-the-saddle type day weather wise, and while the competition was snorting and spooking and acting silly at times, Renar just did everything I thought, perfectly. We won our first class (my first blue ribbon), took third in our second class, and won our third (second blue ribbon). I still remember one of the judge’s comments on the score card. “Excellent upright posture.” 
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I have two favourite riding memories:
The first is from close to 50 years ago when I boarded my first horse at a farm that was close to 1000 acres in size. To get to the indoor arena from the barn where my horse was located required a ride of around a 1/2 mile across a public road and down a long lane. Riding in winter, it was dark as I was working full-time and often didn’t get to the barn until after 7 p.m. It was on a cold evening with snow falling gently that I set out for the arena and after crossing the road, rode down the lane when an owl flew noiselessly through the tree branches overhead. Magical.
My second favourite memory is from decades later - different horse, different farm. The hacking was excellent all year round, but in May, there was nothing better than to ride down to the extensive woods and hack the trails with the ground carpeted in white trillium blooms that would turn pinkish as they aged. It was easy to leave the world behind.
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I have 3 -
- As a kid, we were stationed in 29 Palms, CA. The base stables did these fun rides the best was an overnight camping trip. There was a group of us about ages 9-11 on ponies who had to ride in front of the horse groups - so off we went - this was like a 15-20 mile ride and we rode waay in front of the horse group. When we got to “camp” the US Marine corp was waiting for us with big water trucks, steaks on the grill etc. The USMC version of glamping.
2… being part of a side saddle group in George H.W. Bush’s inaugural parade. Politics aside it was an incredibly long day but what an incredible experience. - lots of riding trips to Ireland - all incredible rides but probably my favorite afternoon was at a cross country course - I’d only done some baby xc stuff but somehow those irish horses give you courage. As a group we’d follow each other over a couple of jumps more one at a time. After jumping most everything, Willie said to the others, I’m taking her for a spin around the course and off the 2 of us went. I was on a dream of a horse - not much to look - common looking draft cross but what a horse, didn’t place a foot wrong, and steadily took me over jumps I never imagined I would and haven’t jumped since… I’m smiling ear to ear just thinking about it again.
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