Never knew when I might get thrown onto something to school it 
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This first picture is #sartorialgoals.
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That is CLASS right there! I kinda still want a brown/faded helmet. Ok, not kinda
I remember taking my children’s hunter out in the back of the show grounds and hacking him around bareback with a halter and two lead ropes. As I was riding back to the barn a trainer- not my own trainer, I had never met the woman before- caught up and absolutely lambasted me for how dangerous that was and I should get off the horse right now and go put tack on.
I want kids to have children’s hunters they can mess around with in the back field, and the leisure time to be able to do it… not to mention a back field in which to do it. So much of the land around my barn has been sold that our juniors don’t get a lot of opportunities to ride out. You have to cross a busy road and obtain permission to ride on someone else’s land, and the footing has to be good for you to get that permission, and then it has to be outside of hunting season so you don’t get shot. Meanwhile, my mom used to ride at a farm about a mile away, and she would just hack up at the edges of the cornfields and through the woods to borrow the ring at the barn where I ride now. Now you can’t get through the woods- there’s a gate at the edge and it’s rusted shut. I checked.
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I think that pic is from one of Vermont’s welcome stakes, which were 4’6-4’9" … I just remember that particular class was a whirlwind because my mare’s bit BROKE while we were on course and I knew something was funky, but not exactly what and she seemed okay, so we kept going 
had a couple rails IIRC while we were both trying to figure out what the hell was going on and then smoothed it back out. I probably have the video on my youtube somewhere.
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I used to do this so often with my ponies when I didn’t want to clean tack
I tried to ride Nikki bareback a few times, but she made it pretty clear that my life might end if I did more than walk, so I never did all the crazy shenanigans on her that I did on the ponies.
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The fundamental difference in our approach to the horses who made our lives wonderful as juniors and young adults: you had pony years and I didn’t. So you got Nikki and I got Tip, whom as best as I can tell is half Connemara pony, and who is game to do all the dumb stuff kids do with their ponies. And also built like a couch. My current trainer likes his joke that one day they’ll take up a collection to buy me a saddle since apparently I can’t afford one since I’m out bareback all the time.
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My young horse has made it ABUNDENTLY clear that he agrees with Nikki. I tried to trot him bareback last winter and he threatened bodily harm. He has a similar response to trail riding, though I have tried my best. He is 0% pony. My big chestnut mare, on the other hand, likes to keep her people alive and will happily do those things. I value my life and limbs more than my determination to make him into my 17.1hh pony, so the mare gets to do all the fun stuff.
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That’s funny in a bad way.
I usually have the exact opposite reaction when I see somebody at a show riding bareback with a halter and lead rope, or even bareback with a bridle. I’m so happy to see somebody who is having fun with the horse, outside of a ring and any sort of pressure or competitive context.
I’m even happier when I see a couple of kids riding bareback on their respective horses. It always puts a smile on my face.
I will add that if you can stay on the horse bareback, it greatly improves your odds of staying on with tack. Lol.
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I cannot, for the life of me, find a fearless tiny teenager to back a green pony. When I was 15 I was excited to get on those wild ponies! Where are these kids today?? Are they too wrapped up in bubble wrap, by helicopter parents? My parents would set up lawn chairs to watch the show when I started new horses.
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I grew up riding my ponies bareback, and I still love it, but having TBs has put the kibosh on that for most of my adult life. (And if you have to ask why, you’ve never ridden a TB bareback!) In an effort to be friendly, a past BO offered me the chance to ride her adorable Fjord gelding bareback occasionally. But he was so wide that it was like straddling a sofa, and I kept slipping from one side to the other at a walk because I couldn’t grip with my legs (and his clipped mane didn’t provide much of a handhold, either). 
I tried a slow trot and within seconds I slid right off His Royal Pudgie-ness’ side and landed on my a$$ in the arena footing. And I know he was laughing at me…
So clearly, the perfect bareback horse is somewhere between a shark-fin OTTB and a barrel-on-legs Fjord.
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I’ll ride it, where am I driving to?
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You will wrest my couch saddle from my cold dead hands…
I rode in a friend’s old flat as a pancake saddle a while back and after the initial nostalgia wore off I felt like I was being punished for an unnamed crime. I don’t want to get that close to my horses’ backs, lol!
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I cried when I finally had to retire this helmet. 
The new ones just don’t fade to that satisfying pale coffee color.
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Hah! Yes, we liked them baggy, too! I thought I was so cool when I got my one (and only) pair. I was not cool.
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Yeah, I thought it could be even higher but then decided no way on this side of the Atlantic. That horse’s flexibility is something else. And then to go in a busted bit! Tou look absolutely lovely together.
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Re the unknown trainer, what IS it about this sport that compels people to give a piece of their (often angry and ill-informed) minds to total strangers?
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One more time with feeling, I LOVED those helmets with the clear harnesses. Detachable. “Apparel only,” would do $%&*-all for you in an accident. Incredibly dumb in retrospect but I thought the height of fashion back in the 90s. Freaking comfortable, too.
I ordered mine out of the Maryland Saddlery print catalog, I think. Remember those? With the adorable pony kid photos?
Again. Good times.
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My friend and I sat down when we got our first plastic harness helmets and cut them down so they were basically useless.
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This sounds like a personal problem with that trainer! When I was a working student at WEF 7ish years ago, one of the trainer’s horses got leased to another trainer stabled down the road. They had me deliver him by riding him to his new home down the road bareback in a halter and lead rope. This was a very nice horse, owned by a well-known trainer. If I was the trainer being delivered the saintliest 3ft packer, and it showed up like that, I would think “yes - this is exactly what I want.” 
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