Yesterday afternoon I decided bareback riding was just a waste of my time since I wasn’t good enough to ride faster than a walk without loosing my balance.. I took the 25 year old bareback pad home. That night I watched an old Savvy Club DVD segment where Linda Parelli explained much about balanced riding and human stiffness. Savvy Club
The Warmblood horse she was riding then had a huge trot that she couldn’t “sit”. Pat told her to ride bareback an hour a week. Being Linda, she rode 10 hours per week and developed a riding program for us.
I took the bareback pad back to the Stable and rode an hour mostly at a walk without too much lurching off to the side with the ground begging for a visit. I asked Fancy to go faster and she mostly refused out of kindness (willfulness). She did briefly go into a fox trot and we discovered that I’m only ready for a flat foot walk which amazingly is smoother than a walk.
My bareback pad was last used in the late 1990’s when I passed the original Parelli Level 2. It is probably nearly 30 years old and in fine shape!